Jamin Jones: Begin The Endless Summer

It's said that every beginning has an ending. And every ending has a beginning. Julia and I are at the beginning of a personal quest for an endless summer. We're spending the winter of 2010/11 on Maui - we're here now, we've already had two solid weeks of wind, already purchased a ton of new gear (more on that later), and we've settled into a cute ohana slightly upland in Pukalani.

I've always wanted to do something like this - pretty much since being exposed to the original Endless Summer concept back in 1967 (yes I'm that old). The idea is simple - given enough time and money one can follow the summer around the globe. And endlessly surf and windsurf in warm weather. Now between time and money, it turns out that money isn't the hard part of the equation. It's really your time that's the limiting factor, though most people think the problem is the other way around. Because of that, most folks spend most of their time laboring away in pursuit of money. And I suspect that it's only when near the end of one's time that people realize it's more time they really want and not more money. After all, when that time comes, wouldn't you trade any money you have left for just a little more time? And lets assume you can get that time when you're young enough to enjoy it to the fullest potential. So imagine you just got that wish, and you got your time back. Now how are you going to spend it?

So that's the plan, though I have to admit I'm still working, and our travels for now will be focused on the islands. But Maui is where we really want to be, my work (software) is something I actually enjoy (moderation being the key), and this is a great place to spend the winter when windsurfing and surfing (and otherwise lounging on warm sandy beaches) is the goal. Plus it's nice to be in windsurfing central where top notch gear is so readily available. So it's all good and we're quite happy to be spending our endless summer right here.

And as our endless summer begins, I wanted to reflect on the real summer that just ended. Well first of all, it went by really fast! As usual that is - summer time in the Gorge is super busy with so much to do and so much going on. The sun doesn't set until after nine for a large part of the summer, and you tend to fill those long days with activities. The summer routine for me is to wake up, check the forecast, work, check the wind, if it's windy (most days) decide where to sail (usually the hatch), finish work, grab a bite, drive to the hatch, rig up, sail until exhausted (2-3 hours), get back to the hood and maybe do some yoga and/or grab a beer and pizza at double mountain, then back home, shower, sleep and repeat the next day. Throw in the occasional party or long bike ride, and here isn't much room for other things... such as blogging. Doing my paying job is hard enough when waking up to constant wind and awesome weather almost every day.

Life on Maui is also very nice in a different way - it's a much simpler and relaxed lifestyle. Now we're on island time here. The sun sets around 6 every day. We're in bed by nine some nights (Maui midnight). We have no TV, so once we leave the beach it's pretty much quiet time (unlike the Hood were something's going on most every night). I think this helps explain why there are so many active bloggers on Maui (see my list of blogs you should read) and so few in Hood River.

But anyway, this post is about beginnings - an endless summer, and endings - the real summer we just left. So I though I'd end this post with a mini re-cap of that summer. Beginning with some summer sailing at the Hatch...

Our friends hiked up Mt Klickitat (Adams) in July and skied down. We took this picture from our deck about the same time. There's still a few thousand feet of vertical snow left on the ground.