Category Archives: roadtrippin

Weekend Mountain Adventure with Jack

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I was at work on Friday feeling particularly antsy. I chatted with Jack and we decided to just drive straight to the mountains as soon as I got out of work – and we did. I just ran home, packed the sleeping bag, sleeping pads, blanket, tent, some clothes and other essentials, my board and was on the road. The only place I’ve actually successfully camped in the mountains is Winter Park and since we were a little pressed on time to find a camp site before dark, I just drove straight there.

Well, actually, we did take one mini stop when we rolled around a cool looking ditch somewhere after Berthound Pass on the way down towards Winter Park…

(I didn’t get any good photos cause I started filming once Jack got serious. Ha)

At that point it started to rain a little so it was time to book it down to Winter Park and get set up. We found a perfect little spot right by a little creek and claimed it immediately. Once the tent was up, we realized how beautiful the sunset was… warranting a mini photo session…

Then we took a quick trip into to town to eat some dinner at a Mexican restaurant and check out a few potential street spots for another trip.

Jack as a tourist

Then it was back to our camp site for “tent time” (it had been raining and the fire ban was still in effect so it wasn’t a campfire type night). We just drank beers, played cards and listened to music until it was time to crash.

I took some absolutely terrible, mostly completely out of photos on my cell phone in the tent..

Saturday morning we chilled for a bit and had a breakfast beer by the creek. We were just so stoked to be up in the mountains away feeling pretty awesome about our little creek spot…

And then we eventually made our way into town to eat at the best breakfast place ever.

The waitstaff was a little stressed and overwhelmed though, and we later found out that the Winter Park Music Fest was going on that day. We still managed to enjoy our breakfast/lunch sandwiches and coffee while being slightly entertained/weirded out by the people at the tables around us. One table had a special looking girl dressed in the strangest colorful outfit picking out baby names, while the crew at the table on the other side of us were a bunch of snotty assholes with slightly unrecognizable accents. When the waitress asked them how they were doing, one guy responded “Hungover and thirsty.” And not in a funny, joking way. Real nice. Ha.

When we finally made our way to the Winter Park skate park we realized that the Winter Park Music Fest was literally at the park. It was SO hectic. Crappy classic rock cover bands were rocking out with lots of RDAs and a million little kids all over the park. It was a perfect recipe for a complete skate park meltdown, but Jack and I ended up having such a blast. We took turns filming each other getting tricks, and I admit I’m really stoked on the two tricks I successfully filmed… and the other one I tried forever without a real ride away.

Once we finally finished up at the park, we started heading north and scoping spots along the way. We were heading up towards the hot springs, but stopping, creeping and lurking in most every town we encountered on the way. We checked out these spots because of random turn I took so that I wouldn’t have a cop right behind me while driving through north on 40…

We also pulled over in one town and while spot lurking we found a backyard with a horse shoe pit. We were all set to take a pit stop and play some horse shoes in a random person’s backyard until we discovered they were smart enough to avoid situations with people just as intruding as us by keeping their horse shoes elsewhere. Oh well. While leaving I spotted these signs:

(Clayton is a family name – my mom’s maiden name, on of my brother’s first name, and my middle name. So yea!)

One town had an adorable “snap-together” type skate park but we instead went to the little kicker-type spot across the street:


When I took the above tre flip photo I remember thinking it was a good photo – now seeing it on a computer I realize that really wasn’t a great angle. Ahh well. After this shot I put down my camera and picked up Jack’s to start doing a little filming. Fun, fun!

And finally, this is how the session ended…

Luckily Jack had left his last board (which was in surprisingly good shape) in the trunk of my car a little while back, so he just set that up and we were good to keep skating on our mountain adventure.

Once we finally made it to the hot springs, after dropping into an adorable thrift store so Jack could buy a $2 bathing suit, we decided it looked way too snotty family resort-ish atmosphere. So we came to the conclusion that the adventure up there was cool enough and so we headed back down to Winter Park. We managed to arrive just as the music fest was wrapping up – in fact, right when Bret Michaels had finished his closing act. Despite the fact that we were thoroughly devastated that we missed such a legend, we were stoked to be in line at the local sandwich shop with some real-life Bret Michaels groupies that were gushing over their amazing experience with him. Ha! I still can’t believe neither of us got photos of these women. Such a disappointment, second only to missing Bret himself. Hahahah.

We took the sandwiches and a case of beer back to the camp site, brought the chairs down to the creek and chilled by the water.

