Elk-The Not-Winners Report

Another longie but goodie....gonna be multiple posts, thanks for your patience 

What a weekend, 19 gallons of fuel, minor traffic, almost got taken out by a 9' long redwood branch, I only kept 2 mediocre fish and forgot my ab card at home so no abs but it was undoubtedly the best trip of the year. 

This weekend started off right, I pulled up at Angel's pad in Sunnyvale just before 8 o'clock and he had all his gear waiting on the curb.  The man needed a uhaul truck instead of my long bed so we decided to forgo a carpool and he took his own rig.  About an hour later he's all done packing and tells me, "oh yeah, I need to gas up also...."      At the pump.


We cruised the concrete jungles, I love this spot on 19th avenue, just as you get to the top of a hill you can see the gate towers.


But it is still guerilla driving style, people speeding, people driving slow, changing lanes, cutting people off and every now and then you have to deal with the morons who pull their cameras out to snap photos.....tourists 




Petaluma and Santa Rose were stop and go traffic but once you get off 101 and onto 128 the scenery is awesome.  People still drive crazy, people tailgate through the windy parts, people don't pull over to let traffic pass them, people pull off the road at random spots and at high speeds, and half wits pull their cameras out to snap pics....sheesh.



Then it happened, we crossed the Navarro, cruised south and found base camp. The week prior I started buying camping gear and my big purchase was a new tent. I didn't realize how BIG of a purchase it was till I tried to set it up. Yowzers, a 6 man tent for one dude didn't seem like a bad idea at the store  The peanut gallery had their way with it but what the hell, I'm a go big or go home kind of guy and in this case I went big and took my home with me.  Thats me....the guest cottage on the side was Angel and Liz.


After camp was set up we had a 3 on 3 indoor soccer tourney in the tent.


and the tent also hosted the afterparty.



 

Yowzers, a 6 man tent for one dude didn't seem like a bad idea at the store  :

   Love it!

In my defense....my daughter and I will be camping again next weekend....so its a 6 man tent for one and a half people 


After we finished all the work......we went to work.





For once in his life there was someone with a wussier drink....


But he refused to be outdone......



One taste and he said it was too strong....the champ lives on.


And then.....shots


followed by shenanigans.  clean surface.....check


backing off, apply corner.....check


Smooth it out....check.


Thumbs up while sticker bombing OK Frontman equipment with Hobie stickers.....check

That tent is the BOMB, we were wondering whose it was, when we looked in it it was empty of everything and we could hear our voices echo off the walls, never heard that in a tent before. Straight walls over 6 feet, pretty cool.
Mooch is always wondering who's been putting bumper stickers on his rig.

Bro started walking a little crooked so we cut him off.


Later we found him running around with a speargun....do not adjust your screen, after all those lemonades he was spinning in circles.....this is him mid flight.


Here he is lining up on a BIG ling cod......we didn't have the heart to tell him that he wasn't in the water.

It started to get close to dinner time and manning the man fryers were none other than master rodsmith Eric Kunz and ChuckE.  Eric was working the vegies, seems like a difficult task to hook each mushroom out of the grease with a gaff but he got it done in rockstar fashion.


Chucke is a true artist and hands down the best fry cook on the planet...screw spongebob squarepants its all about ChuckE Smalltuna.  Next time your kid cranks up nickelodeon and you hear the question "who lives in a pineapple under the sea?".....Its Chucke Smalltuna.

Chucke Smalltuna minding his own business.


The fryer musta said something he didn't like cause he responded....."you talkin to me?"


Then sprung into action.



It was getting late and a jam session was brewing....



Bed time....

   

Morning, it was a bit misty out


But everyone treked down the hill and prepped for launch.



The swell was small but it had a weird doubled up chop on it.  Everyone who prefished pretty much avoided the north like the plague.....but not us....and we paid for it.  I'm always in the zone when fishing so otw action shots are scarce.  You're not missing anything anyways, I spent most of the day dragging around a trap rigged blue so action was non-existent till I worked the iron.  About noon the wind kicked up and the swell seemed to be growing a little. 

Every now and then a macker came through.  Peaks looked like this...

and the pit made the rocks disapear.


We came back in, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back out for an afternoon of diving.  The wind had picked up considerably and when it gusted I was in full sprint mode and going nowhere, crazy.  We got in some nice shallow 10 foot water on the lee of the northside rocks and the abs were everywhere.  Unfortunately for dive master Angel his bottom time has decreased from 2 minutes last year to about 12 seconds this year.  Even though I was spotting them for him, drawing him a map to them, marking them with an iron/float and actually lifting the rocks they were attached to right out of the water and onto his yak for him he was only able to get one I directed him too.....in the pocket of 50 abs.  He ended up finding 2 more 7's in like 5 or 6 feet.  I bashed him a little for popping such tiny abs but he said anything over 7.25 is too gamey for him. 
The beast

   

re-enacting bill's seal lap dance at Monterrey


He's been independently doing his own recruitment studies and the number off offspring this season was insufficient so he's now making them mate in his tankwell....just to make sure babies are being produced.


