Got a text in the morning from Jason asking if I was going out skating for the day. I hadn’t thought of it much as I was still in the midst of a loud birthday party for India, but as soon as I got that the answer was clear. Hit up some old guys and Dave reminded us of a slappy contest. Jake and I picked up Jason and headed to Louisville skatepark to meet Brian and Neil. Turned out it would just be Neil and he would be late so Jake and I skated for awhile. I was following Jake at one point and he rolled into a bank so I followed him. I wasn’t really paying attention to the bottom of the bank as I was looking ahead to see what Jake was hitting when SLAM! I hit a kink at the bottom and went down hard. Not only did I get my left elbow, hip, knee, wrist really hard, but my back foot came off the board so the board flipped into my nuts really hard. Ouch. I laughed it off though. A few minutes later I was trying a kickflip on a flat bank and landed primo and slammed hard again. Jake laughed pretty hard. Ha. We had fun for the few minutes we were there.

Then we headed out for the first annual slappy slalom contest. It was pretty crowded when we got there. Most of us just chilled initially. There was a rad crew of older people and some older peoples kid’s mixed in. Here’s the video.

It was really fun. We had been pretty late for the actual contest though. After awhile a launch ramp jam went down so Jake, Dave and I played slappy. I got some frontside and backside ones along with the funnest trick ever – slappy crooks. I only made it all the way down a couple times. The hill was faster then it looked. Dave got 4th place so that should tell you how much he was ripping. Neil ollied over a curb to nose manual almost the entire hill. It was ridiculous.

Then Jake, Jason and I went to a nearby little bank spot. The one that Fuzz ollies over the whole thing in a Meta video. We had a blast here. It’s basically an elevated driveway loading dock. It starts out as nothing then gets to be about a foot and a half feet tall. The sides of it are steep, the other part mellow where trucks would drive onto it. Jake has some f/s flips on the mellow part. Managed a couple ollies over the f/s hip and some bluntslides. I skated really well for myself. Almost got 180 fakie nose manual 180 out across the top. Managed some f/s ollies from steep to mellow, a back 180, b/s ollie from mellow into steep, b/s flip from steep to mellow and eventually a regular kickflip from steep to mellow. So fun. I think I felt extra motivated because Jason was watching from the car and saying funny things. Dude rules.

On the way out we drove by this and I remember it being a fun ledge I skated once before (one of my favorite days ever). This time it ruled too. Crooks went down quick for both of us. Jake did his first to fakie and Jason has always hated on those. It was hilarious to hear Jason heckle him for not going out to forward. Jake did get it to forward next try. I couldn’t get one to fakie or a shove out like Jake did, but I felt I was grinding them pretty far for me. We also both got back 50s, front 50s all the way to the ground. I also got one poorly landed f/s noseslide (for Jason), a low front 5-0 and a front 50 to back 180 when it hit the ground that was a blast. We ended with a game of SKATE into the bank. I think the techest trick was a halfcab flip. I lost. It was fun though. I bailed a lot of tricks I should have landed. Great day. Then we met up with Fuzz and Leslie and had dinner. Yum.