After the sun set the sky was full of stars – a perfect night for just hanging outside. And Jack saw a shooting star! I’m a little jealous that I missed it, but stoked that he saw one. Another awesome night far away from the suffocating heat of Boulder… just cold mountain air, the sound of the creek, and drinking beers. I love camping.

Sunday morning we woke up early, packed all of our shit and set out on our way south and then west to Edwards. We stopped for just a moment at Berthound Pass:

After the quick stop we battled the traffic on 70 going west and made it to Edwards park:

The park there is awesome, but so hot and blinding in the sun! Jack and I stuck to skating the step up pretty much the whole time… besides Jack doing some other cool stuff. I kept getting super frustrated (sorry Jack) but managed to get the tricks I promised – pop shuv, kickflip, front shuv, and heelflip – so it was an ultimate success. We were both hot and tired so we made a trip down to the river/creek right by the park to cool off and drink a couple beers.

Okay so there might be a lot of photos of Jack just chillin in the creek, but here’s a couple more cause I was playing around with the different filters on my cell phone camera…

(depth of field filter)

(country filter)

(either the sepia filter or monochrome filter – can’t remember which)

Our next mission was to Leadville – searching for the full pipe. We ended up being unsuccessfully in that particular mission and ultimately basically running out of time to continue looking… BUT we still had a fucking epic adventure on the drive to and from Leadville. ColoRADo is so amazingly beautiful and there was plenty of cool stuff to check out. And with a little more guidance we’ll find that full pipe another day!

Here’s some pics from the drive to Leadville…

(I like my shadow in this one)

We found one crusty little spot in Leadville that Jack decided to film a trick at:

Once we finally started our trek back to Boulder, we came across something while leaving Leadville that piqued our interest in terms of possibly being the full pipe – it wasn’t – but made for a fun little last mission on our adventure weekend…

And that’s pretty much it! Even though I had been chanting about pizza for the last 24 hours, we were both stoked on grabbing some Chipotle (one of the few places open in Silverthorne when we passed through) and Jack even ran into a friend of his who was working there. The rest of the drive became a serious challenge as we started getting super tired and the multiple detours and issues with my stupid gps that has a mind of its own sent us on the most ridiculous path home… but we made it back to Boulder around 11 and that was that. So awesome! I love living in Colorado and love the access to such amazing beauty in the mountains… and awesome parks. I must admit, this weekend made me feel pretty damn lucky.

Final days in SF. Part 4 of The epic Cali roadtrip 2012.

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On Tuesday we met up with the Crisis kiddos that happened to be in SF while we were there. We picked them up at DLX, brought them to Eagle Donuts for some delicious breakfast sandwiches and then headed out to Treasure Island. Our first spot was the “skate park” there…

The Crisis kiddos…Justin, Blaine and Keenan

Keenan was feeling super sick and it showed. (Little did Jack and I know at the time that we were about to catch the same cold and feel just as shitty a few days later.)

Jack started working on a pretty epic ollie…

From there we moved on to some other Treasure Island locations…

We finally decided it was time to get back on the Bay Bridge and head back into SF. The kids had never been to 3rd and army before, so after a quick stop to say whats up to Freddy and Rob at the LowCard/Strange Bird headquarters, we made our way to there…

The kids had to catch a bus back to where they were staying so we dropped them off and said goodbye. Jack had dislocated his toe at this point and wasn’t too stoked on skating any more. I had talked to Freddy about skating a mini ramp in Daly City, so we drove out there (going the wrong way at first), but by the time we got there Freddy had left. Since Jack wasn’t into skating we just went to In-N-Out instead and then back to Oakland. More chillin, drinkin, and relaxin.

The next day was our last full day in town. We had some missions in the city and then met up with Reed and Yabo at DLX for a full day of adventure. We headed out to wine country to skate an awesome park that had grills and allowed you to drink beer out in the open. So that’s what we did all day… skated, grilled and drank. And shot ice cubes from Reed’s slingshot. I took it easy cause I was driving, but the boys polished off the 30 rack and got some tall cans on the way home I believe. Very entertaining, to say the least. We headed back into the city probably around 11pm or after to drop off Reed and Yabo. Being our last night, we kicked in the city just chillin for awhile longer and made one final trip to our new favorite pizza place (where I seriously watched Jack consume at least a half a cup worth of Sriracha  on his pizza slice). Then it was back to Oakland for even more late night chillin on our very last night in town.

