Hello Undisclosed Recipient…
It’s 10:30AM and I’m acting casual in the S gate waiting area of SeaTac…Beyond casual…Chillin’…
The Airporter ride up to SeaTac was uneventful, if not downright boring… Except for loading the van…This was the first time the driver of the Airporter carried this big of a surfboard…He tried to cram it in diagonally across the read doors of the Sprinter…NOT…Next he muscled it up and slid it rail up along the widows…Any straps or tie-downs…Nah, just raise the headrests…”By the way, Tall White Man, you sit under it, in case it moves…Wouldn’t be good to have 60+# of padded wood surfy board breaking the necks of the other passengers of the van, now would it”…My thinking, exactly… We picked up more folks in Lacey (lovely town, you must visit there sometime) and Puyallup (say that fast five times)…
We got to the airport around 9:15AM and thank your lucky stars, the KLM / Northwest counter was on the same level (no escalators…!!!...) as the drop off zone…At the Check in counter there was no one in front of me, so I waltzed on up and proceeded to check in…
The check in went like buttah…Touch screen wizardry got my boarding passes to me as quick as a cricket on a hot skillet…Next, the angels who help with baggage made life heavenly…Two checked bags signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours…
Finally, the source of my light night’s sleep – The Surfboard…All 106.625” of it (in the bag)…Yes, all 63.75# of it…Sitting there on the terrazzo looking like a baggage handlers invitation to work out some frustrations…All shiny and web strapped, with the “who are you kidding fragile stickers” slapped on all sides, and edges…There it was, on the floor alone, ripe with reasons to deny…Barred...Do not pass go, do not collect “access allowed” …
I had some confusion with how this all was going to work…My flight was booked via an Azores travel agent, on KLM…KLM is partners with Northwest…On the confirmation notice it says: KLM – Operated by Northwest…What does that mean…???...The obvious or just code for, we have you completely at our mercy…
The Northwest web site says that “Northwest accepts surfing equipment….not as free luggage…subject to extra charges…at Northwest’s discretion…”…Bend over and grab the soap…It also states: ”Surfing equipment is defined as…no longer than 109”…”…Whew, mine is only 106.625”…Ok, but how deep do my pockets need to be to guarantee my board gets on the plane…???...”Trans-Atlantic travel fee: $150 each way…”…OUCH…
So the week before the departure I prep the board: cotton bag over the board, custom Styrofoam fin protection, pipe insulation over the rails, AND a piece of ¼” plywood covering BOTH the bottom and top…All of that slid into a padded, wheeled board bag…I also got my wetsuit in there, as well as the frame parts for three boards, and my 4th Gear Flyer air mat…Tape it up, strap it tight, slap a dozen orange FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE stickers and there she is, sitting on the living room floor, waiting ...
I decided last night to go on the web and be sure that it would fly…This time I went to the KLM site…A bit different story there…They say that surfboards are “no longer than 80”…”…Get the saw out…And “if you dare to bring a longer board, better have $350 to $400 to have the privilege of our trained gorillas play catch the greased watermelon…”…EACH WAY…Gulp…That’s why I slept light…Visions of dollars flying from my open wallet was like counting sheep…
Back to reality at the ticket counter, the ladies in front of me are busy at there the computer screen trying to understand “Company Policy”…I had my Northwest definitions print out in hand like a farewell hanky…
Lady number one is reading “trans-Atlantic…surfboard…109”…$150...”…YESSS…!!!
Life just got lighter…On top of that, the ladies say now would be a good time to sign up for their frequent flier program and get credit for the roughly halfway to the moon and back mileage I’m about to rack up…YESSS…!!!...Do they serve Tang on these flights…???...
