Here Comes The Sun

So we figured out the threshold where "glamping" becomes "camping", it's when the power goes out. because of the lack of sun over the last couple of days we had managed to use up what was left of the power stores in our tent. That meant a morning of brushing teeth with headlamps on, making coffee by flashlight and trying to get dressed by lantern. Not things we are above by any means, but usually when we are camping. The weather had kind of subsided after a pretty stormy night. Lots of tree limbs were down around our tent when we emerged in the early dawn (wearing headlamps). We drove into town to eat and power up. One of the things with going on vacation this time of year is that this is the Little Leagues busiest part of the season for me. So I have been having to stay connected and handle issues that have arisen and respond to emails etc. While eating and glomming onto wi-fi at the coffee shop, we saw the the Volcom Pipe Pros contest was on for today. So after breakfast we headed down. 

The Banzai Pipeline is a section of the North Shore across the road from an elementary school. All of the big surf-wear companies own houses on that stretch of beach and this is were the pro surfers come to surf. This week it was the setting for the 2014 Volcom Pipe Pros competition. Some of the best surfers in the world were here to surf in this contest. The contest ends tomorrow and due to weather they still had one day left to get in. Things were just getting started when we got there so we were able to park (before it got insane) and find a spot right next to the tower before the beach filled up. We plopped down on some towels as the sun started to find through the overcast. Our weather app was still telling us that it was going to rain all day, so we just wanted to see what we could see before the impending downpour chased up back to our (now powerless) tent. We sat and watched for easily a couple of hours. It was really, REALLY cool. There were surfers from all over the world riding 30 foot waves. There were several just hanging out on the beach with us watching the contest who would get up, go throw on heat jerseys and paddle out when it was their turn. It was really amazing to watch. We saw more than a couple of surfboard get broken in half by the pounding surf. 


Eventually, it was Kelly Slaters heat. The 11 time world champ is now 42 (and an AWESOME looking 42 - dude is in SHAPE). He proceeded to go out and put up the three highest runs of the entire competition, including a perfect 10! He got a huge round of applause when he came back out of the water. He ended up winning the whole thing. By that point, we figured we had seen everything worth seeing (it's not like we were going to see another perfect 10) and headed back into town. Marisa bought a tee-shirt after learning that all the money from the merc sales went directly to benefit the school across the road. 

We packed up for the beach, figuring to take advantage of the sun while it was out and headed out out towards the headlands where we hiked a couple of days before. The surf was so high on the North Shore that everyplace was red-flagged for swimming, but the headlands were more protected. So we swam for a bit and played in the waves. I even attempted surfing for a few minutes myself until I realized that I was going to have to head farther out than I was committed to to have any luck of getting up. Nope, I was going to stay inside the reef and just take it easy after watching the pros get pounded to crap by those waves. 

We had decided over breakfast to look into taking a night away from the tent while the solar panels re-charged, so we booked a room at Turtle Bay Resort for the night. Big room, air conditioning, restaurants that didn't have wheels, fitness center, pool, hot tub etc. So we headed back to the tent to pack up. On the way we stopped for ice cream at a new ice cream place and started talking to the owner. One of our Hosts, Melissa was doing film crew work on the Pipe Pros contest, so we new she was in that line of work. The ice cream lady let it slip that Melissa also worked on the file crew for the TV show Survivor and had just returned from three months away filming the new season. Well, Mom's Survivior geek-dom set in and she would NOT stop talking about it for the next....hell, she's still talking about it now....so we got out of there before Melissa got home from work and Mom accosted her for Jeff Probst's autograph or something. 

We came up to Turtle Bay, went swimming, sat in the hot tub, showered and had a great dinner. The electronics have all re-charged, we are going to watch a movie and read with lamps on. Tomorrow we're going to hang out here in the morning and then head back for one more night in the tent before we theoretically head back to Boise. I say theoretically because it has been snowing almost everyday and Thursday and Friday are supposed to be especially bad as far a snowfall goes. At this point we're hoping we can get back home before we have to be back at work.....