as promised. (sea otter photos)

alright alright alright! i am the WORST at uploading/downloading/taking pictures off the camera and posting them. i so badly want to just plug that lil' camera in, pop the USB cable into my computer, and have them magically appear without so much as a blip on my stress radar. but for some ridiculous reason, downloading photos off the camera has the potential to stress me out. it frustrates me beyond belief. and probably because i just don't do it that often.

on that note, organizing photos in general, including real hard copies (photoGRAPHS) stresses me out. i have boxes of photos i hope to organize and put into just the right frame, and i find the whole task to be so daunting that i don't even know where to begin and therefore, haven't.

it is a constant task on my perpetual to-do list in my head.

all that said, it's probably good i said, "pictures to follow" in that last blog i posted 1.5 months ago because for some reason i feel like i MUST follow through simply because i wrote it down for other eyes to read. i feel responsible. so here they are. some photos of the 2008 sea otter classic. we really did go, we went, and it was really amazing to experience another facet of the bicycle industry that we so hope to get into one day by means of our own little shop.

one enormous aspect of this trip, definitely worth noting, were the frigid temperatures. yes, this was in california. my naivety kept me from believing the northern-ish area of the state could really differ too much, by way of temperature and climate, from LA. hear me when i say, "i was wrong." i haven't been as cold as i was down there for a very, verrrry long time. i wore long underwear constantly, and in each of the photos you see i am always wearing a minimum of two pairs of pants and countless layers of shirts. did i mention we slept outside? anyways. that explains the cold weather gear we're sporting in the pics.

matt and i at laguna seca
(his grip on me is wholeheartedly affectionate, but also due, in part, to the gale force winds ready to blast us away)

ryan leach.
nicest guy, and for real trials rider.
he walked right up to us before the show with a big, silly grin on his face just to say hello and shoot the breeze.

riders from the collective's new film 'seasons'.
we attended the premier in monterey, ca. a must-see.



we had a great view of a killer spot on the downhill course.
we saw so many wrecks, and that is when the cheering was the loudest.

matty and phil-dough-licious.


so cold i didn't know what to do.
so i sat down in this patch of daisies.
they felt every bit as pokey as they looked. california daisies have weird stems.

phil was of the opinion that our fire pit needed to be tamed.

hope you enjoyed seeing a snippet of our california/sea otter adventure. hopefully you felt like you were part of our adventure. and hopefully i'll get better at uploading photos more consistently. and soon.

until next year, sea otter.