Land O Lakes

The previous post was intended to bring my peeps up to date on how we ended up in NY however, I skipped some really fun details about our jaunt across the country.  Since I hadn't been home to Minneapolis in nearly three and a half years, and I really wanted Ian to see where I was from, we decided to begin our off-island journey in the land of ten thousand lakes.  Signing up for an Alaska Airlines credit card may have been one of the smartest things I did this year because it provided me with a) enough capital to start the business and b) a free buddy pass which we used to get my man to Minneapolis.  We also re-upped Puna's service animal status and she is now official on every major airline.  (aka - free.)  As expected, it was cold as s@*t when we landed.  April in Minnesota means that winter is still hanging on for dear life and there are dirty, crusted remnants of snowbanks on every corner that makes the city feel like you've just recovered from a battle.  And in fact, you have.  April in Minnesota is also the time that people start wearing shorts because it's forty, not forty below.  Forty for us however, was something we hadn't felt in years and the fact that neither of us had shoes was instantly, an issue.

We rented a car and headed to the Savik's house in St Louis Park.  They invited us to stay with them for a couple days and we graciously accepted their offer.  I had been stalking old Toyota Landcruisers on craigslist before we left the islands and already had my heart set on one that was located about an hour north of the cities.  I figured if we were going to be driving a crappy car around the posh Hamptons, it might as well be a crappy classic.  Not to mention, I've been obsessed with them for years.  Ian really wanted to go buy shoes first, but instead I made him drive up north to go check out the rig because 'I was scared someone else would buy it first.'  (Even though it had been in the lot for over a month.)   She was still there when we arrived and ole Billy the salesman dropped the price from 4K to 2500K because needless to say, she wasn't perfect.  More rust than we expected, no radio, cracked front headlight and plenty of miles but, there was no way we were leaving without her.  I pretty much, had to have it.  So away we drove in our new/old '89 FJ62.  Minnetonka is her name, which means water buffalo in Ojibwe.

The next couple of days were blurry as we hit every 'must go to' bar in Minneapolis and Nordeast including an incredible dinner at Manny's on our first night.  We stopped by the Independent to say hello to some old co-workers and of course, made it to the Pancake House.  We even made it to the Walker Sculpture Garden so Ian could experience "Cherry on Spoon."  Grams took us to a lovely Perkins dinner one night and also made me some breakfast one morning.  After our livers couldn't stand it anymore, we headed to Duluth to go stay with my parents.  It was a well needed week of rest even though Mom and Dad kept us really busy with things like alpine sledding, drives up the lakeshore, trips to the iron-ore loading docks and of course, watching the boats come in.  The lake re-froze while we were there.  It also snowed, and never made it out of the forties.  I did a bunch of work for the business that week too which gave us plenty of travel money.  The next post will discuss where all the travel money went.  (It may or may not have something to do with the Landcruiser I had to have.)

Here are some pics from our stay up north.  Check back in for stories from a rather hellacious road trip.

HI to NY

You know how it feels as you get farther and farther away from something, it becomes that much harder to go back?  For example, this blog?!  It's been so long and so much has happened that I was having a hard time trying to figure out where to begin so instead, I just didn't.  But here I am, in New York, eating cold macaroni and cheese and staring at a mound of feathers and I thought I'd distract myself from something inevitable by finally doing this.  In a nutshell, this is a brief synopsis of the last half year.

Puna at the house in East Hampton, NY

because we weren't leaving the lot without it....

Hawaii winter was cold and rainy with mediocre surf all season long.  Sadly, we didn't get in the water nearly as much as we should have and instead, worked our asses off.  But we got what we wanted out of being back home and that was the comfort of family and the ability to save a bunch of money and for that we owe everything to Ian's parents, Jon and Kathy.  Infinite love and gratitude to you both.  In March, I started an online business selling hair-feather extensions.  Random, indeed and instantly profitable.  I am completely obsessed and Ian has been immensely supportive.  The details are tedious and time consuming and I've been very, very busy with it all.  I finally put the shop on vacation last week and it was well-needed.  It has been an amazing experience and I feel very blessed that it's been successful.  In May, we left the island.  Ian was itching for adventure and for that, I love him.  We had initially applied for summer jobs in Alaska and when that fell through, Ian got in touch with his high-school friends who own a couple of restaurants in the Hampton's and hire seasonally.  So, here we are.  We live in the Hamptons.  Funny.  I know.  Two hippies in the Hampton's.  One with forty feathers in her hair.  We're working at a sushi restaurant on Main Street and Ian has a crazy Saturday night bartending gig where he passes giant magnums of Cristal through a coatcheck window and makes hundreds and hundreds of dollars.  Pretty awesome.  Sag Harbor is really beautiful - all of the Hamptons are, actually.  It's more country than I expected and there are some awesome beaches out in Montauk.  Ian has surfed already.  We got wetsuits this week and soon enough, there will be hurricane swell.  Puna is doing well and we miss Lea everyday.  And that's all I got for now.  A good start.  More details on our return to Nicaragua in the next post.

