.Life in the desert is pretty good, cheap housing, no traffic, no smog, and a beautiful landscape, but there is no ocean and there are no waves, as of recently I hadn’t surfed for 5 months and it had started to affect my ability to function like a normal person.  The economy was in ruin, so an overseas trip was not in the budget, and the Cartels were  cutting heads off like they are Al Qaeda, so Mexico was out.  That left Southern California, my former home.  Necessity being the mother of invention, I decided that perhaps there was some unmined surf gold left in California, if I could just look at it with fresh eyes.  Maybe  that was just a rationalization, but either way, I had to get in the water, I was going crazy.  So I took 10 days, a VW camper van, a longboard, and a shortboard, the latter being my last remaining board from my now defunct surf label, a vestige of my former life at the beach on the fringes of the surf industry.I set off into the great dry void separating the mountains of California from the Continental Divide. I had the bus pegged at 55 mph into a fierce headwind, sucking down gas like Coca Cola, I pulled over in Gila Bend, AZ to fill up.  Getting out, an older guy in a Mercedes Benz looked at my beat up longboard, then at me and asked “are you lost?† I thought he being a smartass, so trying to be polite, in layman’s terms I explained where I was heading, and what I was doing in  to which he replied that he had just surfed Trestles the day before, and it had been pretty good!   I took the man to be a Mentor in the Homeric sense and after about 30 minutes of talking story, I was back on the road cautiously optimistic. The windy bus experience was greatly improved by a huge variety of surf music rattling out of tinny speakers. The sun went down in a dusty haze to the sounds of “Pipeline†as I passed through the wind farms in Palm Springs.Waking in Malibu the next morning, I checked the surf report: “1-3 feet, fair/poor shapeâ€.  I drove up the coast  thinking that the internet had been generous in its report as a parade of flat, breezy surf spots flew by the window southward until I got near the Ventura County Line.  I pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway and noticed clean waist to chest high waves, and not a breath of wind.  Not epic by any standard, but a perfect tonic for what ailed me.  I surfed for a few hours and made my way back into town.  I spent the next few days surfing around Malibu like a kid, enthusiastic and with nothing to do but surf, and nowhere to be but in the water.  The waves weren’t big, but conditions were perfect, 75 degrees, no wind. On my last day some girl friends of mine wanted to hang out at the beach.  I figured I’d take them to Surfrider for the iconic malibu experience. I planned on just hanging out on the beach, the legendary crowd at First Point being a bit much for my taste,  but thanks to a bad surf report on  the internet, the hordes stayed at home (mostly), and it was waist high, clean, and not (insanely) crowded.  I couldn’t resist, and paddled out.  I staked out my old  spot which was just wide of the pack hoping for the set to swing wide and section off the crowd.  Turns out that with the help of a 10′3 triple stringer, the trick still works, and I had a handful of beautiful Malibu peelers taking me almost to the pilings at the pier.  This being Malibu,  I did get dropped in on, and had to pull back a few times, but that wave still has all of the magic that it ever did.  Back on the beach I watched the waves roll in, and there was nothing in my view that wouldn’t have looked right at home in 1963.  Sunset drinks and fish tacos at Duke’s and it was time to head south.I set up at San Onofre first thing the next  morning with a few friends who called in sick to work that day.  Once again, the weather gods were on our side, and again the surf was fun and clean.  We spent all day alternately surfing and BBQ’ing.  We ran into some old friends, and made a few new ones, continuing the vibe begun at a gas station in Arizona 6 days prior.  As darkness approached, I headed south to La Jolla for the last few days of my trip.  My luck finally cracked as the wind came onshore destroying the small surf everywhere around San Diego.  So I surfed my beach cruiser around, visiting my old haunts, having beers with old ghosts, and checking the surf, knowing full well there would be nothing to ride, and not caring in the slightest.There was a time where if it wasn’t overhead, or if it was blown out, I would be frustrated, hostile at my own disappointment, vowing to give up surfing in favor of ant farming, which surely wouldn’t let me down as the ocean had, only to return repentant and prayerful that the waves would return. Whereas this week,  I  surfed a VW van through the desert, I surfed a longboard at Malibu, and a hot dog at SanO as well as  a bicycle through San Diego, and every ride was clean.  The trip started as the last act of a desperate man in the parched desert looking for a fix, but  finished as rediscovery of the true nature of surfing, the beautiful Zen simplicity of life as the ride, and you as the surfboard.  If you’re really lucky, you can add the beach, a few friends, and a few waves.
Jeremy DeConcini March 2009
