SURF CAMP
Las Olas surf camp in Sayulita, Nayarit, Mexico (outside Puerto Viarta)

Over Memorial Day weekend, I spent a week at Las Olas surf camp for girls. Their tag line is, "We make girls out of Women". Eighteen femme's from ALL OVER the country, ranging in age between 14 and 50-something braved the gentle waves of Sayulita, Mexico. There were 18 "campers", 5-instructors and one coordinator. Here we are, a photo of the crew we had dinner with the first night: Kim, Jennifer, Michele, Judie, me & one of our instructors, Erin:

Here is Miss. Kristy Murphy, teaching Surf 101 on Day 1 in our Casita just a block from the ocean. The casita was our home-away-from-home, and surf equipment storage location, for the duration of our stay.

The 18-campers were split into three groups of 6 for the entire trip. Each day, each group had a group lesson for one hour. Then, they also scheduled each group for a field trip day to another surf spot... and, each camper got a one-hour one-on-one lesson as well. Every afternoon we had free surf time, with the instructors around, for 2+ hours.

Yep... this was the view from our room. Our room ROCKED. I felt like I was on lifestyles of the rich and famous. We had two rooms, each with two twin beds and a bathroom in the middle... opening up onto a sitting area and four lounge chairs (perfect for afternoon naps), and a kitchen!

This was the view of the room Jen and I shared:

Here is Kim, one of my roommates, with a local surfer. Yep... we made lots of friends. (especially at two for one happy hour!)...

Here I am with Kristy Murphy... the 2005 Worlds Women Long Board Champion. She was one of our venerable instructors, and, quite a ham!

Jennifer, coming out of the water after a 2+ hour surf session on the day of our group field trip. Check out that smile on her face!!

Kim and I at a local favorite eatery & hang out... Choco Banana! Named, as you might guess, for their tasty chocolate banana's which we are enjoying right here:

Madeline, the youngest camper in our group with Shauna, our Canadian surf instructor (and my late-night-drinks & dancing partner, as well as my private instructor). Thanks, Shauna!!

Jen snapped a few shots of me at dinner with this friendly gato -- the Tiger of El Tigre. As you know... I sure love meow's... both domestic and foreign. Other favorite animal moments on the trip included the iguana in our casita and the local favorite white Labrador named Gringo who spent hours in the surf every-day fishing and catching waves.

Our lovely room rocked so hard, we had to invite the whole crew for happy hour at our place one night .... here Jennifer and I are pictured with the rest of our small group and Kristy. From Left: Elizabeth, Madeline, me, Kristy in front, Billy Jo, Katie and Jennifer.

Here are Michelle, Heather and Carol in our Casita, getting pumped for their field trip day.

Roommate Snap! Me, Kim, Jennifer & Judie... all TAN and not really ready for home, but leaving soon... this is our last night...

Time for the frequently asked question...

"So, can you surf now? Are you a surfer girl?"...

Answer: YES & YES .... and, here is PROOF, although it may not be pretty! But, what FUN... I totally have the bug (for WARM water surfing)... ; )

More photos on my flickr page at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/18295408@N00/sets/72157600293210670/

More about Las Olas surf camps (and other camps like golf & crafts) at:

http://www.surflasolas.com/

Wildflower 2007

An event weekend unlike any other each season... over 7,500 athletes descend on Lake San Antonio outside of Paso Robles for the weekend of festivities. The campgrounds are PACKED... in many places, back-to-back tent-towns pop up... car camping, RV's... you name it. LA Tri Club always brings a large group to this competitive event -- over 250 this year. We set up home-base in the Redonda Vista E Loop. Our tents, our club store, all mark home. Below, goodies from our sponsor PowerBar, as well as visors from Kate Major, and Marielle Monte's "Girls Gone Wildflower" offerings from our store.

Here are some of my 2007 Camp crew, enjoying a little dinner Friday night. We had a large group of first timers at the event this year.

