Carleigh and I picked up Fuzz at Crisis then we met Nate and Derek at 303 in Denver to do a little business. We drove down to 14th & Arapahoe area. We parked and accidentally found this alley with some fun stuff in it (the little ticket building had been removed so it was a weird tall manny pad). Nate wallied up on it good. Derek nose mannie and 180 nose mannied it. Fuzz ollie up and almost manualled. I didn’t even front rock it. Then we went up to the new ledges that are everwhere on 14th, but not on google maps yet. Nate skated the curved one in the corner so we didn’t see him much. Derek did some steezy kickflips, halfcab flips and would ride on the narrow curb then pop up to the ledge. I think he got front tail and front 5-0, maybe a nose manual too. Fuzz, Carleigh and I were trying kickflip then noseslide (bs for carleigh, f/s for Fuzz and I). Fuzz and I were not doing so good with the kickflips. Fuzz actually slammed pretty hard quite a few times. My arthritis was kind of kicking in my ankles. Carleigh was throwing down kickflips so good, she backed one of them up with and epic noseslide to full body layout holding onto the ledge or something trying not to fall. It was hilarious. I eventually gave up on that line as I didn’t want to keep bailing kickflips. I would try no comply 180 or front 180 then f/s halfcab flip, front nose to fakie. I was sucking at no complies though. Derek was doing that trick too good I think he drained the area of all no complies. Ha. Anyways, I got a line of front 180, f/s halfcab flip, front nose to fakie (with a nice hand on the ledge landing) then b/s halfcab flip. Cool. Fuzz gave himself a five count, but couldn’t put it down. The Denver fireworks started going off so we made a dash to watch them, but they were done before we could get to a good view. So we skated fast away from the crowds which was really fun. We ended up here. Carleigh chilled. Fuzz had heart issues again and had to walk it out. I got a little line of front 180 up 2, sw 180 on flat, boardslide a bench through the stopper, then ollie the four stair. It felt neat. Especially the little powerslide at the end to avoid a pole. Nate and Derek were ripping. Firecracker the four to front boards on a curved ledge. I eventually filmed Derek get a sick little line of firecracker, nose manny then nollie bigspin. It’s fun downtown street skating footage. Got me hyped on the Null video again. Fun night.

Had a great day. Woke up early, went to a movie with Liz (Moonrise Kingdom super good) while the kids when to a different movie (Brave). Then got paid $30 to test drive a Lincoln luxury mobile because of some promotion they were having at the mall by the theater. Cool that paid for lunch! Then napped in the 100 degree heat awhile, did some ballet with India (sometimes you gotta make sacrifices being a dad and it seems super good for the legs so why not?), a short bike ride with India (to look at skate spots ha), some basketball with Ollie then I biked over to the mall because I had seen a ledge earlier in the day that looked fun. I biked around the mall a bit looking for what I’d want to skate first. I’ve never skated the mall before and was kinda weirded out what people would think and how quickly security would probably show up. I started at some little downhill sidewalk that would get me moving fast enough that by the end a powerslide was a tiny bit scary. The first section of sidewalk was level then it dropped into the hill. I manualled the first section, then went for a line of nose manual 180, sw 180 then powerslides. The speed for the sw 180 was scary, I never got it.

Then I found this ledge. It took me a bit to get a boardslide pop out, but when I did I followed it up with a little run to the opposing downhill sidewalk and did a slow kickflip off a little kicker then had a fun powerslide or two.

Then I went to the ledge I had saw earlier. It was darker then I hoped, but still skateable. The run up for b/s was kind of non-existent unless you ollie up the curb, but I was trying to stay hidden so everything backside was one little push. I ended up getting quite a few tricks total. Most were horrible. The roundedness of the ledge made it harder to lock into grinds then I would have thought. Front 50, front 5-0, back noseslide fakie, back crooks, kick back 50 (super duper bad), back 50, front 180 fakie f/s 50 f/s halfcab out, front tailslide and almost a front tail shove out but I saw security pull up so I just pushed off all fast and decided it was time to head home anyway. Oh yeah I had the new Henry Clay People album up pretty loud on my headphones. That album rules.

Yes! Another hot day. Was kinda slacking and should have got Ollie out to the basketball court like he wanted earlier. But got a call from Carleigh saying the bus would be at my house in minutes. Gabe and Lazer were in town. The crew was large. We started off at Rock Creek. The crew was Jake, Brian, Neil, Gabe, Lazer, Carleigh and me. I was so hyped to skate with everyone. Rock Creek was a fun start. I skated it decent for me. Brian was killing it. No new tricks I saw, but then again his bag is like 100 deep and I think he hit most of them. There was lots of smiles going on. Jake was ripping as usual. After awhile Jake and I started a game of SKATE. Oh yeah, I had a new board and new shoes.

Es Edgars and another 8.125 Null board. So yeah, back to the game of SKATE. It was going. I bashed my knee really bad on a heelflip attempt and had to sit awhile and then we left anyway. First stop was the all new Wheatridge water fountain. I say water fountain because they just recently sodded around the park and they have sprinklers running 24/7 and they run into the skatepark. What city plants grass this time of year in Colorado? Especially when there are fires everywhere? Oh well. I pretty much had zero motivation to skate while at this park. This was due to the water messing up lots of fun stuff and crowds. But TF rules it and I managed a few dumb things, boardslide on the tight qp/ledge thing above the a frame, f/s feeble grinds on the super small qp, lots of posing including a poser ollie down the double set as we were leaving I should have done. Carleigh and Gabe did lots of booger slides down banks. Gabe also did some rock variations on the tight a frame qp. Brian and Jake did a bunch of tricks on the weird qp on top of the bank as did Lazer. Neil had some nice lines as he always does. Brian did a blunt to fakie on the tight a frame qp. It was ridiculous. The running water/puddles got pretty old quick.

