b a l a n c e

29 July 2003 back

There's our 3 man, 1 dog, cramped Honda crew from the recently completed South East Summer Tour. From left to right, Wasatch, Joe P. (yours truly), Andy aka "Fish", and Greg Russo. The picture was taken by Jesse Davis, a ripper from the outer banks who shared in some of our fun and collaborated on a little slide show with Rob Nelson at eastcoastaholic.com. The trip was all about colossal terrain and epic sessions for the team and all of the tribes we visited. We're still wringing out our tshirts and airing out our pads. Here are some HIGH lights.
July 6th	Rendez-vous point was the Polish Hill bowl in Pittsburgh, PA. Four vehicles were in our caravan as we rolled out for Skatopia with Mike "37" Myers, Ben Shannon, Andrew Wozniak, Jesse Davis, Greg, Andy, Wasatch, and me. Kill session in the new concrete kidney, followed by dinner, and another sesh in the epcot bean, which is still very high on our list of favorites. We roosted for Louisville in the middle of the night 'cause Mike and Ben were on a tight schedule and although Dan Rea was muy hospitable, he's no substitute for Brewce, who's in the Basque country 'til the 30th. Andrew rolled back to Pgh with skatelite scraps for the bowl and Jesse stayed put since it was his first time there.
July 7th-10th	First rides in the "Extreme Park" around 5am, fresh from the highways. We piled in to a cheap hotel room defying the "NO PETS" sign and proceded to blow it out, barbecue on the porch, dog in the bed, lurking and loafing in the AC between late-night sessions. When the hotel staff discovered the wook we moved across the street to an even better cheap hotel that happened to have an empty swimming pool. The kind lady at the front desk gave us the green light and even told me "there's a phone out there in case you need to dial 9-1-1." She also voiced her concern about Wasatch's well being, running amid the exposed plumbing on the deck. The pool was fun even though the deep end was just as tight as the shallow end with plenty of vert. The park is as amazing as it looks though, get a vert dog speed line and you're feeling fine. We fed off each others' energy, putting the hammer down, and Ben came away with the MVP award for the first leg of the trip, blasting airs, standing on gnarly grinds, and shooting the concrete curl in the fullpipe. He and Mike returned to Pittsburgh on the 9th to tend to their offspring, Jesse escaped the pull of Meigs County and showed up at our hotel for a pool sesh. Russo, Andy, Wasatch, and I did our thing at the park and then drove straight to Jacksonville, Florida. We stopped in Atlanta and made the call for some pools but the most we could pull off was reading skate mags and drinking coffee at a Barnes and Noble. We passed out on Suede's porch to be devoured by mosquitoes. His baby daughter is cute as hell and the varieties of lizards and frogs in his backyard amazed me.
July 11th-13th	John is a Vietnam vet in a wheelchair who lets people ride his empty right hand kidney in exchange for a can or two of Busch. That and his hearty laugh make a fella smile. We waited out some rain, pumped out the water, cleared out the frogs, then Buck Smith, his wife Kris, and a handful of Jax locals showed us the grind lines. More rain put us indoors for a while at the SkateLab, a fun mini wooden bowl. Then pizza, wings, and beer among friends old and new, what could be better? Suede drove us down to Oviedo, a suburb of Orlando, for the grand opening of a Team Pain built skatepark. (His and Lindsay's van was a nice break from the Honda). Looking through the fence I spotted hips, pockets, pool blocks, vert, even the banks on the street course looked fun and challenging. Then on top of all that, there's a fully enclosed bowl, another kidney, complete with tiles, blocks, and a deathbox. (The block over the box is painted red so even people like Trout will know not to drop in on it). Tim Payne rented a coach bus to bring a crew of rippers for the opening demo/ceremony. We got to ride with Tim Johnson, his lady Jen, Buck, and even Smitty showed up. He's someone I looked up to when I was fourteen, he was known all over the South Shore of Mass when I started skating. We've exchanged emails for the past few years and he hooked up the screenprinting of the Balance tshirts. The mid-day cement was so hot it felt like my feet were on fire but we had a ball. Drew and Lance and the rest of the crew were boycotting the opening since they were led to believe it would be a public park but it became pay to play when they finished. That's all right 'cause we got to see ol' Drewbie out at the property that afternoon. Since I recently saw the killer documentary "20 to Life" I've been anxious to see my old friends Greg and Candy Hiler at their vert ramp in the swamp. The ramp is wider than it was when I last skated it plus it has an extension and there's a smaller ramp angled off to the side for transfers. The property hosts this crazy fiberglass parabolic hot wheels track left over from the 70s and they're in the midst of an incredible construction effort for the biggest clover I've ever seen. Instead of digging down, Drew and the crew are building up! It's gonna be sick. The rain drowned our chances to ride but at least we got to see Greg, Troy, Pat, and his daughter. No gators were spotted but there were grasshoppers as big as my arm.
July 14th-16th	After dealing with one of my standard procedure brain farts, "um Lindsay, remember the last time I came to Florida, two years ago, I left my wallet in your van and you had to mail it to me?" "Yeah" "I did it again." So once we retrieved my wallet we drove up to Charleston, South Cackilack where Hank, Wags, and Crazy Joe were trying to dry the bowl for us. Talk about Southern hospitality. I'd say the bowl is better right now than it's ever been, including when it was an indoor park. Pool coping around the whole 10 and 2 deep end, skatelite everywhere it needs to be, and Hank remodeled the bottom half of the hip that used to throw you since the deep end got deeper. Our crew skated the best that we ever have in that thing, just completely amped on the bowl, on the scene, it was on. Wagner is RIPPING! Something like 50 trick runs, face high airs, working the hips, smacking his trucks down, and wearing the paint right off his skateboard. Mark G and Otis, now known as Orange Park Mark, were throwing down too. Mark G's got the sick sweeper over the hip into the deep to crailslide on the facewall. Otis has the floaty ollies, frontside, backside, in the deep, over the hip, and how often do you see frontside air to tail. Inspiring. Part I: photos. Part II: photos & words. Back.

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