Full Trip Report

I must sum up the California trip with a question: How do people live in CA and find time to work? I skated 3 awesome parks in two days. I drove to 4 parks in less than half an hour and I passed two others along the way. How could you get up and go work in such an environment?

By far the coolest park was Washington Street. It was all done by volunteer work and had the best style. The fence around it had rebar welded into outline drawings of skulls, dragons, spider webs, etc. There is obvious continuous work on the aesthetics as there are many in-work skater/punk rock mosaics going in all over the walls of the park. The laborers were cool enough to build in dog water-bowls and a barbecue grill. The surface was not as teeth chattering as one might expect for volunteers, but most of the coping seemed to be made out of concrete parking pylons set sideways to resemble pool coping. The tranny was hard and I couldn’t carve a line at all. This park would take a few serious sessions to nail just a line in - much less any serious tricks. It was fun watching the locals, tho. Some sick shit was going down I don’t think we will ever see at the terrain we skate: Ollie to column ride comes to mind first.

The YMCA – THEEEE YMCA – I was told by Jon before I left. I didn’t think I would get to hit it, but I did and it was bad-ass. The vert ramp was so damn smooth – built by Team Pain. The guys skatin it were doing every trick I saw at the Tony Hawk Skate Park Tour in Louisville, and I doubt they were even sponsored. I stuck to the pools with the other old guy that showed up Cowboy Steve. (Realtor, but he runs an Old Guy Skate camp! Perchance there is Franchise Op?) We could nail these pools with minimal time input. Lots O’ Fun!

The Biggest surprise was the skatepark right next to the hotel on Coronado Island. I didn’t even have it on my list of parks to hit. They wanted $10 to ride, but they didn’t take credit cards (cash or checks only – Two things I don’t carry on business trips). He was cool and said he would give me a member day pass rate of $5. I had three singles and $1.27 in coins. I asked where the nearest ATM was and some kid sittin on the counter just handed me a buck! I hope his kind deed will be repaid exponentially, Karmicly speaking, cuz this was my favorite park and the best ride I had in Cali. The transitions were awesome on both the bowls. This would be a very fun park and could be wired in a few hours.

I know you’re jealous and I sure ain’t whining, but it definitely would have been more fun with you 'Cretins in tow. I skated in a most genteel manner as I didn’t feel like anybody would really have my back in case of accident. (Also, I was trying to imagine how I would explain NOT making to the meeting they paid for me to be out there for because I feel on a skateboard.) So many parks...so little time.

When I grow up I wanna skate like (and as often) as people in California