Alaska, Mexico, and everywhere in between.

Over the weekend we followed our friends south, past Puerta Vallarta and stopped at a little seaside town called Boca. We loaded all of our stuff plus us into a blue boat called a "ponga" and a drove away. Our destination, Yelapa, a small layed-back village with only a couple hundred people. We got out of the boat right on to the beach. While searching for our hotel we left our boards at the beach. When we found the Oasis Hotel we checked in and put our backpacks and bags away. We decide to leave our things at the hotel and go check out the surf break, Piñadas. We took all of our boards plus the dogs Dulce and Pico. It was about a five minute ride to Piñadas and it was well worth our time. The water was clear and clean and there were barrels abounding. We jumped out of the boat and waxed up our boards. As we watched a set roll through, we knew that this was where we would spend our weekend. I put on my leash and paddled out. As I took off on my first wave I learned that the rocks though round, could be very unforgiving. After waiting through the set I paddled back out and learned how the waves work. They were fast but rewarding if you made it past the foam. After a while I tried Sommers's 5'2" and it was a lot easier than my 6'0". I caught a lot of waves but the wind came up and I got too cold. Later when the wind disappeared I went back out with Finn. He rides a 5'1" and is getting really good. Finn is my age and Sommers is ten. Kirstin and Gordie are their parents and they are both great surfers. A little bit later an offshore breeze started to make barrels. I pulled into one and got spit right out the back. Fin pulled in to some and made it out a couple times. When the tide got lower I would be taking off on a wave, I'd see rocks inches below the surface of the water. When ever that happened you'd have to pull out the back as fast as possible to avoid getting scraped across the rocks. We left Piñadas around seven. The boat ride back to Yelapa was terrible. But it would have been a lot worse if we'd had all of our boards. The owner of the restarunt at the beach had let us put our boards in his bodega if we bought some food at his restaurant. Well, we had no problem with that because his food was amazing, the best quesadillas, fish, tacos, pancakes, and lemonade for five miles, partly because he had the only restaurant for five miles. When we got back to Yelapa we showered and walked across the lawn to the kitchen where we ate and ate and ate and ate, and ate some more. I ordered one corn on the cob and 3 plates of meatballs. After everybody finished eating we went back to the house and passed out in our boardshorts. The next day we got up early to go surfing, but little did we know the tide was too high to cross the river. That didn't stop us though. Finn, Sommers, and I found an old yellow kayak on the side of the river. Finn grabbed a long stick and I got in the kayak. Sommers hopped in the front and sat down, Finn remained standing and paddled us along like a gondolier. When we got to the other side we watched the boats drive around in the ocean. When all the boats left we paddled back to the other side with Pico swimming behind us noisily. We stashed the kayak and ran to tell everybody else about it. When the tide went down we all packed up and walked to the dock. We got to Piñadas at about eleven am. We all got off the boat rapidly. Finn and I were the first ones in the water and we stayed in for a long time. Later that day Mom, Griffin, Sommers, and I hiked through the green jungle up to a waterfall to go swimming in the cool water. There were little fish and the water was cold, but we still got in. Sommers found a spot where we could jump into the water off the slippery rocks, so we did that for a while. When it was time to leave I asked Mom if we could ride horses back down. Sommers worked out a deal with one of the guys that rented horses and we all got our own horse. The ride was bumpy and Griffin was a little nervous, but by the end Griffin was having fun. When we got the the end Sommers stood up on his white horse and I took a picture. We saw a spotted pig on the way back and we would have stopped if we didn't have Pico scaring the pig. When we got back to the beach I grabbed a board and paddled out for a short sesh. When the blue boat came, we all piled on and imagined how good the hot clean showers would feel. Luckily the tide was still low and we could cross the river. We had a little dinner and went to bed really fast. The next day we checked out of the Oasis Hotel and got on a boat to Piñadas. When we stopped at Piñadas everybody got out except for Dad and Gordie. They went back to Bocas to get our tents that we had left in the car. On that day it was rainy and windy and the surf was mostly blown out. While we weren't eating quesadillas and sipping lemonades we were exploring the town. Later, it got really stormy and everybody went back to the warm dry tents except for Mom, Dad, and I. We kept walking through the drenching rain and watched as the streets began to flood. When we got back to the tents we all got in bed and read, and read, and read, until we fell sound asleep. The next day we got on a green boat, in the rain and went back to Bocas. We packed everything into the damp cars and started driving home. While driving through Puerta Vallarta the roads flooded with brown water and we ended up driving through a foot of water until we got to the highway. When we got home we unpacked our stuff, took hot showers, and went to dinner with some other friends. About halfway through dinner it started pouring. Luckily we had driven the golf cart, which provided some cover on the way home. When we got to the house I went straight to bed and fell asleep with Pico.

Here is a link to a video I made about the trip:http://youtu.be/VLhimTDMmxo