We had company


Freddie topside hocking some defog into his mask


Angle is styling his hair like to look like an uni now.


Dinner was great, the award ceremony was cool and the raffle was better.  Shim's boy was on fire and I scored some nice parting gifts.  Whoever donated the Dominator plastics, model: ball breaker....color: white trash, with the busty cartoon dominatrix on the front........is the man, those were awesome. 

Day 2 over.

Day 3 we had plans for fishing, possibly diving but woke up at a leisurely 8:30 and just kicked back at camp.  Angel may not be in the same class as Chucke Smalltuna but I know better than to bite the hand that feeds me.....he makes a mean scrambled egg and toast.


Manatee was gearing up to go diving.  Its not very often you see people regress but the manatee here started off freediving.....then went to scuba.....and this day he was rockpicking    What gives?
He wanted to make a fashion statement so he started by wearing 2 different dive socks....tre chic.


Its getting harder and harder to get the good paparazzi shots of this guy cause he's catching on.....but I still got him.  He ate too much at the potluck and struggled to get his suit on.


He tied the pool noodle around his waist for extra flotation while wading the tidepools.


Showing Brian G how he accidentally shot me in the face with his pole spear.
 

He split and we hung around at camp the strolled down to the beach to see how he was doing.  Adam showed us the way.



Angels keys fell out of his pocket and he had to go in after them.


Manatee stalking snails


and doing handstands

I didn't realize how BIG of a purchase it was till I tried to set it up. Yowzers, a 6 man tent for one dude didn't seem like a bad idea at the store  The peanut gallery had their way with it but what the hell, I'm a go big or go home kind of guy and in this case I went big and took my home with me.  Thats me....the guest cottage on the side was Angel and Liz.

My first thought was... WTF is that!.  But then after a few seconds of thinking, I figured that living next to that eye sore was actually a good thing in that it would keep the wind from hitting us too much.

In the end I regretted not having brought up the zoning issues that should have come into play with erecting that thing because not only did it keep us from realizing the sun had risen but it also seemed to have had some negative effects on the climate in our part of the neighborhood.

Of course the real reason for the eye sore was that Art always Carries his lawn mowers just in case there's work to be done.  He maintains his mowers in immaculate condition...that level of maintenance requires a shop and quite a bit of tools.  A hammer is apparently not on the list of required tools because he begged me for mine while tyring to put it up.

On the first night I woke up to what sounded like he was putting an edge on the mower blades with a chainsaw and while it was hard to sleep I remembered that I've gotten to know him pretty well and so I let it slip cause I know how he rolls.

Most of you didn't get to see the results of his work because it happened Sunday long after everyone had left but here's a preview of what you'll be seeing next year... Thank you Art!

and a little 5-7-5 inspired by the ever graceful dives of manatee.

Man, I gots mad steez,



This time I use no Floateeeez



Surf, shmurf, I got theez






It was an awesome weekend, I had a great time. Thanks to Sean and Family for putting this together.

That tent is the BOMB, we were wondering whose it was, when we looked in it it was empty of everything and we could hear our voices echo off the walls, never heard that in a tent before. Straight walls over 6 feet, pretty cool.

It is the bomb, I'm glad I got it.  Its nice to be able to toss your bags and gear in there and still have plenty of room to manuever.  Angel and his two man hut could barely fit the air mattress so they piled there stuff up in there also. Next trip I'm bringing a poker table.

In the end I regretted not having brought up the zoning issues that should have come into play with erecting that thing because not only did it keep us from realizing the sun had risen but it also seemed to have had some negative effects on the climate in our part of the neighborhood.

I'm getting the vestibule/porch this weekend.....and in true east san jose fashion, I'm not gettingpermits for nothing.


 

On the first night I woke up to what sounded like he was putting an edge on the mower blades with a chainsaw and while it was hard to sleep I remembered that I've gotten to know him pretty well and so I let it slip cause I know how he rolls.

That was brother manatee.....soundly sleeping. 

Great post Art... you had me rolling.

Freddie

Nice report!  Good stuff...funny too

Al

     - Art, you nailed the camp and antic action, you have a knack for catching THE moment! What a riot, thanks for the "other" perspective of the event and sharing the warrior works you put in JUST to get to Elk! That spot on 19th is cool. Great commentary and captions on the photos.
John

Now that's what i call a report!

Great pics and what looks like a good time had by all.

Thanks so much for the report...

Hope to be there next year,

Slammer