After finishing up at work, I started my 5 week break between work and the first day of classes at Stanford. It sounds like a bigger break than it is. One week for organizing my life, one week of vacation, two weeks of travel, and a week to settle in at school. I’m now almost two weeks into it, and it’s definitely been pretty busy so far. The first week (last week), as I mentioned, I spent getting my life in order. I ran a final few rounds of errands, said a bunch of goodbyes, and tried desperately to avoid all the packing, most of which is finally done. I also found two opportunities to go kiteboarding, which was awesome. The big breakthrough was getting up on the board and riding. It took a number of tries and wipe outs, but I figured it out and do it consistently now.

Since Saturday, I’ve been on a week’s beach vacation with my family. It’s been a great one so far. For the first half of it, my uncle, aunt, and cousins were up visiting. My grandfather and grandmother were with us for two nights as well… Mehlman fiesta! Early in the week, we had some great weather and big surf (as Hurricane Bill passed by offshore). I was out body surfing and boogie boarding in probably some of the biggest and strongest waves I’ve ever encountered. It made me wish I had a surf board handy. None of the surf shops were renting because of the liability concerns.

The best part so far though was getting to see all three of my cousins go boogie boarding. For my six year old cousin (and maybe the other two as well), it was his first time ever. Pretty awesome to watch. Another highlight was a beach bonfire on my cousins’ last night. Otherwise, it was really nice to spend a few days with everyone before heading out to California.  I’m supposed to see them again for Thanksgiving – hopefully that works out.

On Wednesday, I got a fantastic shot of mid-teen SW winds for most of the day. I spent a bunch of time launching off our beach in the morning and did a ~2 mile downwinder from the end of the beach to our house in the afternoon. It was my first time out in the open ocean on a board. Kind of terrifying/exciting. Now that I can waterstart consistently and proficiently, the next thing to learn is how to transition properly. Transitioning is changing directions, kind of like tacking in a sailboat. Right now I end up tea bagging almost every time, which is when you stop, dunk into the water, and then change directions. I’ll have to work on that out in San Francisco.

Meantime, riding in one direction is pretty cool. You really end up going pretty fast when the wind is right. One of the next big steps will be purchasing newer gear. The first time around I bought everything with its possible destruction in mind. As a result, I ended up with some pretty bad beginners gear – a thin board and a sluggish and temperamental kite. When I get out to the west coast, I’m going to look and see what the gear availability is like. I’ll need at least two kites this time around and a new board for sure. An important factor will be the wind conditions there, in terms of the prevailing directions, average speeds, etc.

Now we’re down to just my family for the last few days. It’ll be nice to relax for a bit and then head back. We got really lucky with great weather this week. It’s sandwiched right between two hurricanes – Bill the first weekend and Danny the second.

On Monday, I start my road trip out to Cali, baaay-beeeee. I just finalized the details of the trip with Pat, my friend who’s coming along for the ride. Next post will cover the itinerary…