skate journal: campus with Nate (Nov 20, 2009)
Met Nate around sunset after work (which is like 5pm these days) at Meta. We rolled down under the bridge after Nate quickly 50d the ledge like it’s nothing. I don’t get doing downhill ledge tricks as warmups. Oh well. We ended up about 5 feet past the bridge and skated that area for awhile. We ollied the small bench gap then Nate started trying to ride into backlips on the bench. We both tried it awhile and got it. Neither of us have done backlips on a ledge before so even though we didn’t ollie in, it still felt cool. Then we ollied the big two that’s there (Nate first and mine was horrible) before doing a few slappy grinds on the slanted curb. Fun. We moved into campus and were surprised that most of it was dry.We cruised by a few other spots that either had cops or snow on them and ended up at the brick courtyard with benches. I got a few basics quick while Nate bailed the gap into the street. Normally he has that everytime. I kinda got a crooks and some front noseslides. Nate ollied a pile of now in a couple tries and I kinda ollied it in several tries. Next we ollied a weird 3 stair then moved up to the 1 – 7 curves stairs. Nate ollied down the 4 easy and I took a few. We also both manualled the downhill sidewalk and had some ollies up the smaller sections of the stairs. Before moving on I did a gap down to back 5-0 a stair down. I thought it was dumb, but Nate seemed to think it was cool.Next up we went to the Business building where Nate could not for the life of him do a side rock like Little Jack on the banked ledge. I got it kinda quick, but Nate seriously almost died like 30 times. He kept putting his board in the mud and everything. So funny. Maybe the first time ever that I’ve seen Nate have to struggle on a trick that I thought was easy. Nate rips though and after having enough he ollied and 180’d up the long 2 like it was nothing. I got an ollie up it. We tried some manuals at the two long downhill pads for a bit. Not that great then went up to the engineering building and found that somewhat had waxed up the ledge near the banked area. Impossible to describe but it was relatively easy for Nate and I to do wallie back 50s on. So fun. That was basically the night.