Lake Nacimiento

The next weekend is my good friend Chris Leal's birthday party up at Lake Nacimiento. He picks me up in his Motor home towing his boat and we take off up north to San Luis Obispo.

Our off-road club and us meet up and all go out that night in SLO and have a good time. We are up early and load into the motor home towards Lake Naci. On our way up the Questa Grade which is a very steep long hill right outside of SLO the motor home is bogging out big time and we are eventually in the slow truck lane going 20 mph full throttle. I was not sure if we were going to make it to the top of the hill but we did...barely. Something must be wrong with the tranny as it seems like its slipping and not transfering all the power from the engine. The rest of the trip to the lake was smoothing sailing besides some other hills which we had to go very slow up.
Pull up to the lake and we are very suprised how low the water was. I had heard it was low but wow it was about 50 feet low. Still good water though and enough to boat and wakeboard in so its all good.

Launch the boats and everyone starts showing up. We boat around most of the day and were out on the water until the evening and had one of the best sunsets ive seen in a while complete with rainbows.


Afterwards we come back to camp and party. I wish I had my camera out more, it was pretty entertaining. The next morning we are back out on the water and the sun comes out making it a beautiful day complete with jet boating and tubeing.

SB Chillin' and Getting Robbed

The past few days have been spent mostly just hanging out at the beach and visiting with friends. On Saturday night I met up with Royce, Brown and the crew at Bay Cafe downtown. We started off the night with some margerita's then progressed to Fish House then The Neiborhood. It turned out to be quite a night.

After I was done making a fool of myself dancing around and hugging way to many people I started walking back to my van to go to bed. A guy pulls up in a Chevy truck who I thought I had seen at the bar earlier and offers me a ride. I get in and he seems cool and drops me off and I get inside and go to sleep.
I wake up to my door being opened and a guy comes inside and starts yelling at me to give me everything I have. The combo of being woken from a dead sleep and it being pitch dark made me very disoriented and not wanting to get stabbed and die that night I handed him my cell phone and wallet and he left quickly. The whole thing only took about 15 seconds. I'm pretty sure it was the same guy who gave me a ride but i'm not sure. The next morning I noticed my ipod and camera were gone as well. So now I have no money or bank cards and no cell, great! haha
I go to Royces and cancel all my cards and have new ones sent to his address.
A few days later I call my voice mail from a friends phone and get a message from a Lawer saying he found my wallet on state street! I meet up with him at his office and get everything back besides the cash which was not much. I call my voice mail again and what do you know, a message from another guy saying he found my cell phone on the other side of town. I meet up with him as well and get my cell back in good condition. Back In Buissness!

SLO to Santa Barbara

Cruise down towards Santa Barbara around noon and as soon as I reached SB went down to the beach. There is a big fire about 80 miles north and the wind has blown all the smoke here. the sun is almost completely covered and its raining ash. This seems to be a regular occurence.

I take my dirt bike off the back to go for a ride around town but I cant get it to start for the life of me. I even had random tourists pushing me down the street trying to bump start it but its not even close to starting. I had pressure washed the bike about 2 days ago and it must of got something wet or sucked water into the intake. Dam this is not good as I am trying to sell it and you cant sell a bike that does not start. I eventually give up and put it back on the van and go downtown to state street and just hang out and observe the scene and people for a while.

Back down to Ledbetter beach and I notice there are a ton of RV's parked all over the beach, I park and hang out at the beach for a while and do some shoulder exercises. Seeing all these sweet RV's really made me want one but my van will do for now. I guess everyone is here camping out for the Catermaran race the next morning.
A older guy came over to me and asked if I had a torn rotater cuff and I said no, dislocated shoulder and torn ligiments. He then shows me his shoulder surgery scars and we talk about my possible options which hopefully don't involve surgery. He had me feel his shoulder while he rotated his arm around and I could feel it popping and grinding the entire way around. Ehhh well at least mine doesent do that (Yet...)
That evening I go over to Taylor's house and chill by the camp fire and drink some beers then I head solo downtown to meet up with my friend Laura. Meet up with her and about 5 of her girlfriends and party the night away. I had not been downtown SB in a while, when I lived here I used to know everyone and run into friends everywhere I went. I dident see a single person I knew all night long and it really hit me how times had changed and most of my friends from college were no longer around. Oh well, we definatly had our glory days here, thats for sure!


At about 3am I wake up to my van shaking around. Some drunk guy had climbed up onto my dirt bike and was making engine noises pretending he was riding it. I was kinda freaked out at first as I had just been woken up from a dead sleep. I go up next to the back window and do my best angry cat "hiss" impression and bang on the window to scare him. He jumped off the bike and took off running down the street, I have not seen anyone run that fast in quite a while haha.

St. Helena to San Luis Obispo

Last night I had a extremely bad nightmare. One of the worst I can remember and I did not want to go back to sleep fearing I would fall back into the same dream so at about 3am I got out of bed and went for a walk around town to clear my head. It was still really warm out so I was just wearing board shorts and no shirt or shoes cruising around downtown. I cop rolled by me and almost stopped to see what I was doing but kept going.
I felt much better after the walk and went back to bed. Woke up around 9am and drove to Napa to see my Grandpa. He is 96 years old and one of the sweetest people ive ever known and has been a great influence in my life. I know every time I see him may be my last as he is fading away from old age so I treasure the time we have together.


I leave Napa and am trying to get to San Fransicso over the Golden Gate but take the wrong way and go through east bay instead.



Back onto the 101 south and through Central California. I had not been down here since I got back from my Latin America trip and the terrain had changed from green and lush to completely dry and brown. I pull over and have some lunch by a ranch and take a little nap.


As I approach San Luis Obispo I call my good friend Mike from our off-road club (The Poly Goats) and we meet up at a Sushi place and then go pick up a friend and check out the sick pre-runner truck they are building.


We then hit Downtown Brew Co. for Dollar Beer Night. We had a good time playing drinking games and watching alot of Nitro Circus crazyness. Rachel another Poly Goat joined us and ended up giving us a ride home to Mikey's as there was no way either of us were driving after who knows how many pitchers of goodness.

Leaving Mendo and hitting the road south

After spending a awesome summer in Mendocino I decided it was about time for a new scene and a little adventure. I packed up the van with my dirt bike and everything I thought I would need for the next couple months. I actually packed pretty sparingly as I still wanted a livable space inside the van.
I say my goodbyes to my family and friends and head south on hwy 1 along the coast. The weather is perfect and I stop multible times to admire the coastline.

As I hit hwy 128 away from the coast you go through a amazing canopy of redwoods, this is one of my favorite drives in Northern California. Its a pretty hot day so I take a quick stop at the Navarro River for a swim.


I stop in boonville at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company for one of my favorite beverages, a cold glass of IPA. No trip through boonville is complete without a stop here. I take my time down 128 and then down the 101 and back onto the 128 towards St. Helena. I went to high school here for my softmore and junior year, it was quite a bit differnt then Mendocino but looking back im glad we did the temp move. My good friend Tommy from HS is living in St. Helena so I gave him a call and we met up at his house and just caught up with eachother and had some beers. It had been a couple years since we had seen eachother so it was much overdue.