Marielle and Scooter hanging out in the E-Loop. What Beautiful Weather we had ALL weekend long! (okay, yeah, I heard, the lake was choppy & there was wind on the bike course... but, otherwise...)...

LONG COURSE PRO MEN SWIM START -- check these guys out! Amazing!!

Kenny Sousa and I in transition... he sure helped me out on Saturday!

Saturday Nite Cinco de Mayo dinner with LA Tri Club... over 125 clubbers enjoyed a dinner prepared by our dinner committee. (THANK YOU LADIES and GENTS!)... We also watched Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby after the sun went down. Each year our Sat. night party gets better and better.

Gary rolled into town on Saturday afternoon, since he was going large Sunday in the Olympic distance. Here he is, congratulating Nikki after her strong outing on the Long Course.

The Mintons! Kennedy came in top-10 in her age group with a #9 position! Chris also had an amazing race. Way to go guys! (now, where is that beer??!!)...

Peter Brantly coming in to finish the long course... looking strong!

Ryan and Aaron, Sunday morning --- about to head down to the Olympic race. Side note... Aaron actually WON a KONA slot for '07! I mean, I never hear of anyone ever winning that lottery (that I know)... Awesome Aaron!!

Yep.... that's Luis.... saying Hello in his own special way, to the cheering Clubbers, as he ran by as part of the Tri4Beer relay.

Saying Hi to our own Bachelor (but, no longer, I guess...), Mr. Andy Baldwin.

So, another Wildflower gone-by. I'm already looking forward to next year... maybe I'll actually train myself, and enter the long course in '08... we'll see how the off-season feels. ** Great to see so many buddies out there. WF for me, does feel like a home-away-from-home now.... so many wonderful sponsor relationships and new and old friends always in the campgrounds. Nothing bonds you like camping and racing together!

Thailand :: Bangkok

We rode in two double decker planes to get here! That was a first for me. Our flight was 14 hours from LAX to Taipai. We were lucky enough to have a whole row of 4 seats to ourselves (Aaron hogging three of them for most of the flight). From Taipai it was about 5 more hours will we got into Bangkok. We left LA on Friday afternoon and arrived in Bangkok at 1am on Saturday night... not an easy adjustment!


Sunday morning, Christmas Eve. We got up today at 7am and got ready in our awesome shower before heading down to an outstanding breakfast spread in the hotels main restaurant. Fresh fruit, tasty soups, American styles of breakfast eats as well as Asian. The coffee, in particular, was just what we needed to get the day off to the right start.

Off to a great start, we grabbed our backpacks and headed out into the city with the plan to first get some local currency and then to grab the SkyTrain to the Chatuckak Market, which is one of the 1001 Things to See Before You Die according to the Thailand pages in my book from Karen Ma (thank you karen).

As we were questioning our direction, a Bangkok Professor came upon us and started a conversation. He was waiting of his wife to finish her workout. He turned out to be a lifesaver x10. He gave us all the local ins-and-outs and put us in a Tuk Tuk who took us from this and that place all over the city for 2 dollars (we gave him 10) before he finally dropped us off at the train where we headed to the market.

The market..... 30 acres of stall style shopping with a park adjacent to it. Clothing (used, new, clever, dirty, tops/bottoms, fancy/casual.... Food (restaurants, fruits, juice, bugs -- yes, worms, grubs and fried grasshoppers)... Decorations (furniture, pillows, silks of all types, glassware)..... Artwork (statues, paintings, sculpture of all types).... Animals (bunnies, puppies, squirrels, gerbils, headgehogs, mice, birds of all types, turtles, both land and sea turtles and alligator snappers), Fish (both saltwater and freshwater).... It was insane and smart and interesting and outrageous and amazing and horrifying. There were street performers doing their thing in the alleyways of the market too. Talk about overstimulation, and this is also a place where you might develop claustrophobia easily — constantly bumping into everyone.

