The year is 1979. A year of gas shortages, Americans held hostage in Iran, and runaway inflation. 24-year-old Cris Gunnison lives in Santa Monica, is single and surfs every chance she gets. Cris will lose her apartment because she can't afford to buy it when her building converts to condos. Her life will be upended. Through happenstance, she falls in with three other surfers, all male, and they make a surfing trip to Oregon with hopes of finding less crowded waves. Which they do. Will Cris pull up sticks and leave Santa Monica for an unknown life in Oregon? How will she earn a living? How will she resists the pleas of her mother to return to Providence, Rhode Island, and most importantly, what about the boyfriend, Vince the actuary, she left in L.A.?