After that, it was change the cash for Monopoly money, get a Starbucks, take off the boots, remove the laptop and welcome to the other side, where I sit…Just chillin’…
Next Stop…Amsterdam…
P
Sorry, no pictures this time…
Hello again Undisclosed Recipient…
It’s now 9:30AM on the 17th in Amsterdam and I’m easing into the Life European in the bar/café/lounge area of this ‘looks like every other international airport I’ve ever seen’…Piano jazz floats down from the ceiling, in that cool neo-European way…Most people here are very white and very tall…The women all look they should be named Heidi or Barbie, something like that…That’s the local folks, the people that work here look like they came off of planes from around the world and never found an exit door…Someone gave ‘em uniforms and that’s just how it is…Definitely a diverse working class…Seattle would be proud…
The flight from SeaTac, over Canada, Greenland and all that other wasteland below, was as smooth of a flight as any I’ve been on…Also, there were no snotty, crying kids on board, kicking the back of the seats…There were no dangerously infected “spreaders” with a persistent hacking coughs or sneezing germs in the self contained test tubes that modern day airplanes are…Unlike Ireland last year, maybe I’ll stay healthy…
Seated next to me in the 18- J window seat, was a twenty-something lawyer who was named Heidi…She didn’t look like a Heidi, more like a Susan or a Megan…She is an assistant to an 89 year old Washington State Superior Court Judge…89…!!!...And Judge’s hubby is 90 something…!!!...What, are they so stretched out on their credit cards that she NEEDS to work…Time to bring in some fresh blood if you ask me…But you didn’t…But anyway…
So Heidi is going to Stockholm, Sweden (is there another?) for an Amnesty International conference…Her area of special interest has something to do with Columbia and helping people who need help…Yeah, that specific…Heidi was proud that somehow AI was able to shift $20K from the Columbia military budget to “The People In Need”…If my math is correct on this, (you double check this, ok) if twenty of the people going to the conference all came from the United States, where air fare to Stockholm is something close to $1,000 round trip, and those people instead of flying in a high carbon footprint, speed up the changing of the climate, fly though the heart of the ozone layer, aeroplane, and instead teleconferenced, then they could have DONATED what they would have spent to get there and could have matched what they got the Gov to do…And saved the planet to boot…Or am I missing something…???...I must…Seems way too simple…
Heidi had a huge stack of ultra-brite-white-low-post-consumer-recycled-papers with her and was jotting notes and working on her laptop about all this Amnesty justice stuff… Cool…Me, I was kicking it with an orange juice and mini-pretzels and watching the headrest in front of me…Goodfellas…Yeah boy, in-yer-face-this-is-how-it-really-is, Goodfellas…Martin Scorcese’s finest…As I’m watching it, whenever something really “important” happens, like when Harvey Keitel grabs that 17” butcher’s knife from his coat and does what he does to whoever was in the trunk of that car, over and over, and over and over, I let out a barley audibly, but definitely audibly “Justice!!!”…I’m that way…I get emotional…It was a moving scene… It happened a few more times…When Deniro smashes the “more bad” guy with a shovel…” Justice!!!” … It’s such a classic movie… When Ray Liota goes over the top psycho on the “not as nice” guy in the bar…”Justice!!!”… Heidi twisted her chin my way whenever I did it…Sorry…I’m just thinking we have different definitions of what that word means, if I read her right… I might have an old dictionary…
We ate…The “meals” were what prisoners should get…The bag the pretzels came in weighed more than the pretzels that were in them…I know the airlines are trying to save fuel by reducing the weight they have to carry, but this is ridiculous…The “Main Course” would make the most committed Weight Watcher ask for thirds, then fourths…Ridiculous…The food weighed slightly more that the plastic ware…”Breakfast” was an omelet between a muffin…It was the size of an Oreo…I AM NOT KIDDING…An Oreo…!!!...Regular size, not double stuffed…
One last thing I don’t understand about the planes…Why do we have to know that the outside temperature is -45 degrees and fluctuating to -65…???...In case some one wants to let in a little fresh air, the flight attendant can courteously point to those incredibly low numbers and say “sorry, it’s more chilly out there than it looks”… With a smile of course…Or do they think that we might want to strap on a parachute and escape near a mountain to get some REAL FOOD and the idea of instantly tuning solid will keep us in…???...They must think we are stupid…Maybe we are…???...
