Nothing says Spring break

like 22 stitches! 

It's the Lorin way; I have to end every trip with some sort of calamity.

Not to ruin the ending, I'll start at the beginning of the day. It was beautiful; hence, we were stoked. On top of the that, the rumor was that the surf was going to pick up. Hence, extra stoke. If you didn't know this, since I am an engineering major and all, stoke + stoke = AWESOME.

We paddled out into the surf and caught rides right away, then got stuck on the inside of the wave set, fought our way back out and repeated. For three hours.

It is a crazy feeling to catch a wave, race back to the line up so as not to get crushed by incoming waves, see another set coming in, turn just in time to have the wave right on our tail, and catch it for a ride. Each ride is followed by the feeling of lead heavyness in our arms as we paddle for another wave, driven by desire to get one more ride.  Finally, three hours in, we both feel like we might pass out if we don't get food, so we head in to fuel up. 

This is when the story gets interesting. We head back out to get another surf session, and the waves get weird  You see, the swell at this point was shifting , so there ended up being two swells coming from opposite directions, converging on the break we were trying to surf. It was confusing, and we were tired.

I paddled to catch an incoming wave, and just by fluke, didn't have enough speed, nosed in and fell in front of my board. Almost every single ride in surfing ends with the surfer falling into the water. At every skill level it is pretty rare to not hit the water, when, well, surfing. So I fell in, no big deal, but my board caught in the wave, and I felt it hit me in the head. Not hard, per se, but enough that I wanted to take a breather back at the lineup. I turned my board and paddled back out, when Hannah asked me kind of worried, "Are you all right?! Yeah. You're bleeding."

"I'm bleeding? Oh, I guess I am bleeding. We better head in, huh?"

 "Yeah!"

So we went in, and despite blood dripping down the front of my wetsuit, because  blood + water = more blood, I rode a wave in.

From there the story get less interesting but still entertaining. We went from the break, hitched a ride to the urgent care center, went to the hospital ER, then shuttled with our awesome friend Jackie off to the plastic surgeon. By the end of the day, we were starving but still smiling. 

Well that's it for spring break. A little bit of everything, including a few games of tag with our great host Eric and the kids.

Until next time, I think I'll dream of waves.

my feet!

Whew! Is it only day three? With all of the running and SUPing, my feet are killing me, like full out waddle type of hurt. So instead of going on a morning jog, we went on a morning acrobalancing adventure on the beach. I'm pretty sure we entertained quite a few beachgoers!

After lunch, we met up with a family friend for a hike. Who knew that just over a ridge, all of the fog would be replaced with scorching heat? Enjoying the sun and moving at a clipping pace, I was glad to fianally put my feet up  when we arrived home.

wildlife and waves oh my!

Our sick ride

Not a bad selection

We woke up to the smell of the ocean. It was wonderful, filling. After running on the beach, getting sand between our toes, we were ready for a day of surfing. We weren't going back to San-o unfortunately, the break of all breaks, but we figured that we could rip the local break just as well. And we did; after a few hours of catching pretty good rides, we decided a paddle was in order. So we headed out towards a rock pile two miles away. About halfway there, I looked out and saw a boat stopped out a bit. I knew it was whale season, so I figured that there might be something to see. When we saw other SUP'ers headed out as well, we started sprinting and got out pretty quickly. Right in front of us, not more than 10 yards, surfaced two giant grey whales. We stood there and watched in amazement for another thirty minutes before we could even tear ourselves away. On the way back, we joked that the only thing that would cap off the day would be a couple waves in and some really good food. You know what? We got them both!

good food

A Typical So-cal day

California. It just feels good to say it. Let me tell you, it feels even better to be here. After a term of go, go, go, it is nice to sit back and enjoy, Or to surf... A lot. We are staying three blocks from the break with our friend Eric, not a bad setup at all. We have the option to go to the beach pretty much whenever we want, but today is an especially flat surf day. Walking down to the beach I recieve a text from Eric. "San-o Beach in thirty, the waves are there."

