Santa Barbara

I met up with Morgan and Josh in downtown Santa Barbara, they had just flown in from Bangkok after three weeks of adventuring. I met Morgan at Liquid State in Raleigh, and kind of by chance the dates lined up to hang out 3000 miles away from the origin!  We putzed around downtown, had some rosé, ate some nachos, and then headed to Padero beach. Unreal mansions, and a sunset that made my heart hurt.  Got the invite from Jenny to go to her parents for some mussels and some conversation! I walked in and immediately stopped to gawk at the hand shaped 12' wooden paddle board suspended from the ceiling. Jenny's dad is quite the dude. He showed me around his workshop and explained a little about the process, and we talked art for the remainder of the evening. Had an absolutely phenomenal time, even before we went dancing downtown and jumped off a pier into the Pacific at 3AM.  I surfed After recovering I surfed Rincon on Thanksgiving Day.... woah.  Topped off my Thanksgiving with two McDoubles and a small fry.  The following day I stopped by Ryan Lovelace's shaping room to get some inspiration,(which resulted in me FINALLY building the spice rack into the back of my truck). Felt up a lot of boards and dreamed of surfing them all; out of my price range.. currently.  Got the heads up from Ryan and a guy named Travis that I should hop on Gibraltar to camp for the night.. what a decision.  The drive was gorgeous, cutbacks up the mountain-side with the Channel Islands looming and Pacific glittering in the background.  Got to the destination just before sunset and hung out with a para-glider named Andrew and his pup Mia.  Sunrise the next morning was stunning, low-lying cloud cover creeped in through the night and blanketed the entire space between Gibraltar and the Channel Islands; covering Santa Barbara.  Took in the view for a whole day, left late afternoon and stopped to do some restocking in Ventura on my way south!