California 2011 – Part One

Okay, so im gonna try to fit all the best photos from our trip into one post. I took more photos on this trip then any other trip I’ve ever taken, so it’s gonna be hard to narrow down enough for a blog post. Might have to do it in sections. It might be a little bit till I get to Part 2, I’ve been really busy and haven’t really had time to put it all together. It will probably be a big one for sure. First, I’ll give a little recap of what went down.

Day One, March 14, 2011 – We flew into San Diego on monday, March 14. When we arrived, we drove to Michael, Tami and Alex’s (our cousins) house in San Clemente and had a great lunch at La Siesta Mexican Restaurant. After dinner we cruised up to this Ripcurl outlet where we scored some sweet discount threads. After a trip to the grocery store to get some necessities for the week, we drove down to the beach to see our first Cali Sunset. We then drove to our Aunt Mary Lou’s house in Laguna Niguel, where we stayed for the next few days. Can’t thank her enough for letting us borrow her house (and jacuzzi) while she was out of town.

Day Two, March 15, 2011 – The next few days we spent exploring around the area. My friend Micah (http://fotoboxed.wordpress.com) came out from Rancho Cucamonga and joined us in our quest on tuesday. John went for a little surf at Salt Creek while we shot some photos. The fog was pretty intense, it rolled in just over the water, making it a little tough to shoot some surf photos. After that we cruised North a little ways towards Huntington Beach, stopping in Laguna Beach for some more shopping/shooting. Between Huntington and Laguna, we took a little detour to the infamous Chipotle and some delicious burritos (it lived up to the hype). We spent the next few hours hanging out on the Huntington Beach Pier, watching/shooting the surfers and doing some shopping in the endless amount of surf shops in Huntington. We also stuck around to shoot the sunset before heading back to Laguna Niguel for the night and Micah headed back to his woman in Rancho (thanks for coming out dude!).

Day Three, March 16, 2011 – Wednesday morning started with another surf check at Salt Creek. Waves weren’t looking to good so we booked it down and made the hike to Trestles, where it was breaking a little better. After Trestles we headed to San Clemente for a good ole fashioned backyard barbecue at Tami and Michael’s. Enjoyed some good food, conversation and cervezas (thanks guys!). After dinner, Michael took us up to this sweet little trail up to the peak of this little hill/mountain, overlooking San Clemente and the Pacific Ocean. We hung out here for a bit after sunset, taking photos and whatnot before heading back to Laguna Niguel.

Day Four, March 17, 2011 – Thursday turned out to be a big day of driving. Once again we got up a went down to Salt Creek to check the surf. Probably the best it had been in the past few days. John surfed for a good while, while I shot some photos. After the surf we made the trek up to Los Angeles/Hollywood. We knew we didn’t have a lot of time, because our friends Brett and Ashley were flying into San Diego that afternoon. So we didn’t even get out of the car, we just drove around LA, checked out the famous Hollywood sign, cruised down Rodeo drive, sunset blvd and all that good shit. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to make it up to Venice Beach or Santa Monica, maybe next time. At about the time Brett’s plane was landing in San Diego we left LA starting the 2 hour drive south to meet them in SD. We booked it there to meet Brett, Dre, Julian, Carson and Killa Kai at the Razors house (mansion) in Escondido (Brett sporting the convertible Mustang). We assembled our crew and set out to skate this new ledge Aragon had found the previous week. Had to be made for skating, an up-across-down ledge with coping in the middle of the park. We skated that for a while, I did the gnarliest trick i’ll probably never be able to do again (some dude filmed it, hit me up if you got dat clip). The left the ledge spot, grabbed some mexican from Mr. Taco, and headed back to the Razors crib. After some shots and conversation, we departed ways, and headed back to Laguna Niguel.

To be continued….
Up Next: The following day we begin our drive North to San Francisco, stay tuned…

Linville Gorge Backpacking – November 6th & 7th 2010

Took another trip out to the Linville Gorge this past weekend. We (John Zachary, Allie King, Drew Hayes, Justin Wilson and Myself) headed up there without a decided itinerary and we weren’t sure whether there was going to be any fall color left. But we lucked out and scored some great weather. There was still some great color at lower elevations. The weather channel was calling for snow, but we only came across a few flurries and a few spots where some snow had stuck the previous night. After arriving mid-day saturday, we ended up parking at the Table Rock picnic area. We then hiked the mile up to the summit of Table Rock for some great panoramic views before heading back down to the Mountain-to-Sea Trail and Spence Ridge Trail to reach the Linville river. After crossing the river and hiking down a ways we found a great spot to camp up on a ridge above the river. I’m not sure the mileage, but we probably hiked a total of about 10 or so miles. It was cold but we came well prepared, had a good fire raging for a good amount of the night and brought a heavy supply of hot tea. On the hike back we took a different route, which involved hiking a very strenuous up-mountain route to the summit of Little Table Rock which offered an amazing view of the gorge and the surrounding mountains. A great way to commence the hike. Here are some of the photos I made during our trip.

Puerto Rico Photo Book…

The Puerto Rico book I put together is here. It turned out really nice. It is 40 pages and features 160 photos from my trip in late March. Here are a few photos I snapped of it.

In other news. A bird couple decided to make the fern on my porch into their home. Further documentation of this hostile act coming soon.