Holland (Amsterdam is in Holland, right) is really Flat…Green…Lots of water…I can dig all that…
Next stop – Lisboa (that’s Lisbon, for you who aren’t fluent in Portuguese)…
Paul – Now totally drenched in piano jazz…
Me again... 7:00 PM Thursday... I'm now sitting in my room in Tarik's apartment...A fourth floor view across to the biggest private park in Lisbon...It's the grounds of a private art museum...Very green, looks like Seattle, including the rain...Real rain, not drizzle...Not too cool, feels nice... My flight from Amsterdam to Lisbon was one I mostly slept through...I needed that...My bags were one of the first off the carousel, and my board bag took me around the baggage area a couple of times until I found it...No damage to anything at all...!!!...I had my doubts... I moved my stuff through to what I thought would be Customs, but they quit around 3PM and went home...???...I don't understand that at all...Tarik was right there and we moved my stuff to his little car and headed out from the airport...The drivers here get their moneys worth out of their horns...Within a dozen minutes we were at his place, a non-descript 60's era seven or eight story cube...Nice inside...Yoga artifacts and stuff like that enhance the mood...Incense too...Smells velvety... Tarik is great...Energetic, focused and balanced...Admirable for a 33 year old (oops, my age is showing)... More on him and other stuff later, I'm tired, rambling and want a nap... Tomorrow I take pictures… Over and out... Paul
Howdy UR…
I’m back from my 11.75 hour ramble around Lisbon today…Took a lot of pictures, am showered, and am currently sitting in a yellow bean bag chair with my legs relaxing on a lime green one…I have a bottle of water on the floor and a loaf of sourdough on my lap…Classical guitar (music that I bought from the artist today) is playing though the laptop…Setting established, let’s get caught up…
Day 3 – Around the edges of Lisbon…
Before I drop into yesterday, a few pictures of my trip so far…
60+ # in the board bag, 30# in each of the check-ins...
At Tarik’s place…There are businesses on the ground floor…This place sells Amazon Women starter kits…It’s a Portuguese thing…
Yesterday Tarik, his son Arjuna and I cruised around the province and sourced our tools and materials…Quite a bit of car time, and I vow to never try to take a decent picture from a moving car…But we stopped a few times and this is what was going on…
Six to eight feet with ferocious onshore winds…Not even worth considering…
The one guy is holding onto his hat, cause it would fly, fly away…These guys were making the best of it with…
this…How this thing didn’t flip and crash in that wind defies every law of physics…I checked…
Beach shower, so very Euro…All that’s missing is the German’s in Speedos…Ewwww…
Arjuna, 4 years old, holding his skateboard gives the Chuck Yeager symbol (thumbs up) for ready to roll…And he did…Bombed this hill, yes it’s a hill, all the way to the door…I was impressed…
At the lumber yards you can buy a tree sliced like a ham, well maybe thicker…Portugal got wood…
That was yesterday…
Today, Day 5 – Lisboa, as they say it in Lisboa…You probably would put an N where the A is…They would forgive you, maybe…Wars have started over less…
Like I said at the top, today was my day to explore Lisbon / oa…I got down the elevator and hit the pavers at 8AM…
The pavers, 2x2x2 blocks of marble…That is all you will find for sidewalks…Concrete sidewalks simply do not exist here…
Architectural splendor…Tarik’s apartment…My room is in the middle with the two doors slightly open…This my friends, is the way it is in Lisboa…Very few houses but 2,000,000 apartments…Maybe some people own them but the concept is the same…
Down the street, they have the security system ready for intruders…
A few blocks away is this…A pattern you see all over the place…A lot in the pavers, black and white…No one really out around this time of day, somewhat surprising…
Here are some of the pavers in one of a thousand patterns…2x2x2 stones…
The roof of the arboretum…Wood slats…
One of many parks with water features…
This building was built for some faraway, a long time ago expo…Rebuilt here…The blue panel is the traditional tile panel that Portugal is known for…You knew about it, right…???....
Each tile is hand painted, then fired…
After a half dozen decades they look like this…Still, not bad art…
I think I sat next to this guy on the plane from Amsterdam…Freaky…
Identify what this is and win a cup of reflecting pond water…Sorry, I’m not giving any hints…
One of the many tower statues in roundabouts…
Lisbon has a lot of buildings in close to fall down condition…This one is braced to delay the inevitable…
Not paint….
You try it…They are just little stones…
Another temporary fix…
Breakfast…
Lisbon reminds me a lot of San Francisco…Lots of hills and here’s one version of their cable cars…
Another brace job…
Think of how long it took to do this…Measured in bruised fingers…
A long time ago…
Shadows…
A hillside park on a quiet morning…
Dark clods all day long…Really unsettled weather…
Modern security…
Just about every street you’d see something like this…
I like cities with a few broken teeth…
Just how empty are these streets…???...