Then, we headed back home. All we'd eaten all day was juice, because we were not sure about the market food (very sketchy).

It felt soooo good to be finally off our feet when we got home... Also, we got pretty dehydrated walking around because finding a bathroom was like looking for a needle in a haystack, so we weren't drinking as much as we should have been. We were starving and opted to throw our (many) bags down and head to the hotel Thai place. They greeted us warmly and wished us a merry christmas while lighting a candle/wreath marking the holiday. Then, they brought us a complimentary eggnog with amaretto cocktail. The meal was wonderful (the Thai sure know how to make Thai food!!).
I was feeling the affects of the time change and long day, we decided to take advantage of the ridiculously cheap massages down our street — so, we headed to this delightful little massage hut, and signed up for $5 one hour massages, which turned out to be GREAT!!!! Thai massage can be intense (as opposed to swedish, which puts you to sleep) but mine was so good I almost went to sleep right there with this woman pounding on me. Afterwards, they served us tasty tea before we left. Awesome!!! We slept like babies...

Thailand :: Bangkok, Temples, Floating Markets & the Zoo

Today is christmas day here (what better time to visit a Buddist Temple?). Very different from home, where the streets get quiet on the major holidays. Here, things are crazy hustle & bustle. One local explained to Aaron that Thai are mostly Buddhist first and then Christian.

We had our lovely little routine breakfast again today (amazing fruit and coffee), and then went down for our taxi to the Grand Palace, which I read in our tourist book opens at 8:30am. When we arrived to the area we were greeted by a local tourist guide fellow who explained to us that the temple is closed for a buddhist ceremony until 1pm. I also had read in my tourist book that this is a popular scam to redirect tourist traffic to local vendors via tuk tuk — yet, we totally fell for this hook-line & sinker! We ended up seeing a few nice temples we would not have seen otherwise, but we realize now that of course it was a total scam!

We finally made it to the Grand Palace and, boy, it was everything we’d imagined it would be and more. Just majestic and ornate and lovely/lovely. We took wayyyy too many photos and had a great time exploring all around.

On our way to the Reclining Buddha (the largest indoor Buddha in Thailand) we came across too other visitors bureau helpers who tried to tell us that the exhibit was closed. Of course, we were keen to their tricks, finally. Of course, this makes us suspicious of the nice fellow who helped us on the first day we were here now.... I guess we'll never know.

After the Reclining Buddha (huge and amazing) we headed by taxi to check out the Oriental Hotel, which is also listed in my 1001 places to see before you die. What a lovely spot it is! Jasmine hung on strands from the tall ceiling and the smell of fresh flowers is amazing!! Its located right on this crazy polluted choppy looking river (Chao Phraya River) and boasts famous guests such as Joseph Conrad (1888). We were tired and hungry and the guests there were a little stuffy (and the food was expensive), so we didn't stick around — but I'm glad we checked it out.

From there we headed to Siam Paragon shopping mall to grab food & browse around. Sooooo much light! Like Vegas, a mall meant to turn you around so you could never find your way out. Aaron picked up a pair of neat-o italian jeans that make our trip there worth while.

The NEXT day... we spent at the famous FLOATING MARKET and then the Samphran Elephant Grounds and Zoo, before heading to the Airport for Phuket. I forgot to write about this day during my trip, but it was one of my favorite days...

The Floating Market was beautiful & it was great to be in a greener environment (vs. the dirty city of Bangkok). At the ZOO, we got to see tigers, elephants, crocs and monkeys!

Thailand :: Phi Phi islands + my b-day
Today is my 33rd birthday. We woke up at 6:30a so we could have a nice breakfast before leaving for the Phi Phi islands.
We took a truck to the launch area for our days trip. We shared a ride with a French girl named Sophie who was traveling alone. Then we picked up two more soon-to-be-friends, Jana and Marco were from Brazil, before heading to the boat to load up.

