Big Sur Con Todos

Our caravan of three trucks pulled off the 1 and into the small parking lot. The marine layer masked the sun's orientation in the sky, giving the vague feeling that it could be anytime from 8am to 8pm. The parking lot was relatively empty, save for a GMC van with South Dakota plates. In the world of road trippers, the South Dakota, or SoDAk, licenses plates are a dead give away that the owner resides full time in their camper. Pulling up to an open spot, I left my door unlocked and walked towards the rocks overlooking Big Sur's rocky coast line.

The south swell that filled the beaches of Southern California like a Slim Aarons photo was marching north along the coast. The waves weren't as good, but that didn't matter. It was well worth avoiding the crowds.

"Oooh that looks, fun...Look at that left!" Trevor said pointing to a mediocre, waist high wave breaking off of a few rocks and then crumbling left for 25 yards before closing out on a shore break.

"Frickin' Teahupoo out there right now..."

"If we don't surf now, what are we going to do all day. It's.... 11:32," I said pausing to check my phone.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm out there..." Trevor said, turning and walking back to his truck, leaving Spencer (Trevor's younger brother) and Alex Yoder to deliberate about the wave.

"The lulls are pretty long."

"So we will just wait...Didn't Lopez say, "you can wait on the beach or you can wait in the ocean?"

"Something like that."

With a hoot, Trevor ran past, holding his fish in one hand. "You guys are blowing it."

Alex's rolling home.

Oaks.

Alex and his travel companion, Lucy.

South Swell

Drying rack.

Big Sur backroads.

The inside of Chris' Econoline Van.

Triple decker.

T-Pee building.

Flippy.

Running back to the parking lot, I grabbed my wet wetsuit and pulled the legs and arms through. No time for a towel, I reasoned, kicking off my jeans. Just then, a bleached white mini van pulled into the lot, stopping awkwardly in handicap parking spot. A family of European tourist piled out, brandishing DSLR's and iPads. Caught with my pants down, I wrenched the suit over my heal and wiggled up to my waste line. Well seasoned to similar acts of liberated self expression on their native beaches, the Germans (by now I had overheard a few harsh-sounding sentences), didn't bat an eye and were gone within seconds after snapping a photo of the coastline. With the dregs of a bar of wax, I added to the dirty wax job on my Mini Simmons and headed towards the trail.