The morning came painfully early – we were supposed to meet the LowCard/BloodWizard/Heavy tour at 8am in SF. Luckily they agreed to meet us on Treasure Island, and by about 9am, we were off on an epic roadtrip with at least 18 dudes and over 400 beers. The only last pictures I took were on a quick stop on the side of the road in Nevada…

The rest of the trip was awesome. (minus the fact the jack got really sick :( that was a bummer!) We did get to camp with the crew, skate some parks, and then say whats up to Matt in Cheyenne on the home stretch.

Overall amazing trip. Jack – you fucking killed it. Seriously, I can’t imagine a more fun adventure and more awesome person to travel with. Thank you so much a million times over.

Super big thanks to Gordo and Sandy, Freddy, Rob, all the Heavy and Blood Wizard dudes, Reed, Yabo, the Crisis kids, Jaxon, and anyone else I’m forgetting!

If you haven’t already, you NEED to check out Jack’s rendition of this adventure on his super awesome blog.

Weekend tours with Gordon. Part 3 of The epic Cali roadtrip 2012.

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Gordon ended up taking the weekend off from work to act as our “skate tourguide”. Pretty damn rad. We started Saturday in the Oakland area, since I had to be back to shower, change and head to an engagement party mid-afternoon. The first few spots he took us to were just for sight-seeing, although we did say we would come back to a particular double set – we went back though.

So our first real spot of the day was one called “redwall” that both Jack and I were excited to check out.  This spot:

Jack warming up

hurricane

Gordo street-skating!

and he was killing it.

After this spot, we motored back to Gordon’s place. The dudes hung out and watched skate vids while I got ready for the party. I left them to head about 20 minutes east to Molly’s engagement party.

the ladies at the party

McGill crew: me, Shayda, Molly and Alia

It was SO awesome to see everyone. I’m usually lucky enough to get to see Molly and Shayda whenever I make it out to SF, but I hadn’t seen Alia since 2004! It’s been so long I almost can’t believe it. After the party wound down and I was filled with delicious finger food and desserts, I made my way back to Oakland. Sandy had a friend over and we all drank and watched a sweet and ridiculous Natural Koncepts video (I realized I had never seen one before – damn have I been missing out).  Eventually it was time to crash. One more day down.

On Sunday, Gordon picked back where he left off in terms of tour-guiding us around. Our first stop was on Treasure Island, which is the only exit along the Bay Bridge. Gordon showed us three spots, which are most likely the only three spots on the whole island. This was one of them:

I don’t know if you can see, but in the photo above on the pole there’s an Alena sticker. That was a skate shop in Montreal waaay back when I lived there, although at that time I had heard it was gonna close and just be an online shop. Not sure what happened in the end, but it was cool to see the sticker.

After checking out spots on Treasure Island, we moved on through the city of San Francisco to a sandwich/salad/cafe type place in Sunset for some food. Out next stop was this spot:

Even with the new fence in the middle, Jack still found a way to shred…So rad. The photo cred goes to Gordon, because I was busy learning how to film.

And then off to Baker’s Beach!

While I was busy admiring the view, Jack got to work…

At this point Jack started getting me prepped to film so Gordon took over with my camera…

Geez Gordon – thanks for the amazing Golden Gate Bridge shot. So beautiful.

From there we moved on yet another famous spot that I have never seen in person… Wallenberg. When we showed up we had no intention of actually skating here, but there was a little hucking that went down…

Jack surprised both Gordon and I when he kept rolling up faster and faster and faster until he finally just started jumping. Each time he kicked out, but by the last attempt he definitely cleared it. So crazy. Sorry for the crappiness of the pictures…

Jack ended up deciding that if he wanted to be able to skate at all for the rest of the trip it was time to call it quits. Then I ollied the bottom part (2-stair I suppose) with Gordon and then decided to try to kickflip it. After about an hour or so and approximately 100 attempts and a few lands, partial roll-aways and many many slams, it was time to call it quits. At first I admit I was bummed, but then we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge on the way home and ate at a Mac-n-Cheese restaurant for dinner. That and a bunch of beers, as well as coming home to these partying ladies……made up for it. Fun times. We watched more random skate videos, drank more beers and crashed. Woo. Thanks so much Gordon, you are a fabulous skate tour guide!

Sightseeing, skating and such. Part 2 of The epic Cali roadtrip 2012.

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Well, we made it! Thursday morning, Jack and I woke up in Oakland to the smell of freshly brewed coffee and breakfast sausage cooking. Jack opted for sleeping a little longer while I had an awesome breakfast with Gordon and Sandy. The first destination for the day was to Gordo’s Plaid Again Warehouse…

Gordon built a ramp in the back of the warehouse. So much fun. It got really hot really fast back there, but it was awesome to skate.

