Welcome to Santa Cruz County

Being in Santa Cruz means seeing friends that i don't see often. And now a few other friends have recently moved there and its nice to be able to hang out with everyone.

Manny is now a proud California resident.

Murph has been living there over 5 years, so he gets to wear locals only shirts now...Nice

Winter getaways..

The West Side

Arizona was crazy. Stopped to sleep in Holbrook for a night and knew we had made it to the territory of the strange. Parked to make dinner and ended up with a bunch of high school kids hanging out in the bus telling us stories of their tweaker friends winning track meets on meth. Played UNO and Andrea made them all dinner.

We got outta there and headed for the water.. bus has been acting up, stopped at a gas station and the bus wouldn't start. Got it running and drove all the way to the coast. Stopped to make breakfast by the water and when i tried to start the bus back up, the bolts snapped off the starter and it fell off. 

Sherman in California

Such a great feeling when you break down, make some mods, and get rolling again. An accomplishment that gets you from a bummer situation to a real stoke.

Big thank you to LOCAL Dan for all of his help, driving us to the auto store and lending me a drill to get the bolts out, and Mother Nature for always wanting to help out in any way.

Nice to be on the West Coast..

New Mexico !!!!!

 Sunrise session.

Wow, New Mexico.  I have driven through this state a half dozen times and taken all the wrong roads. A big thank you to my friend Will for telling me about the skatepark in Silver City.  If I hadn't gone there, I would have ended up driving on Highway 10 or Highway 40 and potentially seeing the sad rise of Tweakers that lurk the streets of Albuquerque and hang out at the skatepark.  No offense to Albuquerque, but the New Mexico I got to experience this time was far different from that place..

Route 180 North out of Silver City goes through the Gila National Forest. We met a guy at a gas station that traveled around in a van with his wife and now lives here to enjoy the park. He gave us 7 dollars because he was stoked..haha.. big thanks, we bought a quart of oil with it...

Beautiful

Ebb and Flow

On the way out of Texas, we stopped in Van Horn to check out this pool that Clint, Matty, and I rode a few years ago. THE DOUBLE HEPTAGON!!! Definitely one of the best pools that I have been lucky enough to ride. Kind of a bummer to see that the hotel had been changed to new owners, that remodeled all of the rooms with new tv's and appliances, and filled the pool with the trash to be covered with concrete when they're done.. imagine all the perfect transition under there...

The differences between different people is fascinating to me. The interests of one could be the enemy of another. Or two people from two totally different worlds find similar interests in the same things and end up coming together from it. Either way, it's all the same and it's all awesome; Even though it would have been cool to see that thing sitting in the same condition it was in when we last saw it..

On Top of the bend

Impromptu hike to the highest point in the park. A perfect day to make it happen, with lots of places to stop and soak up the landscape. Was cool to get all the way to the top and then have to scale some steep rocks with death drops on all sides to get to the official top... I'm not really that good with heights..

Took the more scenic road out of the park, west along the Rio Grande. A road in the middle of no where, with nothing to see but the topography of the land...which was more than enough to keep us stoked on our way outta the big state.

Teeeexxaaasssss!!!

Big Bend National Park

I've wanted to go to Big Bend National Park for a while, but my route has never passed me through. This time it had to.   The drive out there had the typical beauty texas sunset and sun rise, and before we knew it we were there.

Spent a few days there checking out all we could. Watched the moon rise while relaxing in a natural hot pool on the edge of the Rio Grande. Swam across a river in the bottom of a canyon to Mexico the next day.

And when the sun was setting, we watched it from "The Window" in the Chisos Mountains.

West Texas

I get sucked into Austin. Just like everyone else. Good friends and good times, It's cheap and it's nice there in the winter.  This time I made sure to get outta there and stay mobile. Visited some of the spots around Austin, like Hamilton pool and Pedernales falls.

And when we left Austin we headed South and West towards the Big Bend in the Rio Grande River..

Cody Diggs Texas

Stoked that Cody was able to come down and spend some time in Texas. We picked him up from the airport and drove straight to the trails. Woke up to a full first day of riding the trails and the next day it would rain and shut the jumps down for the rest of his stay in town.. Rode a bunch of different spots, but didn't even scratch the surface. We should have stayed in town for 3 weeks...

Texas Fancy.

Had a stop in Galveston, TX to visit my friend Mark. He's got a shiny head now and it was good to see him for the short amount of time he had. And when the rain kept falling, we headed for Austin.
  Didn't come down here last winter while I was in NZ, but it's always nice to get into town there, because you know there is always something going on, with so many people always visiting there.








The bus started acting up a little bit when we got into Texas. I had been driving with one of my two batteries on its last leg for this whole trip, but as soon as the bus rolled into Austin and parked, the batteries let out their last breath of air.
   I helped my friend Clint with the electrical in his new Airstream and he got me a new battery for the bus. Thankful and stoked to be able to help each other out with some mods. With 2 new batteries and the bus rolling. Andrea and I went to explore some spots around Austin.

Eating the Asphalt

 Sherman is a beast. Just pounding out the miles with a steady purr. Made it no problem running down the East Coast and then onto the coastal road of the Florida pan handle. Never driven that route before,  it was nice to see retired america.

Driving through Louisiana, always impresses me that people live in swamps. Miles and miles of bridge over alligator land, I can see why some have fan boats as their means of transportation.. Gotta make a fan bus.

traffics not bad with a good sunset

Texas bound

Frozen

Trying to escape the cold, and wake up frozen. Any cold weather conditions that happen south of the mason dixon are an immediate shut down of the roads. Rode out the ice and headed down the coast for days.

Richmondays

Spent a few days riding in Richmond. The weather was finally starting to warm up and it started feeling a little more southern. Pedaled around homemade skate parks and in the streets of downtown..

out at the trails and in our friends living rooms..

Thank you for all the stoke given from Richmond. Always enjoy seeing everyone down there stoked to focus their energy towards having good times. Thank you.

The Thrift Bus

We picked up a bunch of stuff that Andrea had in storage and headed for RVA. She set up a cool mobile thrift store on the side of the road for a couple days and i just kinda hung in and out watching her master sales skills. Fun way to meet people. I really enjoyed the social end of the whole experience.. and Lamplighter Quilted bacon sandwiches...

Stay Mobile..