Wax, Costa Rica and Mad Ramblin'

I am a wax whore - hoarding large amounts of the deliciously scented squares, putting up to 5 bars on each 9 foot board. My wax preference is Sticky Bumps - and I try not to stray from my tried and true brand. I was cursing this obsession while trying to clean up my boards yesterday, prepping them for travel. See, the weather outside was very chilly, not conducive to warming the wax on the board for an easy removal. So after battling the chilled wax for a while, a little {brilliant} voice in my head told me to bring the board inside the house, next to the woodstove. My mother wasn't so thrilled about it, but within minutes the wax was gliding off the board. Being a wax-fanatic isn't so bad afterall. Almost 2 hours later, I had two cleaned boards and a mountain of old wax (measuring about 10 inches tall, and 6 inches in diameter). Seriously - if you threw this wax ball at someone or something you could do some serious damage. What follows is what felt like days of applying basecoat and bars of tropical wax. Bars. And more bars. I like to stick to my board. You would never know that my purple board was purple upon looking at the deck -- it's pure white, caked with wax! Just the way I like it!!

I began packing my two longboards into the double travel boardbag I have. I get some serious stares walking through the airport with this thing -- it's ginormous, and I'm so....midget-like. In the case I packed 2 towels, my yoga mat, some bathingsuits, and 20 bars of tropical wax. The thought of being stranded with no wax in Costa makes me really anxious, so every time I would stop at the surf shop I would pick up a few more bars...just in case.

So here I am, sitting in my old apartment in North Jersey, about 30 minutes from the Newark airport. My landlord, who lives on the floor below, is probably shaking his head at my 10 foot boardbag that's downstairs in the middle of the aisle (we wouldn't even dream of trying to get it UP the stairs) and I'm sure I will get similar reactions tomorrow at the airport. I'm locked and loaded - ready to go. I'll be missing all of you on the East Coast, but not to worry, I'll be having enough fun for all of us combined!! hahaha. Sorry. I hope that everyone had a great Holiday -- I'll see you in March!!

"If you don't know where you are going, then you can never get lost."
-Herb Cohen