Join our mountain adventure

We met at a mutual friend's party the night before Gretchen moved to New Zealand. After being passing ships in the night at that first encounter, we reconnected 9 months later. Our love of New Zealand adventure and our interest in music drew us together, while our passion for the outdoors continues to let our love grow.

After Gretchen got back from a two week visit to the East Coast, Jeff had ordered the ring and planned to propose on our family trip up to the Santa Cruz Mountains for Jeff's first big trail race and our relaxation trip to Big Sur on the way back. The ring did not arrive in time to propose on the trip, but just as well. After our first night in Big Sur, we were driving way up on the top of the ridge to check out the area and blew out the tire on Jeff's truck only to find that there were no tools to change the tire. Without cell phone service and very little passing traffic, the repair took most of the day with Jeff and our friend, Crosby, hitchhiking down and finding someone with an F-150 for the tools. Gretchen and Jeff decided to bag their last night in Big Sur to go fix the tire in Morro Bay and head home early. Even though it was one of the hottest days of the Summer and Jeff could hardly walk after crushing his first trail race a few days earlier, he was insistent on hiking Gaviota Peak on that last day off. This trail is a rigorous mountain summit with full exposure overlooking the entire coastline from Gaviota back to Goleta and Santa Barbara. This was also the place where we went on our first date all those years ago. We had Koru and Mooney with us that day, and the dogs were so hot and exhausted that we had to stop every little bit to rest, and between that and Jeff's hobble, Gretchen was ready to throw in the towel and call it a day. Jeff was persistent that we must make it to the top! Finally after a long hike, we got to the top to eat our lunch. Gretchen was already sitting down of course and Jeff pulled the ring out of the backpack and tripped over and asked, "Peachy will you marry me!" He had been sure to bring a couple of Stella's to celebrate, our champagne of beers.