If you had a calculator you could tell me the real temperature, not this scientific stuff…
Are you Lisbon fashion eyeware savvy…???... Now you are...Time to get hip…
Pond and pavers…2x2x2…
Keeps the cars out…
Beautiful marble in front of a few stores…
Between breakfast and lunch is this place…
Just an unhurried Saturday in coastal Lisbon…
Down on the waterfront looking up…This stuff is all new since the 1740’s if you call that new, they do…Lisbon had a monster earthquake then and 40,000 died in the jolt, fires and massive tidal ware…I was told that the Richter scale started then…Might as well be true…
Today was pretty spectacular if you were in the right place at the right time…If not, it wasn’t…
Paint ain’t gonna fix that…
Eight hours a day…Five days a week…160 hours a month…1920 hours a year…Thirty year career, 57,600 hours…One pair of boots…Sixty right shoulder pad replacements…A life well spent…
I believe it, I have a big brother…
Another prop job…In the States it would be art…
Hmmm…???...
I like this place…
This is real…
What is hip…???...
Grunge Festival – Long Live Kurt Cobain…You rock HARD, Lisboa…
The color is Orange…
The color is light Turquoise…
The color is Yellow…
One street’s house numbers…
Fixer-uppers abound…
This one is NOT on the market…
Smile…
I was tossing .01 Euro coins in hopes of…
Super cool, super fast ferry cat…The ultimate surf boat…
Carved marble…
This sounded so cool…LOUD…Think Brazil…
Seeds & Stems…
You had to see it…They all got in…
Every street…
Oranges growing wild…
Not fancy and waxed over…
Not the kind of place you’d want to skate down…
Ah yes, the Santa on the ladder, reminds me of France…The Portuguese version of leaving the lights up all year…
Typical road, once you get off the main boulevard…
Poor man’s version of barbed wire…Broken glass set in mortar atop a wall…Kept me from climbing over…
How much evidence would the policia need…
So…???...
Oh…!!!...
No…
Boom…
Wish I sold roof tile…
Cannon wheel…
You do the math…
Just your typical castle in Lisbon, yawn…
I like this picture…
Hurl....
That was Lisbon today…
I promise to not make these things so big, but the day was full…
I warned you…
Paul
4 – Sintra
Hello again Undisclosed Recipient…
After my walk and exploration of Lisboa yesterday, a more relaxed day was planned…We all got caught up on “stuff” in the morning, then we got in the subcompact four door and headed north…
We were heading to Sintra…Once the summer residence of the kings of Portugal, this is still where the wealthy Lisboetas (I looked that one up so you don’t have to) come to escape the city…
But first we wanted to check the surf…
But first, on the beach road we came upon these mudaholics…Not the smartest that Portugal has…We stopped and watched them try to get this quad that they thought was stuck, un-stuck…
They tried “three against the machine” several times with the machine winning…Next, Rico UpTheHillAlready (common Portuguese sur-name) tie a strap to Joa I’mKneeDeepInMud’s (once a popular name, but now falling out of favor) steed and tried to pull him out…Rico must not have a first gear, cause as you see above his tires were a-spinnin’…Snapped the strap like grandmama’s yarn…Next, using the now significantly shorter strap, tied it off and tried to tow again…Rico must practice burn-out’s cause that’s what he did once more…He’s good at ‘em…One more try of “three against the machine” and they all were hands on hips…Tarik, patient man that he is, waited for his moment of clarity, then approached them with some wise words in Portuguese that roughly translate this way: ”Hey fools, back the pig up to the road, and get a flying start at it”…There were accompanying gestures that defy translation…Larry Moe and Curly (the English equivalent names) looked at each their shrugged their shoulders and rolled Bessie on back…Much to everyone’s delight, Tarik’s suggestion was a roaring, and I do mean roaring, success…We too rolled on…
Tarik saw something and in a NASCAR ready fashion, pulled to the side of the road with me thinking “huhhh…???...” Tarik had spotted a tree with fruit, his son’s favorite fruit…Soon we were all with the windows down mouthing and seed spitting what was left after eating this plum like fruit…Smaller, with similar yet unique taste, hard to describe but good…
Finally at the beach…Still windy with the surf totally unrideable…But the sun was out and there were other things to do…
Like bust some Ollies…!!!... Arjuna lands one…after another…Four years old…Busting Ollies…Look at him, totally in control, like getting ready to drop into Sunset Beach, which I’ll predict he does before he’s six…A natural, but first he has to learn to swim…Mom says so…
Not willing to let junior show him up, Tarik steals his kid’s board and gets ready to drop in on a big one…Me, I’m trying see what doesn’t say ‘fish’…
Lucky for me there was plenty…Isa (Tarik’s wife) ordered for me…Brazilian beef, potatoes, rice, fried potatoes, broccoli, and barbeque beans…I though I was getting one piece of meat…Guess who was pleasantly surprised…As good as it looks, but even better than that…By a factor of pi… Pi, not pie…Which we didn’t have here, we had something even better later…Tarik and Isa had some absolutely disgusting octopus / squid half-breed sea monster on a plate…Funny, they seemed to really enjoy it…If only they knew how good a steak can be…Tarik said he only eats what he can see himself harvesting or killing…Made me feel bad…Briefly…Then onto the next steak…
After our mid day meal we were back to the beach…Was there any questions about the wind…???...