After our little session, it was time for our much-awaiting trip to In-N-Out.

I think I had been talking about In-N-Out ever since we hit Nevada two days earlier. I was so stoked…

… and I think everyone else was stoked. Ha.

Energized by such delicious fast food burgers and fries, we finally made it to San Francisco. Woo! First stop was at LowCard/Strange Bird Headquarters to say what’s up to Freddy and obviously had to drop by this spot…

The wind picked up while we were there so we decided to move on. A quick stop by the back manny spot where I think Jack might have snapped this photo…

… and then to check out the Icehouse gap. There were cars parked way too close, and even though we said we’d come back, we didn’t. Another time. Ha.

On the drive back to Oakland we took the first of many stops on Treasure Island. Best view of the city that I’ve seen.

Overall, even after the first day, it felt so different to be here with a car. I suddenly began to piece together the bay area. This moment was also my first glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, despite the many other trips to SF I’ve taken in the past.

Once we got back to Oakland we grabbed some tall cans and chilled on the back deck at Gordon and Sandy’s til Gordon got home. Then we made moves to Sandy’s sister’s place for an awesome taco dinner, some drinks and some random hilarious tv-watching. Back to home base, more beers, time to crash.

We had a little slower start on Friday but started the day by hitting the road into SF. This next photo was taken by Jack while I was driving around (probably lost) in SF…

…yup. Okay, anyways. We dropped by Cruz to check out the shop, drop off some Null boards and 4 mags, and say hello to Sandy. From there… Eagle Donuts! Sherri’s bagel sandwiches were better than ever and she actually remembered me. I was so blown away. After that amazing experience, we cut across town to stop by DLX and say what’s up Reed. (Fuckin Reed! So good to see this dude.)  And drop off some more 4 mags! When Terry was in the shop a few days later he even insisted on Jack and I sign the “bathroom copy”. Ha. Such a honor!

From there we skated down to the 3-up-3-down for a session. While we were there a Zumiez tour bus/van rolled up with dudes ready to skate, film, take photos, etc. I hadn’t even tried to ollie on it. And I seriously didn’t know if I was going to make it…. but after a few tries it was all good and after awhiiiiiiiile I ollied up and kickflipped down. All while some dude out of the tour bus was almost landing front feeble across the entire thing. Ha.

We trekked it back up to DLX and got advise from Reed to check out some black marble ledges (or something like that) at the top of upper Haight. We ended up going on a little stroll through a huge park instead since apparently we went the wrong way when we got there. So we just wondered around and took a ton of photos…

Yup, lots of photos. We finally found our way out of the park and headed back to DLX. There we met up with Mike KP, who I was met for the first time. Mike, Jack and I ended up at Potrero park for awhile. At first we just watched people skate and some kids play dice in the middle of the park, but then we all skated for a bit.

After the park we headed back across town towards a party Reed told us to come to. On the way we found our new favorite pizza joint on Haight and then struggled for about 20 minutes or so to find a place to park. The party was awesome. I haven’t been to a real dirty crowded house party in awhile. There was a band that played, I think, but maybe only one song. We tried to go on the roof at one point, but the girl who fell off the roof at the previous party demanded that we not go up there. Riiight, well then. Back and forth, in and out of the “smoking section”, a crowded little back entrance to the apartment with a space for people to chill wedged around the hot water heater and laundry machines, until it was time to head back to Oakland. Fun times. Besides Jack almost getting in a fight on the way back to the car (haha jk), we made it back smoothly. Once again, more beers on the back deck in Oakland and then crash time.

California Bound. Part 1 of The epic Cali roadtrip 2012.

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The adventure officially began around 6am. I had been up packing until about 2am after a fantastic bbq at Fuzz and Leslie’s. I woke up around 5am, took a shower, packed the car, mapped a route that would take me as close as possible to Jack’s house without crossing any of the Bolder Boulder path. Jack was up even later than I was and barely looked awake when he met me a few blocks from his house with all his gear for the trip. Breakfast at Moe’s bagels and then hopped in the car. Rough start on little sleep, but we were off on our adventure!

First stop was in Grand Junction. I wanted to drive through the Colorado Monument on the way out, so we somehow found it with very little help from my gps. It was our first real break from the road and photo session…

If you’ve never been to the Colorado Monument or never heard of it, it’s basically a mini Grand Canyon. I’ve never been to the actual Grand Canyon, so I still find the Monument to be pretty breathtaking. 

