I survive 32 years

I take a moment and think about the last month. I realize that I'm pretty tired and ready to get home to Tamarindo. I just need a few nights of sleep in that king size bed. No more couches, inflatable mattresses, or RV couches that fold into beds. No more guest bedrooms, no more sleeping in a tent. I'm going back to Tamarindo to my king bed with a TV in my bedroom.

I'm flying to Denver tomorrow. Holly and the boys have been in Colorado for the last two weeks while I've been in San Diego for the ASR show. Holly decided to get off of the RV trip and visit with her family when we were driving cross country. I really miss my family and can't wait to see them tomorrow. We're going to chill out for a few days before going to CR simply to get away from work and be somewhere where nobody can find us. When we do return to CR, I have a meeting with my Congresswoman and a representative from the MINAE on Monday in San Jose.

Instead of trying to explain everything about driving cross country with my parents, my wife and my kids, I'll let some random iphone photos and captions do it for me. Two trade shows in less than a month can get a bit overwhelming. I'm just rolling with it. I have a really awesome crew at the surf camp that are really stepping up and allowing this to all happen.

Holly, Otis, Happy and I camped in a family tent and chilled out in such places as "swampy Florida" and "middle of nowhere Ohio". We fit 2 inflatable mattresses and Happy's crib, along with our suitcases, in the tent. Driving across the entire United States from Florida to Ohio to Michigan to Colorado to San Diego. I am pretty impressed that our family of 6 with two little kids (that need naps) could drive 6,000 miles like we did, and we didn't kill each other! It was National Lampoons Vacation in many ways however.

We drove to New Buffalo, Michigan because I heard there was a swell on the lake. We arrived to find shoulder high wind swell at about 3 second intervals with howling onshore wind, so I opted for a Sierra Nevada instead. I saw a few people attempting to surf, beginner surfers just getting pounded into the sand. It didn't look nice out there at all, though I know it can get good there when the conditions are right. The guy at the Third Coast Surf Shop told me the surf would be better in Indiana. Indiana, huh?

Otis caught his first fish on the road trip.

I literally cast the line out, handed him the rod to reel it in, and right as he started reeling he caught this little Bluegill. He was super stoked. Then he didn't want to fish anymore and instead just played with all of the rubber worms in the tackle box.

Here we are in Nebraska.

Go Chargers! yeah, I know they didn't look too good for the 1st three quarters of their Monday night opener, but they got it together in the 4th and beat the Raiders. Happy and Otis are both in the Chargers crew along with Papi and their dad.

I think my parents are more afraid of our boys after taking this trip with us across the US. I don't think they realized how much attention they need, how loud they are, and how little their RV was. On this particular morning it was freezing, as Gunnison Colorado is at 7,700 ft elevation. Of course the boys wake up at the crack of dawn. I told Otis to take Happy's hand and go knock on the motor home door and ask Nana and Papi (kid code for grandma and grandpa) to watch them. That plan backfired as my parents were still sleeping. Camping with kids as young as ours can get a little difficult after a couple of weeks, but we managed. Holly has been with the boys ever since. We didn't get to hang as a family on my birthday which kindof sucked, and I'm still promised a birthday cake, so I hope I'm going to get that tomorrow when I finally see my little groms again. Did I mention that I miss my family?

On this road trip we ended up spending a lot of time together as a family of 6. I am very lucky to have been given the chance to drive cross country with my parents, my wife and my boys. Most people never get that kind of opportunity.

Orlando and San Diego meant the Surf Expo and the ASR Trade Show. We have a booth, it lives in these three crates. We ship these boxes around the US to different trade shows and promote the surf camp. The idea is that we get more guests, which continues to pay our bills and lets us surf as our job. Anything to keep surfing is OK with me.

Here we have Larry and (did I ever tell you that I had a personal assistant?) Valerie.

For the record, if you really want to get in touch with me please note that me and the Internet had a fight and my computer broke. Please contact my personal assistant Valerie AT witchsrocksurfcamp DOT com if you need to find me. I've been MIA really bad lately, I'm sorry. But now you know you can contact Valerie. Some random turtle at the ASR show last week, not really sure why this photo made it here but I kindof liked it.

Its really cool when a true surf legend cruises up to your booth to shoot the shit. Here we have Tom Carroll. If you don't know who this guy is you shouldn't be surfing. Other surf legends that cruised by included Shaun Thompson and Jeff Clark. Tom Carroll was awesome, we talked about big wave surfing. He made me feel really tall.

As we wrapped things up in San Diego we had Marc B play a short set at our booth. On percussion was Max, a WRSC guest 4 years ago. Marc and Max are going to play a show at WRSC in a couple of months, stay tuned for more info. Check out their music and buy it, support them, Marc B is going big.

As soon as we get back this weekend there are tons of work things going on, but all I really care about is getting back so I can surf, see my friends, and hang out with my wife. Holly is the coolest chick in the world and the best thing thats ever happened to me.