Truly a beautiful setting…This place gets really good rivermouth beachbreak surf, but not today…
On the road to Sintra… This bridge is the driveway to an equally old home…Obviously has stood the test of time…
One of many truly spectacular residences…
Same place, different corner…
Same place…Tarik who is one smart guy (beyond the solving of the quad dilemma) says that one guy built this…Took him forty years…Call me skeptical…I could have done it in three…Weather permitting…
Wandering up the road was this place…Typical of the non-mansions…Savor this picture there is a lot here…
Same place…Typical tile inlay on the wall…Portugal, I like it here…
Fairy tale palaces…
Just how La-Tee-Da perfect is this…???...All that’s missing is little Olivia in pigtails and bright colorful dress coming down to greet Mama with a wooden bucket full of beer…Well maybe not beer…How about goat’s milk…???...Yuck…But you get the idea…Nice place…
This reminds me of our trip to France…Mont St.Michel…Almost a carbon copy…Cobblestones, steep, twisty, shops on the sides, American tourists…Almost identical…
Next month it will be Y’s…It’s a slow process to learn the alphabet here…It’s what it says in my AAA guide book…
Window trim on the National Palace…I can’t do that, yet…
Yer typical story book bring out the faireies and elves kinda place…Where’s the Starbucks…???...
I’m speechless on this one…
Waaaay up on the hill is another castle…My feeling is seen one, seen ‘em all…Just a bunch of stacked up rocks right…???... How hard is that…???...Get some buddies over, buy some beer and pizza, bata-bing-bata-boom, done…Move in Princess…Just give me the remote…
What deranged kind of person could wear THIS…???...
Me…
This really warmed my heart and brought me back a few years…Dad’s and kids…Some things never change…Nor should they…
Seen Fargo…???...
I can’t even try to explain this…
Here’s your basic, “transfer all the body’s blood to the head” spin the put him down and watch him walk…This was good for about twenty seven minutes of fun…My sides were hurting…Good thing kid’s bruises heal as fast as they do,right…???...
Finally (It’s late and I’m tired) we stopped at this centuries old watering hole ((the water is amazing…!!!...)) and filled our bottles up and left the Sintra and went back to reality
Over and out, for now…
Paul…
Moving out of town tomorrow to set up for the workshop next weekend…I’m not sure about the web connectivity there, but I’ll still be doing my thing…You’ll see…
5 –Lisboa
Today we are loading up the wagon and hitching up to a burro then vamoose to the South…But before we say sayonara to Lisbon, I wanted to show you where I stayed…I put an exterior shot on the first Lisbon e-mail…That spectacular form of architecture known as “concrete squared”…
From the inside, it looked like this…Here’s “my special place”…Futon on the floor (super comfortable) a couple of citrus colored bean bag chairs (Tarik is a vegetarian, thus no cow colored furniture), a folding stool of no importance, a clothes drying rack with a couple of squash colored towels (see vegetarian reference above), an authentic wood chair, and a glass table, that was my desk…Beyond, are the sliding glass doors that look over a street and the museum’s park across the street…
The kitchen looking a lot like kitchens everywhere…
This is the yoga studio…Tarik teaches a morning class and Isa teaches an evening class…They are doing better than well, in a lot of ways…
This is Isa…Showing off both her pedicure and regular flossing, all within a foot of each other…I think she is working towards flossing in this position, and it seems she’s getting close…
Tarik and Isa... No strings attached…In India where they spend about four months of the year…Looks easy, eh…???...They can hold these poses for HOURS….
Tarik here on a Portuguese reef break…Cool carve…They say we should get conditions like this Thursday and Friday…!!!...