We run back up, get ready and jump into the car. As we drive closer to San-o, the marine layer of haze starts to lift, and we arrive under perfect California sun. It is crazy. Although I've seen people parking each other in on powder days in Steamboat, this blows that out of the water - people are parking each other in at a surf break. Not just any break, this one goes on for miles. We find a parking spot at the very end of the break, suit up and paddle out to make our first run at it. The waves are perfect for my first day back. Strong enough to gain some speed, but crumbly with long rides. The first ride feels amazing. I paddle two strokes and am going strong, turning down the line. Hannah even catches her first waves. Before we know it, it is 2:30, and we havn't eaten lunch.

Since we are starving and know that Laguna will still be under a marine, we decide to cap off our special So-Cal surfing day with a stop at Pedros for some greasy tacos. By the time we return to the house, the world is spinning from exhaustion, and by 6:00 I wonder whether it is late enough to go to bed. The best!

Kitchen Table Part2

It's done! It's in! Isn't it pretty?! The features are a drop-leaf, drawers that actually work, and a hardwood table top! Yippee!!

Virgin burn!

I have been practicing. Ok, maybe I have been a bit obsessed, but I have been practicing my fire staff skills every spare minute. Study break? Staff. Lunch break? Staff. Circus practice? Staff. Now in case you are wondering what a staff is, fire staff is a stick with two wicks – one on each end. When you soak the wicks in kerosene then light them, the staff makes an amazing hissing noise and feels pretty badass as well. But with all the excitement comes a bit of danger – you could light yourself on fire. For this reason, I wanted to have my moves down. Once I was ready, I picked a date – the last day of finals and got stoked! Here are some pics from the result – my first burn! Don’t worry – I didn’t light myself on fire!

The Circus

After buying the silks, it seems that every person I talk to has done either circus or some circus activity in high school. One of the people I talked to, an engineering 3-2 transfer from Vassar College, was even in the Vassar College Circus. We decided that there was a serious gap in the number of circus activities at Darmouth. The idea for the Northern Lights Circus Club was born. Since then, we have been recognized by the college, received funding, and bought a ton of circus stuff.

 

So far we juggle, hang from silks, perform acrobalance as shown below, and spin fire. With Jacob, president, Hannah, treasurer, and me as the vice pres, we’re having a full out blast. I have been getting into the silks, firestaff and acrobalance, and I am hoping to spin fire before the end of the term!

 

 

 

 

Rev'ed up for finals

What happens when you put athletes in a room to study and they need a boost? GU, of course. Well, that was the solution at least for a road biking friend of mine: max.

This term in bowls

I admit. I got pretty into woodworking this term. Within the first two weeks, I turned two bowls. It is an amazing feeling, being in control of a perfect cut. I can control the depth of the cut, the shavings curling over my left hand as I lean into the wood. I went from being pretty shaky approaching the lathe to darn comfortable. My bowls went through a transformation as well.

 

My first of the term, I would classify s pretty chunky.

 

The second much thinner (scary), but pretty sloppy with the sanding.

 

From there I transitioned to plates because I didn’t want to get too stuck on one form. With the plates, I really figured how to follow a curve, but transitioned from the problem of making the bottoms of pieces too thick to too thin.

 

This followed me to my third bowl of the term, a dry-turned bowl. Dry turned in this case means that it was roughed, dried, and I was finished the final shape, keeping it perfectly round. In the process, I almost cut through the bottom (yikes!), but held it together as a final product. Which bowl is your favorite?

Bolton Trapp Traverse

My dad told me – if there is any xc ski that you do while at school, you better do the Bolton-Trapp Traverse. I have been getting into the xc skiing pretty deep, doing everything from Mt Cardigan to the Scond College Grant, but every source we talked to warned us of the most epic of epic traverses. Dangerous, isolated, and long were all descriptors that followed the traverse both in written reviews and first hand accounts. With all of that layed down, Hannah and I felt intimidated, but determined to do this epic trip, from Bolton XC Ski Center all the way up and over to The Trapp Family Lodge of The Sound of Music  movie fame.

