NOTE: Italics denotes things said by MAK

At the end of March, we left off in Goat Rock, climbing at with our friends Matt and Allie. The next day was April 1 and we made our way to Bolinas, California for some surfing. Bolinas is a cool, little town right on the water. The local break brings in casual and fun waves without the crowds. Since it was the first warm weekend of the year, the normally quiet break was teeming with people who decided to take up surfing on the spot. We spent the two days “shredding the knarr”. Sadly, the last session ended with MAK getting into a head on collision with beginner surfer (known as a kook) who didn’t see her. The collision resulted in 2 of her 3 fins being pulled out of her board never to be seen again.

After the weekend we drove south towards Los Osos, the home of GoWesty. It was time to fix those pesky reverse lights that had gotten us a fix-it ticket in March.

We spent the week at GoWesty hanging out with Aidan and doing lots of work! My brain went from mashed potatoes to straight up baby food. One of our last nights there we went up into the mountains right outside of San Luis Obispo and camped with Corey and Emily of Where’s My Office Now and Aidan. Aidan was having trouble with his van so he got to sleep in our top bunk. Slumber party! It was a beautiful spot, amazing sunset, and we had a yummy fancy feast!*** To paint a mental picture of the whole scene: we watched the last of the warm sun dance on the misty hills overlooking the ocean as it slowly disappeared over the distant horizon.

As the weekend rolled in, we sadly saw GoWesty in our rear view mirror as we went in search of the #SuperBloom. It needs to be known that we had been trying to catch up with the bloom for well over a month at this rate, but that weekend we found it! The fields of the Carizzo Plains were littered with bright yellow and purple wild flowers as far as the eye could see. We’d never seen anything quite like it. Apparently, you could see the blooms in Carizzo Plains from space this year; they were that dense and vast!

The following day we went to Sequoia National Park. I got the chance to go last summer, but MAK didn’t make the trip. I’d been wanting to show it off to her ever since. Unfortunately, it was snowing when we got there. This meant that most of the roads were either closed or required chains. Since we do not carry chains we did not make it very far, and were shut down. Sadly, MAK has yet to meet General Sherman and his cronies (who are giant sequoia trees located in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park). We’ll get him next time.

After our mildly disappointing visit to Sequoia, we headed south without any real aim. We ended up in a campground outside of Ridgecrest, CA that we knew would be a good place to knock out some work (we still had some brain mashing to do).

The following week we had to make our way back to the coast of California, this time to Oceanside. MAK was catching a flight with our friend Tierney to Scorpion Bay in Baja for a week of surfing and teaching local kids art. While there, we swung up to San Clemente where we met with Brian and Amanda who own Seea. If you are not familiar with Seea, it is an incredibly cool women’s swimsuit company. They make awesome, functional suits for ladies that like to spend their time on their surfboards. Brian and Amanda are the proud owners of two good looking Vanagons, one of which Brian gave us the best tours of San Clemente in! Thank you Brian and Amanda for the killer lunch <3

A few days later I was dropping off MAK and Tierney at the airport in Tijuana. We said our goodbyes, MAK cried enough to fill up a kiddie pool (No I didn’t.) While the girls were off doing cool stuff in Mexico, I had plans to meet up with our friend Danny in St. George, Utah to do some mountain biking.

For about five days, Danny and I explored the area on bike, having a grand ol’ time. We ate a ton of tacos and played lots of Phase 10. I got to meet one of Danny’s friends, Eric, a professional athlete (he was training for a triathlon then), since at the time he was living in St. George. We got to hang out in his Winnebago that he’s in the process of fixing up to be his home. It was cool to be out mountain biking; it was a new way for me to explore way further than I could on foot.

Hi, MAK here. While the boys were having “fun” biking, I was having a killer time in Baja surfing with 11 other KILLER ladies. The funny thing is that I did not know I was going on this trip until the night of that campout with the nice sunset you just read about. Tierney called me out of the blue saying that she won a trip via instagram (@weare.academy) and could bring a friend. Not being one to turn down Tierney or surfing I agreed to be on the trip that was just a week and a half out!

We flew from Tijuana to Loreto as a group, and then piled into two large white vans and drove about 2 hours to San Juanico. San Juanico is the home to Scorpion Bay, which is known for it’s long point breaks that seem to go for days. We somehow were blessed with the first serious swell in about 6 months! We surfed anywhere from 5-8 hrs a day for the seven days we were there.

As a group, we stayed at the Scorpion Bay Hotel and were treated to some of the best food I have ever had in my life made by Torie of @thevidawell. I have not spent a whole lot of time with women since being on the road, and I was surprised to realize how much I miss having a strong connection to other women who are as stoked to be in the water as I am. I will let the pictures tell the story, but I do want to say a huge THANK YOU to Tierney for inviting me, Guilia for organizing the event, and all the ladies who were on the trip. I miss you all dearly.

When our bro trip ended we set off in different directions. I drove to Las Vegas to pick up MAK from the airport after her trip to Scorpion Bay. She said it was okay (He is just sad I had such a good time without him.) While in town, we reconnected with an old high school friend of mine, Aaron. We met up at a Dave and Busters and had a great night of shooting hoops and playing Mario Kart. I couldn’t tell you the last time we had been to an arcade, but we had a blast! We spent the next few days at an amazing spot on Lake Mead getting some work done and jumping into the lake to cool off during the hot days.

Leaving Lake Mead, we started to head east towards Flagstaff. As we began to make our way into the mountains east of Kingman, our van started emitting a lot blue tinted smoke out of the exhaust. We pulled over immediately and tried to diagnose the problem. There were no leaks that we could see, and at that point we were pretty far from help. Stanley seemed to be driving okay, so we kept on and the smoke eventually stopped. The next morning, based on a tip from Instagram, we headed to O’Reillys to get a new PCV valve, hoping that would fix the problem. We discovered that the clamp on the PCV valve was loose, so we tightened it down and hoped that our troubles were over (they didn’t have a new PCV valve anyway).

The van troubles were pushed to the back of our minds the next few days as we hung out in Sedona. We got to do some super cool hikes surrounded by the amazing red sandstone that the area is known for. On our last day, we also took a tour of one of the ancient cliff dwellings. It was incredible to see some of the pictographs and ancient structures so close to where we had been camping.

Thanks to GoWesty, Tierney, Corey, and the Scorpion Bay Hotel for hosting us this month!

***Fancy Feast is as follows: A dinner celebration of sorts that Owen and I invented last summer while passing through California wine country. Fancy Feast consists of a bottle of wine, a selection of cheeses, charcuterie, dried fruits, nuts, and some chocolate to finish. Enjoy in the event of celebration, good company, or because you feel like it.***