Oxnard, The Lakers and Some Sun and Surf!

We're just finishing up our visit in Oxnard, a magical 3 days in the Southern California sunshine! We planned on spending a little time here to hang out with our good friend Andy, who hails from Thousand Oaks. I was also able to visit one of my best college buddies, Michael, who works in Malibu. We had two surfing afternoons on Silver Strand Beach, just 5 minutes from where our boat is moored (Channel Islands Marina), and celebrated my 26th birthday on Tuesday.

We are realizing more and more that our time on land is precious: taking walks and jogs morning and night, seizing any chance for athletic activity to jar our relaxed cruiser bodies. It's very easy to see how folks in Southern CA stay so fit and beautiful: The weather is beautiful. This week alone we've done several long walks, two long surfing sessions, and I managed to get a sunrise jog in before we left Santa Barbara. I have no doubt that we will continue to grow more active and desire to work on our beach body physiques as we go farther south.

Rob spent his last night in Sound Discovery on Sunday. He made his way back up to the Bay Area on Monday with Clif's mom, Barbara. It worked out really well, and we even got to host both of them on the boat Sunday night before they made the drive north. We were so thankful to have Rob with us for the long 48 hour chunk from Monterey to Santa Barbara, but especially glad that he got to spend one splendid day sailing over to Oxnard: perfect wind, sunny warm weather and lots of humpback whale sightings!

My dad will be joining us in San Diego on Saturday night. In the next three days, Clif and I will make our way down there, stopping only on Catalina Island.

Mexico is right around the corner, so Clif and I have been trying to brush up on our basics. Clif and Andy spoke in Spanglish for almost my entire birthday evening (after drinking a few beers)... Which was both entertaining and informative. Driving is the LA area also means an increase in Spanish radio stations, whig we've been trying to listen to for the sake of waking up the Spanish part of our brains.

Another highlight of our Oxnard visit was driving into LA for a Lakers game! It was a lot of fun (basketball is WAY more fun to watch in person, and easier to follow). We just happen to sit by a young Swiss couple up in the nose bleed seats, and enjoyed chatting with them about our own Swiss-German travel experience.

All in all, our So-Cal experience was very stereotypical... And we loved every minute of it! Taking off tomorrow morning for Catalina-- tracker will be on.