Gravity Rides Everything
The swell arrived, but is merely healthy and not epic. The sun is out and so are the crowds as I pedal my bike down from Carlsbad to Swamis in South Encinitas.
It's about eleven miles down there and flat and I don't push myself too hard. I'm too busy looking around and enjoying the day, relaxed.
The lineup at Swamis is a joke. No fewer than five people take off per wave. It's a full demolition derby. I spot Bob Mignogna in the parking lot. He was longtime publisher of Surfing Magazine and sorta my first boss. I feel slightly chagrined when he asks me why I'm not out there. But I quickly feel better when he admits that he only caught two waves in two and a half hours.
I watch the carnage and then pay my respects to Gary Taylor's memorial. I still miss him and his voice in the magazine. Some numbnuts damaged the mosaic surfboard on the monument and it still isn't fixed. It looks incomplete, which is a shame. Gary deserves better -- an angel in a sea of devils.
I head over to the Self Realization Fellowship and get another look at the lineup from a different perspective, take a moment to watch the Koi and smell the flowers. Feeling great.
Finally I head back up the 101 and manage to hang with three cyclists, my competitive streak in control but not entirely buried.
I need to put up the tree and get the lights on before the Shins and Modest Mouse concert tonight. Syd and Hannah are staying in El Cajon with Aunt Marsha, so it's the grownups time to play tonight.
"In the motions and the things that you say,
It all will fall, fall right into place."
What an awesome day.
The first north swell arrives at Swamis but it's standing room only in the lineup.
The parking lot is full with gawkers -- including one kook on a bicycle.
Conditions are surprisingly clean and with a lower tide and increasing swell, the afternoon might be pretty darn good.
Bob Mignogna after fighting the crowds.
Gary's memorial. He would have been all over it today.
The Self Realization Fellowship, Founded by Paramahansa Yogananda and how Swamis got its name
The view of the lineup from the Self Realization gardens.
Goofus in the Garden.
My wave!
Beautiful Downtown Encinitas
current music: Gravity Rides Everything By Modest Mouse and Sé Lest by Sigur Rós
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