Monthly Archives: June 2012

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

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.