The sun was out strong in the morning and I shot these from the fourth floor window…Shadows reveal more than you can see from just one perspective…
An older, rounder couple, loose years with their shadows…Revealing of more…???...Possibly…
Coming to a county fair photo contest near you…
We had lunch (veggies and veggies), loaded the car and were on our way to a simpler life…
Next stop: Vila Nova de Milfontes…
6a – Milafontes
After a few hours on the super smooth and fully modern Portugal freeway, we turned away from the 21st century, and stepped back in time…
We wound our way on the older coast road, passing by small viages and beaches… The surf was still to wind influences to ride, but was less extreme than the days prior…The coast reminds me of the San Simeon area of Central California…Sandy cove, rocky points, grassy plateaus…And very undeveloped by West Coast of the USA standards… Like you were in 1928, not 2008…
W arrived at our whitewashed masonry “house” just before sunset, unloaded, cooked (veggies and veggies), ate, talked then went to bed…I have a room on the north side, Tarik and his son on the south side, with center room between being the kitchen and a modern bathroom next to that…I’ll get pictures before I go…The picture above is looking out my window through the fogging up glass, to a moon rising over the clouds…
Damn roosters…!!!...I thought this place was supposed to be quiet…Might as well greet the morning…The East facing wall…Far window Tarik’s, near window, mine…Remnant marble pation…
The outside storage room, with nature taking over the roof…
This is where the How To workshop will be held…Very “Morning of the Earth” (surf movie reference to all you hodads)…Very MOE, be sure…
But life isn’t all rustico all the time…Walk in espresso bar…Two large plasma TVs on the wall…Ultra hip décor, groovy jazz, but the real reason for coming here, HOT chocolate croissant ( The Portuguese pastries are SOOOO much better than what I had in France, not even close, not even), espresso, and real orange juice…Cost 2 Euro…!!!... Food here is cheap and plentiful and GOOD…!!!...Did I mention, I love Portugal…????...
Guess who has new spurs…???...Senior policiman…Don’t check my Portuguese on that one…
Street scene…Every corner, every village, south west Portugal…Seen it once seen it a million times…Just like that…
Ok…My real reason to be here is to teach a How To workshop…To do that I need to have big wood cut thinner…In the past I’ve always done that myself, but here again there is no table saw to use…Tarik knows a guy, heck he knows everyone, who has a cabinet shop who can do it for us…Here Tarik is explaining what we need cut…
Meanwhile Torres, squares up a hinge mortise, old school all the way…Ignore that state of the art, variable speed, torque controlled, solid state, double insulated, edge guided high speed router on the workbench…It’s to keep his cut list from flying away…
I’ve seen a lot of good work…This isn’t that… Yup, you guessed it…GREAT work…Pegged mortises…This is art…And I don’t throw out compliments like that often…
Here inside a building built about seventy years ago, is a combination old schook new tech, shop…Check out the table saw…It’s new and huge…
Our wood should be ready to pick up tomorrow…
Onward to meet Phillip…He owns the local surf school…He like everyone else speaks great English, with a Euro accent…Here Phillip, Tarik and Anjourno stand next to one of Phillips Paulwonia trees… It’s ayear old and grows fast…It’s slightly heavier than Balsa, but a lot stroger…In five or six years this will become a surfboards…
Across from Phillips place is this “open space”…Mostly pine trees…
Phillip and Tarik keep their eyes open for Agave…The fast growing stalk of some cactus…It’s similar to balsa and in that stack is enough “wood” to make a couple surfboards…Tarik is holding in that container a Paulwonia start…
Protect Nature (with a Labrador Retriever)…
Jeff this is for you…Phillip’s RIB…I asked if he surfs out of it ands says “There ees no need. We can drive to our surf and there ees no croud”…I believe him…It’s his fishing boat…
Witness before you one of thee first surfboards made in Portugal…Yeah, it’s a relatively new thing here…Phillip traded two new boards for this…It’s that iconic to him…
Back on the road to the building supply store…Here is the common masonry unit...EVERYTHING is built with these…
After being in town, we went back to the farmhouse we are staying and doing the workshop to build some things and have lunch…A few hours of stuff…Contrary to what you might believe, I’m not taking pictures all the time, it might just seem that way…
After lunch in the kitchen with Tarik and Anjurna, I took an orange, an organic orange, outside and went to a small concrete patio off by itself in a field, near the house…There was a comfortable folding arm chair out there...The sun was out, with small puffy clouds in the sky…The wheat in the field surrounding the patio is knee high at lowest, and still green…