The sky was hazy all morning, and maybe that turned out to be a blessing because when you are island-hopping there are few places to hide from the sun.

Along the way to our first stop we saw many limestone islands or rock formations jutting out of the water — extremely picturesque. The first island we explored was Bamboo Island. It had a large beach area with some of the softest sand my feet have ever felt! As the five of us trudged alone (we kinda became a fivesome for the rest of the day) I spotted a sea eel hunting in the crystal clear shallows by the beach. The yellow spotted eel was about 3 feet long, maybe more, and as I was describing it to Aaron (who was wading in the shallows) he insisted on walking toward it because he wanted to get a look! Sure enough, he walked within literally a foot of the creature, and then I finally convinced him to take a big step up and out of the water. My photos will have to be enough for him.

From there we took the boat on over to Monkey Beach. Low and behold, there were monkeys on the beach!!! They were doing monkey things — climbing around in the trees, picking things off each other, playing with each other, running around in the sand — it was quite cool and somewhat astonishing to see! They were not tame, per sey, but you could feed them.

From that spot we zoomed over for some snorkeling and swimming. This was so much fun in the warm water! The fish were so bright and colorful and big and small and fat and skinny. You name it. The reefs were huge and healthy looking (more so than any I've ever seen). The sea urchins had needle spines that appeared to be at least 24 inches long. there were sea slugs and sea cucumbers and just every kind of reef life. At one point I got kinda freaked out because I could not find Aaron who had swum off and disappeared. I ran to the boat to ditch my snorkel gear and grab my goggles so I could go swimming and find him, but just about after I did that he showed up with the same idea (time for goggles), and sure enough he had been lost among the snorkelers and had been approaching boats asking the people, "is this my boat?"....

After that we boated around a bit more, and then headed for Koh Phi Phi for lunch — this is a beautiful place. You can see where it was affected by the tsunami. Palm trees are being nurtured back to health, and there are bald spots on the land. There is also and exhibit showing some before and after photos as well as photos of people who went missing. Heartbreaking. The 26th was the 2 year anniversary of that tragedy.

Lunch was consumed in haste as we were all very hungry and the food was good. After we ate, we trudged around town, stopping here and there so that one of the five of us could look at this or that. We all were feeling tired from the heat, having eaten, and having been on the go already for half the day.

We left Phi Phi and made one more snorkel stop before heading home. Aaron went in solo this time and promised to stay near the boat. He said afterwards that the tiny little minnows (thousands of them I could see) would nip you if you sat still in the water. Yikes!!

On the way back home it began to rain. The boat ride is about 30 minutes if you are going full-steam-ahead, but we could do that because it was very choppy. I felt like the boat was playing crack-the-egg with me (like you do on a trampoline). It was awesome though, I didn't mind the chop, I just wish it didn't rain because that stung our faces. At least it was warm — and, that ended up being the only time it rained during our whole trip!

When we got back to the hotel I was greeted by the hostess with a “Happy Birthday” greeting! Aaron had arranged for flowers to be delivered to our room and for everyone to know it was my special day. It was really sweet! So, after we got cleaned up again we headed back up to meet our new buddies for dinner.

We went with Sophie to Ao Phra Nang for dinner. The town is more touristy than here in Krabi City. We found Jana and Marco and they had picked up another new friend. We all trudged down the street looking for a nice spot to have dinner. We were all very tired from the full day on the water. We got a nice table on the water and had a wonder meal and a liz-birthday and to new friends cheers.

Afterwards, we walked up the street looking for the bus tickets office and a nice bar for a drink. By this time, I felt like I could fall asleep standing up — so instead of the drink, we walked Jana and Marco back to their bungalow before heading out to the street for a taxi. Getting a taxi back to our hotel was much more challenging than getting one to an naung. For too much money, anyone would take us home, but everyone wanted big money, and Sophie would negotiate for cheap. We finally found a suitable ride, and we were all nodding off in the back of the truck on the way home.