We saw so many lizards on our drive out. So cool. If you look carefully at the picture above, you’ll see the first one I caught on camera during this adventure.

Jack. Still looking slightly beat up from a skating/handrail incident.

Jack, looking at words in rocks. The guy in the background was extremely happy about the weather and super friendly in general.

Jack took some amazing lizard photos. And I took some mediocre photos of him taking amazing lizard photos. Teamwork.

Independence Monument. If you look closely to the picture above and the picture below, there are people climbing the monument, just about to make it to the very top. Funny, because when Jack and I first saw the giant isolated rock, one of us made a comment about how amazing it would be sit on top of it. I wasn’t sure whether climbing it would even be possible. And yet, I was actually able to watch two guys make it all the way up to the tippity top.

I started taking some photos through the lenses of my sunglasses because the shades were making everything look just a little bit more amazing than it already was. About 10% more amazing. 

Aaahh. The flat bar. We ended up hanging out at this spot for quite some time, waiting for each set of kooky tourist-types to move along, until we got a few minutes alone with the spot and the flat bar. After waiting patiently, Jack took a few tries to get a photo with a wonderfully scenic backdrop.

Jack only got a few tries before the next family of kooks arrived. This particular family was led by one possibly drunk father wearing a american flag tank top (if I remember correctly) and a cowboy hat, who charged over the rail and headed down towards the edge of the rocks with the women of the family yelling at him from behind. Yeap, time to call it quits and move on.  You win some and you loose some. And hey, we still got a decent poser photo.

After finally making it out of the Colorado Monument, we stopped for a quick bite to eat at the most common “restaurant” in the country… good ol’ Subway… and then straight to Utah. I had never been to Moab before so that was the destination for the first night of adventure. The drive down to Moab was amazing – the giant red rocks really are wild to see. Leslie was spot-on when she told me the night before that it would look like it was straight out of Looney Toons cartoon with Wiley Coyote and Road Runner.  We ended up finding an amazing campsite right on the Colorado river, giant red rocks all around us, shade (!!!!), which I was told was very important, and a relatively comfy dirt patch for the tent. After a quick trip into town, it was time for relaxation. A slightly failed dinner attempt, cards, talls cans and Jim Beam and coke, music out of Jack’s headphones, and sitting by the fire. Pretty much perfect.

When I woke up the next day, I had to do a little business in the form of a conference call. At least I multi-tasked by taking a few photos while on the phone…

Jack was also busy at work taking lizard photos. (also packing up all our stuff, taking down the campsite, etc. while I was on the phone).

We made one more trip into town to get some food, made a call to Gordon’s friend Jaxon who offered us a place for the night in Reno, and then got back on the road. We drove past Salt Lake City, past the Great Salt Lake (which I learned quite a bit about), and then finally to the Salt Flats, where we took a little break to check out this gem of the skate world.

The rest of the drive was a long one. We crossed into Nevada, where there are slots everywhere and beautiful desert scenery with weird mountain formations. The sunset just a little after we passed by Elko, NV and it was one of the most beautiful sunsets of the whole trip. After that point, though, the drive became long and tedious, and staying awake became the real challenge.

We pulled up to Reno around 1am, and met Jaxon outside of his home, right by the bar below. He was the raddest dude and his place was amazing. The bar looked super chill, equipped with an amazing patio area and cornhole, and Jaxon’s apartment was probably the nicest apartment in all of Reno. He hooked us up with a full bedroom with its bathroom – far more than we ever imagined for this roadtrip. Can’t thank him enough.

The next morning (or afternoon, I think we slept in pretty late), we watched a movie with Jaxon, and then he brought us to one of the best sandwich spots I have ever been to. So delicious.. and their sandwiches were monsterously big. From there we hopped back on the 80, heading west.

Final pit stop – Sacto for a skate break. I tried to drive downtown and ended up right at Capital Hill, where Jack took apart his incredibly beat up board and set up a new one. I considered trying to climb a tree, but gave up and took some photos.

Once Jack was set, we drove around a bit. First looking for something enticing downtown, then looking for a park, and finally settling on a random spot in an alley.

After we felt energized and so much happier from our mini skate session, we hopped back in the car to tackle the last stretch til we hit the Bay Area and made it to Gordon and Sandy’s. The roadtrip out to Cali was complete. And a complete success. More adventures to come.