I sat down and peeled the orange…Tight skin, but underneath the orange wasn’t weepy…It was perfect…It split perfect, without collapsing…I put a slice in my mouth not knowing what to expect, sometimes organic isn’t all that great…This one was perfect…
That one slice delighted my taste buds for over a minute, and I’m not one known to hesitate when it comes to food…I closed my eyes and had another slice…Once my vision turned off, the taste of the orange was even sharper, not bitter, but more intense… Perfect…
My eyes stayed closed as the sun , to my back, warmed me slowly…Tee shirt weather, maybe time for shorts, but not yet…As I ate each slice, I slowed down…Becoming an element of the place…After ten minutes, the orange was finished…I still had my eyes closed…
Now that my taste was satisfied, my attention was drawn to the sounds of the place…Directly behind me, still in the whitewashed farmhouse, Tarik and his son were talking and laughing…Outside the most prominent of what I could hear were the roosters over my right shoulder, a hundred or so yards away,…They were talking to some more roosters more off of my right shoulder, straight out if I lifter my arm to my side…Those roosters were half as loud…Maybe a quarter mile away…On the left, much further away and higher and to my rear, in the trees, were doves “cooing”…Much quieter than the roosters, it took an ignoring of the roosters to isolate the sound of the doves…A steady pulsating, always on sound, filtered as the wind blew the sound in pulses, at times away from me…Coming from all sides was the very soft rustling of the wind through the wheat…And the trees…That ebbing and flowing sound, not constant but moving as the wind lays down the fuzzy wheat tops in broad swaths, release it as it passes and move along…Definitely not an un-moving sound…Like the wind on the water making waves, the wind was making waves on the wheat, and I didn’t need to see it to “see” it…
Still with my eyes closed, warmed more to perfection, with my taste and ears filled, I turned my attention to the feel of it all on my skin and the fabric moving on my skin in the soft warm breeze…I was aware of the steady warmth of the sun, but what I was more aware of was the movement of the air over my skin…Each gentle half gust moved around me with a varied pressure…My light tee shirt flagged softly, massaging my upper arms and side where it was loose…A warm breeze moving fabric warmed by the sun…My hair was pushed around similar as the wheat surrounding me…Never in a steady direction, more of an always from behind but a bit to the left then the right, whatever…Random…
As I sat there now more relaxed than I’ve almost ever been, I was aware again of the doves in the distance, cooing…That was my last conscious awareness before drifting off pre-dream of birds flying in the sun…
I was out there for maybe half an hour before Tarik’s voice enters my consciousness with “Meditation time?”…To which I re-entered reality and said as I’ve said a thousand times… “Life is good”…
If a picture is worth a thousand words, I hope in the previous 641, I just showed you one of my favorites…Before I hang it up, to revisit again often, on the back I’ll write the title: “Savoring The Orange”…
Heading south again, Anjurno goes Don Corleone on the phone…”Leesten, eef you eva want to see yur skatebrdo uhgain, you need to geev me yur escooter”…
Concrete mixer by Mercedes Benz…
Down many dirt roads, fishtailing though every turn (Tarik is insane behind the wheel, pray for me), we finally we arrive at Daniel Costa’s surfboard factory…
Dan in his shaping bay with an egg, cut out, ready to turn the rails…
Dan has the whole process down, including excellent color work…
Reflecting what goes on above…
The tools for laying down the curves…
Phillip, who we met with earlier came by…This land is where his grandmother and grandfather lived…Before roads…Living on what the land gave, and selling what was extra…
The walls are rammed earth…A wood form was built, a mixture of earth, maybe straw was mixed with water and pour in the forms, and as it dried was compacted to compress the mixture…Left to dry the walls became solid…This area was where the pigs were kept, open without the protection of a roof, or the water repelling whitewash that the house got…
State of the art , circa 1890, south west coastal Portugal oven…Imagine the smell of the bread that came out of here on a daily basis…Made from the wheat of the fields around the house…
Inside the farm house…Reeds from the banks of the nearest river are the ceiling…
Nature always wins; we just try to deny it as long as it’s comfortable…
Grandpapa is gone, and grandmamma has moved from here, but a rich life was once lived here in ways most of us can’t imagine in the busyness of our own lives…You could just “feel” it here inside and out…
They made their own wine of course…
A piece of cork, which will not burn, and a bottle are the candle holders hung from the rafters…Not the small plants budding from the cork…
Looking towards the river, cork, pine, oak and eucalyptus trees…As unchanged as the time when the grandparents were newlyweds…