 

 

On the morning of the trip, we finished packing the last of our survival items and food, and started driving. It was 8AM – a late start, we thought. We started on the trail at 10:30 after picking up a map, and more warnings against the length. We started just chugging – thinking that we were in for the longest day of our lives when before we knew it, we were at the summit of Bolton Mountain. Since the people we talked to had done the trail, it had been transformed from the least marked trail to the most. It was almost overwhelming. On the way up to the summit, there was a marker on every other tree. After a few photo ops, we started on what was the most fun I have had on skis in a long long time. The trail went straight down, over roller-coaster bumps then sharp turns, keeping us on our toes (and faces) the whole way down. Before we could wipe the perma-smile off of our faces we were already at the parking lot 3 miles from the Trapp Lodge. We arrived at the lodge barely over three hours from when we started. Both excited and surprised, we thought about turning around and schussing our way back, then had a moment of better judgment and took a nap in front of the lodge’s fireplace instead. I would say that was a win.

Kitchen Table

After building the beds and shelves for our cozy abode at school, a.k.a The Pebble, I couldn’t resist going further. We have a kitchen table. It works; if you call a piece of unfinished plywood on top of a few drawers a kitchen table. It worked, but I knew I could build something that could work better. Way better. You see, our house has two problems – there are no chairs for the kitchen table, and there is no room for chairs. Combine that with my back pain, and I had a solution – a kitchen table, with some drawers and with enough height to stand at. The added height would also allow stools to be stored underneath.

 

The new table is almost done – dropleaf and all, but the first adventure was taking apart the old table. Who knew so many spiders could hide in such a small piece of furniture (I hate spiders)! Now that it is out of the house, I am more than glad to be rid of the spiders. I can’t wait for the next step – putting the new table in!

silks

I wanted to get in shape in a better way by adding dynamic movements like tumbling, handstands, and rope climbing – real full body movements. When I went to buy a manila rope,  my roommate stopped me and proposed silks, a circus version of rope climbing. I agreed, so we bought one. Here is the deal. Unlike rope, silks stretch and not only do you climb up and down, but you wrap in different ways so that you can hang without the use of sheer grip.

 

The first session I struggled to climb the fabric once without getting pumped out of my mind – or have my forearms feel like they were a solid mass of lactic acid. The day after was just as bad, and I was beginning to think that I would never be able to write normally. Then something happened, and I started getting endurance. My search to get back into shape has me meddling in another activity that if you asked me three months ago, I never thought I would be doing. Still, the rue circus act is just our everyday college life!

Blues

One of my favorite parts of being on campus is that on any given night, you can try something that if you were not in this silly situation called campus, you would never try. Tonight, it was blues dancing. A couple of my engineering friends, it turns out, are really really into blues dancing and ran a few tutorials. Dancing can be the most awkward, nerve wracking thing, but it was so much fun! Each song, we would switch partners, and before we knew it, the two hours were up. So instead of leaving we stayed, kept the music going and kept dancing!

Ian Herrick dancing up a storm

Powder Day!!!

It snowed a foot. Let me phrase that a different way. It snowed a foot in New Hampshire. On the east coast. Whoa, I thought, a powder day on the east coast. AWESOME.

 

It was awesome – in a different sort of way. We didn’t go to a ski resort (I bet you can think of the amazing Colorado resort that I’m thinking of) and ski billowing pow until our legs fell off. We didn’t even go to a resort. Because of the high winds and the southern storm, we decided to stick near Hanover. We got to the parking lot of Mt. Cardigan and were putting the skins on our skis as another packed car showed up. With the addition of five or six alums, we skinned up, first stopping to let one guy go back and get his helmet, then stopping to fix Hannah’s ski. By the time we rounded the corner to the shelter, we knew exactly what type of day it was going to be – a complete and utter whiteout. Instead of dipping down onto the Alexandria Ski Trail, we decided to continue up the slope towards the peak. So, I don’t know if you know what happens to snow when 80mph winds compress it, but it is something like skiing through really deep cornstarch. Smooth on top and completely thick underneath. On top of the, um, interesting conditions, the 80mph winds were still going strong. The skinning went from fun, to hilarious, to chilly. At this point everyone started quoting Lord of the Rings. At the peak a huge gust came up, and it just got plain old "frostbite all over your face" scary. In a hurry, we stripped our skins, skied back to the shelter of the hut and tried to warm up. The group coming up behind us took one look at us and decided not to summit.

 

Despite the frostbite and complications, the skiing ended up making it pretty worth it. It wasn’t billowing, and it wasn’t steamboat, but it was pretty gosh darned fun.