I am writing this to you at about 6am sitting at the cabinas Rancho Grande in Hermosa Beach Costa Rica. There is plenty of surf out front, but I’m in no hurry yet. We are still trying to get our bodies used to surfing again. Ribs are the most sore, and lats and shoulders competing for second, but it feels incredible! Right away we have tried to jump into our usual routine of walking the 2 miles into corners, having our surf, walking back and surfing again in the afternoon. It has left us exhausted! Thus, the reason that I haven’t written this blog yet or sent out emails. The body needs time to remember that it used to do this without even hurting. So we have been down here a week now. Getting out of Rhode Island was an interesting experience. We endured the winter and left with the spring. Just as the trees, grasses and flowers begin to have new growth so did Unyted. Shops began ordering similar designs, more shops ordered, and we met some great new sales reps to keep contacting the stores and we were off!!! We even got a return email from Pac Sun telling us they loved our stuff and asking if we had made anything else since the catalog we sent them. Cycles and seasons…. There is a season for everything. We got down here with minimal hassle. (If you don’t include missing our connection due to a mechanical delay forcing the airline to bus us to Miami from Myrtle beach and put us on a different flight that meant us getting into San Jose CR at 10:00pm. That was not so good. We didn’t want to take a taxi all the way to Hermosa, we didn’t want to have to taxi in and out of a hotel in San Jose and then get on a bus the next day, and there were no more buses running. Not to worry! The guy sitting next to us on our flight in was a project manager for a hotel development and had his lawyer buddies coming to pick us up. He even bought beers on the ride in and we all cracked beers and talked story the whole time. I may even get a painting commission to put paintings in every room plus the two bars and restaraunt attached. (He is arranging a meeting with his designer for us and we are going to show him samples of what we thought would go well and he will give us his vision. I’ll keep you posted on how that unfolds. We also met somebody staying at the Rancho who can get us into his friends surf shop no problem and wants to drive the central and Nor Cal coast and rep the line. (Very Cool) So I’d have to say things are thriving. The Boston Globe is doing on article on the art show we set up in Boston and shops that we sent catalogs to months ago and had no response are now calling us and wanting to order. We also got our first review back for our book from Midwest book review. It's pretty cool. They only review about 20% of the books submitted and it's a review librarys look into for ordersing so we are stoked. Cycles and seasons... I will end this blog with a quote I love by one of the most famous German poets. In a letter to a young poet in need of advise he said this: “ Being an artist means not reckoning or counting, but standing like the tree who does not force its sap and stands strong in the storms of winter. Unafraid that there will be no spring. - Rainer Maria Rilke
That’s all for now, we are down here for a bit of time to paint a wall mural, maybe do those paintings for that new hotel, and getting our surfing legs back. I’ll write again soon. Enjoy the photos!