When in Rome:
On Friday, Chuck, a native Ohioan turned Californian and surfboard owner, recommended I take a private surfing lesson. This idea was too good to pass up.
Through the magic of Google I found Gerry, who’s been running the Luecadia Surf school out of his van for 14 years (http://www.leucadiasurfschool.com).
After a two hour lesson with Gerry, the 64 year old life long San Diego resident had me up on this big fat 10 foot foam board catching Waikiki style waves and in a position to rent a board for myself the next time I’m on the beach.
Gerry has the type of experience that teaches without even trying; and just an overall approach to life that you don’t encounter in the Midwest. Rock on Gerry.
Next time you’re at an ocean beach, if you hadn’t tried surfing before, like me, a surf lesson is a vacation worthy experience in and of itself.
After I got back to the Michel family home I showered and headed for San Diego’s Gas Lamp Quarter.
I spent a good chunk of time at a bar called The Local and met great people who I’ll mention in another post. From this side trip I have two more beers to dedicate:
The first, a Duckfoot IPA, goes to Ray Croxford, the father of a guy I lived with during grad school (Greg). I’ve met Ray just once, during Dad’s Weekend at OU. For as much as Greg talks about him I can tell he’s a good guy. Thanks for the beer Ray.
The second beer, a Resident Human Submarine, goes to Mark Barath, a Cleveland guy, Ohio University alum, and a future part of this trip. Mark along with a couple former roommates are going to join me on a hike to the top of Mount Whitney in June. Mount Whitney is the highest point in the Lower 48, and conveniently just off the PCT. Mark was also the inspiration for a Mt Mitchell hike earlier this year (The Peak of the East), which gave me some experience I needed to tweak my gear list.
Now at the time I thought these were the last beers of the road trip to the start of the PCT, this weekend. But when I woke up the next morning, a start date revision felt painfully obvious.
The obvious part wasn’t a hangover. The obvious part was a sprained toe.
What I hoped was a stinger when I was surfing, turned out to be full on surf toe (turf toe).
I either caught it on the surf board or on the ocean floor when I fell off. But it’s added, at least temporarily, tenderness to my step.
My first thought was to Google the time off required for a sprained toe. The consensus is 2-3 weeks of rest, ice, compression, and elevation. But one man I came across, San Diego area kiensiologist Brian Dorfman, recommends the opposite of immobilization, mobilization. His approach to Turf Toe is captured here on his site:
https://briandorfman.com/a-fix-for-turf-toe/
And when I reached out to Brian this Saturday morning via email he was kind enough to respond and even offer to set up a Sunday appointment given the circumstances.
I won’t be making a trip to his office tomorrow, but I will be taking a week off.
With this week off, I will be making lemonade.