Phillip explains the numbers on the trees…That is a cork tree…The bark from a cork tree is harvested from the tree from the ground to the just beyond the first set of branches… The first time a tree is harvested , that cork is the lightest and is best used once it is ground up and processed into things like roll cork for bulletin boards or cork tiles for flooring…They wait about seven years between harvests and the every cutting after that first one is more valuable…It is denser and is what is used in wine bottles…The #3 on the tree is the year it was last harvested…Or maybe what he told me was made up, and he is a die-hard Dale Earnhardt fan trying to conceal his passion…
Harvested cork…The cork is cut with a machete, by a specialist…Cut too far and you damage the tree…Obvious in the picture is the flattened cork…All that is older, more valuable cork…The piece on top still curled up is a piece of first harvest cork… It is much lighter than it looks…
The land also is used to grow sheep…
The sheep eed to exercise so the keeper of the flock comes by and opens the pen and has them run a bit…If they just stay inactive the meat develops a bitter taste…If they move around it is sweet…You can’t tell from the picture but the sheep are stampeding…And with each one with a bell on it’s neck made for a wonderful sound…Think Foghat (very obscure musical reference)…
Here is Bruno, the man who tends the sheep…Not much for talking…
Bruno is throwing rocks at the sheep to keep them moving…
On the lad are non native eucalyptus…Grown and harvested for their pulp to make paper…The big stump was cut a few years ago and new trees are emerging…
Bruno also makes fences from the smaller eucalyptus branches…
A set of fresh fences are ready to be installed…
There are also cattle on the land…This is the Portugal I was expecting to see…
Each cow has a bell around its neck also…The birds are storks maybe…There are stork nests everywhere…It seems that each cow has a stork or two always around it…Must be more to that story…
Bread…
Tarik has been around the world...And as a vegetarian has pretty sensitive taste buds…This place has the best bread in the world…Off a main road, down a long hard sand driveway…This place was busy…Car after car would do the loop to but the bread…1.50 Euro for a loaf the size of a soccer ball…We went back and had bread and butter and cut tomatoes and shredded carrots for dinner…Ahhhh, the simple life…
A warm evening, with the earth rolling away from the sun…
Each night here we have a fire outside…A nice tradition to end the day…
End of 6- Milfontes
7– Milfontes
Morning back at the farmhouse…
Time to check the surf…
But first, we eat and coffee…
Did I mention I liked it here…???...
After a short drive down a series of hard sand roads, we were at the beach…
I haven’t seen iceplant since California…
The surf was three feet, kind of soft and calling our names…We suited up and hit it…I first went to the south side of the beach and surfed a few waves off the rocks, the paddled over to Tarik, straight out …The sand is soft, the water is Channel Islands clear, and the water temp was no booties, maybe a spring suit, kind of day…Tarik and I traded boards and got our surf Jones off…Much needed…
Southwest Portugal on an everyday kind of day…
Heading back to town…
A century plant – Agave… This stalk will probably end up in someone’s surfboard…
Back to the carpenter shop to pick up the wood that we left yesterday… It turned out perfecyo…
Back to uol Daddy Ranch…Things hanging to dry in the sun…Progress being made on the workshop space…Life is good…
So let’s have some friends over and barbeque…Phillip brought his cooking pot…A cast iron pot that he puts the coals from the fire in…Over that inside a wire basket were the local pork ribs that he turned frequently…
A makeshift table and a lamp from inside the farm house, keep things civilized…
Beans and carrots, rice, barbeque pork… Later Tarik brought out the sliced tomatos and Phillip opened a bottle of red wine…
These guys all spoke accented but very good English…The common language here…With us was Stephan (in red) from France, who also spoke English well… We hung out around the fire talking surf, travel, boards, women, kids, photography, food, all the important things in life…I’ve never felt so quickly included as a friend as these guys all made me feel…
Tomorrow the surf is predicted to get good…
Over and out…
8 – Plan B
Another day dawns (love that cliché), with hope and promise (sorry, I just couldn’t resist)… One week in Portugal, and this place is exceeding my expectations…
The surf was expected to be good today, so even though the workshop is starting tomorrow and we still have a lot to do, a check of the waves is in order…(Sidenote: As I’m writing this stuff, I’m mentally doing it with a Euro/ English accent…You’d likely call it a French accent…This happens to when I go to Europe and hang weeth the locals and they speeak Angleesh…Eeet ees just that way…)
So this is the surf check…The Breakwater…A bomb left and suicide right…
Over there is a reef set-up…Tarik, Dan and Bruno c