Blogger's Choice Awards

Aloha friends and family.  I've been spending a fair amount of time researching the best blogs on the internet and came across the Blogger's Choice Awards.  For the Love of Waves started only because I thought it would be a fun way to update loved ones on the progress of the house and our life abroad.  About five months ago, I added the "Feedjit" widget that you see on the right hand side of your screen.  This allows me to see where my visitors come from and how they found the website.  As the content of this site has grown, so has it's placement on search engines.  When I first started out, you couldn't even google "for the love of waves."  Now, it comes up third and I've gotten visitors from India, Israel, Peru, and Portugal.  For the Love of Waves has gotten over four thousand hits and has generated about $70 using Google Adsense.  I'm asking my readers to take a second to sign into   http://bloggerschoiceawards.com/users/signup and vote for this site as the Best Travel Blog of 2010.  The higher up on the voting list we get, the more hits the blog will receive.  I appreciate everyone's support and have truly enjoyed my first blogging venture.  For the Love of Waves continues .... and I've been brainstorming a new project.  Stay tuned.

Mahalo Nui, Andy Irons

Since we left our best boards in Nicaragua, the first order of business was to make enough money for each of us to buy a stick for this winter in Hawaii.  That didn't take too long and here's what we got:

Ian got a sick Tractor board shaped coincidentally, for Andy Irons (yesterday was his passing - RIP Andy - what a truly devastating blow to the islands of Hawaii and the entire international surfing community.)  I got a JC.  Ian is madly in love with his new board and I'm getting used to the thinness of the nose on mine, but am loving the ease of duck-diving.  Unfortunately, neither of us are getting in the water as much as we'd like but I suppose that's the trade-off with work and also, the commute to waves.  

This project has made us feel like we brought a little piece of Nicaragua home with us.  Ian built a raised planter box a couple of weeks ago, and we've planted an array of herbs, vegetables, and strawberries.  Everything is doing really well, especially the tomatoes, the jalapeños and the manoa lettuce.  It's fun to check the daily progress of our plants.  The Hawaiian chili plant was struggling initially, but has somehow managed to pull through.  Bless this state and it's year-round growing season.  

And here are a couple of throw back pictures from our last couple of weeks in Nicaragua.  Jaime was visiting from Maui and convinced me to get on a horse, after the fin of her board gashed open her arm and put her out of the water for her last few days in town.  I'm glad I did because it was a blast.  Puna followed us the whole length of the beach, keeping an appropriate distance and I managed to get my old girl Canelo, moving at a jockey's pace.  What a beautiful sunset we got too.  

And that's that.  More to come.  The circus is arriving to the North Shore and the Rip Curl Pro starts this week.  

Adios and Aloha

As most of  you know, we're back on the island of Oahu, in total reverie of time's elasticity.  With our Nicaraguan exit stamps, came the abrupt halt of our simple jungle life, the reintroduction of paved roads, the luxuries of garbage disposals, washing machines and hot water, and of course, the first day back to work.  How simple it is to walk back in, and shed the life you have just lived.  I still hear monkeys in my dreams and envision the thin, empty lips of waves, curling and lapping onto Central American sand.  As phantasmal as the last six months now seem, the reality is, it was our dream fulfilled and has become our inspiration for the future.  We don't want much, but next time, we'd like to be able to stay - we'd like to have the house paid off and to start a little business - a car that doesn't rattle itself loose, (but even that's a luxury.)  We'd like a false ceiling over the kitchen and some tile in the bathroom and a garden that gives us unlimited tomatoes.  How to perpetuate our life abroad ... how to get back to our simple jungle life.  This will be the next chapter of this silly little blog, that is our life.

Big Waves

Rob Machado was all the buzz this week. As I mentioned in the previous post, he was staying at Mark and Dave's beach front surf lodge along with his family and a couple of big wigs from Hurley including, Bob Hurley himself.  (Anna, your favorite company!)  Ian had the opportunity to split a peak with Rob at Panga Drop's one fine afternoon and I got to feed him.  The baking job was a success.  I whipped up some puffy blueberry muffins on the first morning, my mom's delectable Russian teacake the second morning, banana bread the third morning, and for the grand finale on Friday, homemade cinnamon rolls that came out PERFECT.  (and I mean perfect.)  Marie, the friend who hired me for this culinary endeavor, emailed me a quote from Machado stating that the rolls "raised the bar to a whole new level."  Needless to say, I'm satisfied with my first paid baking job and Ian is stoked that I let five of the twenty-six cinnamon rolls stay home.

The waves have been huge and it looks like it's going to stay that way for awhile.  Ian ripped a handful of double-over head rides at Pangas two days ago.  That same day, the Hurley crew brought out the jet-ski and used a step-off platform to tow the boys into sets.  Yesterday, the middlemen who loaned the ski to Machado and his crew, were driving the machine back to Gigante when they thought it would be fun to take it to heaving Colorado's.  Check out August 21st's nicaraguasurfreport.com for pictures of the jet-ski going over the falls after stalling out in a very precarious spot.  I'll bet the boss man wasn't too pleased about that little stunt!

Not much else this week.  We are quickly approaching broke and it is seeming more and more likely that we will be returning to Hawaii a little bit earlier than we planned.  Poor us.  Trading one paradise for the other.  I'm sure ya'll feel really bad for us.  Thanks for reading everyone.