So we went to big Arvada. It was pretty crowded. I wasn’t in the zone. We skated the tiniest qp in the park for awhile. We all fell pretty hard with some funny and entertaining slams. After that Carleigh and I skated the brown hubba area kind of. She ollied onto it. I noseslid it. I was really bumming at that time. I retreated to solo Glen mode for awhile. Boardslid the manny pad then manualled the step up pad. That was fun. Bummed on how long the boardslide took though. Then gave in and skated the best obstacle there, the blue rounded flat bank. Did a few flippers on it. B/s flip, kickflip fakie, fakie flip, big flip, treflip to fakie (took forever), front shove to fakie and fakie treflip (also took a long time). I had fun doing that. After that it was borderline heat stroke, cold beer to try and cool off, a really fun bbq (thanks Brian) and then pass out immediately. I rove you Trick Factory.

Another hot day with a thunderstorm then a cool down. I met up with Dean at the slappy curb after work, a nap and some basketball with Ollie. We moved into campus right away and ended up at the good flatground area where I had my good line the other night. That wouldn’t happen again. Dean was ripping though. Halfcab a grate, kickflip, front 180. I think there was a fourth trick too. He landed more kickflips in this session then I’ve seen him land since I’ve known him. I landed a few tricks, but not a whole lot. We moved on. It was kind of sprinkling. I ollied this little thing again. Harder then it looks as the ledge is curved on top and you have to clear a crack. It took awhile. Next up was this spot. We hit this for a bit. Dean did a few tricks down the stair then proceeded to nearly noseslide the kink part of the rail. I was hyped on it! I tried too, but Dean got closest.

I tried to front 50 the ledge off the 5 stair. Took forever. I got really close, had some good slams, battled the rain then ultimately ran out of juice as I was getting too nervous. Got a good hipper from it. Dean was just chilling and shot some photos because he’s good like that. Here are the funny ones.

Mentally preparing for such a hammer.

Yeap, did this a few times seeing as how the ledge is so tall.

Next level shit.

Totally got a good hipper from that one.

I am such a pansy.

This is what happens when you try to commit to a 2mph front 50 with a drop.

This one makes me laugh. My board had rolled down the stairs as I stepped gingerly on the ledge so I jumped on it. Thanks for the photos Dean!

Fuzz arrived and we started trying manuals on the sidewalk. Between the three of us doing laps non stop for 30 minutes only Fuzz was able to manual it twice. Yikes, we’re old. Dean had a couple good slams. I landed a treflip like I was a skier. Fuzz did drop down manual up to manual. We had fun. Then we went to Black Dots.

After selling some hats at Meta I went down the hill to the slappy curb. I was pretty tired and not as fired up as the last session. I started dorking on the slappy banked curb and started feeling good. Had some troubles with slappy crooks, but landed every slappy front feebs. I started hucking a few tricks to see what would happen. Got remotely close to front blunt, but then they slid I would shoot out. Kind of did switch slappy crooks. Tried a bunch of switch front slappys and they kept going into front feeb so I went with it. Not even that many tries and I got it. Pretty hyped. I came out switch and all that. I felt like Karl Watson. But I still looked like me. I moved on. After some dorking around I ended up in front of the student center. I tried a few things on this. At first I just wanted to ollie on then ollie the rail. But I’m not that good and the bushed had kind of overtaken it. So then I tried to manual the first part, drop down, drop down thread the needle through the rails. Nope. Last time I couldn’t even ollie up the ledge consistently so I’m happy I was at least doing that. Lastly I ended up at the hill ledges which had been freshly sand blasted. The taller curved one still grinded though. Well, at least it did the one in ten times I could get on it. I left after a couple weak front 50s and one real weak front 5-0. That ledge is hard.

Had the early shift at work and it was 100 when I got out. So I went to sleep for awhile, woke up, got some null/four stuff done, ate dinner then watched Austyn Gillette slay the streets of LA yet again. I’ve probably watched that part 20 times now. I wanted to skate to campus, but a couple things held me back. First, I had to bring a board box to FedEx. Second, it was still 93 so I wanted to have water nearby. It didn’t matter though, I got to campus and started pushing. I had put my headphones on and went straight to gold, You’re Living All Over Me. I ended up at the Library and did a fun little line of ollie a sketchy 3 stair, push down the hill, ollie a metal grate going fast (okay I was going fast enough that it was terrifying for me so I barely tapped the tail but since I was actually moving kinda fast I would clear it) then keep going and ollie into another little hill and push down it. Got to the end of the hill that normally has a sidewalk, but due to construction I ended up almost dieing as the sidewalk turned to gravel. Ended up by the rec center and got a fun line of f/s shove out of the kicker, ollie a median, manual the median then bail a nose manual. The f/s shove took a bit, but was fun. Next up I saw some new jersey barriers near a long manny pad. I started out doing a little slash on this curb thing, try for manual then a wallride on a barrier. Never put all 3 together, but got the wallride everytime. So that would mean I couldn’t get it when I started trying a harder line; Fast ollie up a sidewalk, f/s 180 off (which was scary the first few times), halfcab flip on flat, manual, wallride. Never got the wallride. It bummed me out a bit, but I liked the line anyway. It seemed like everytime I actually landed the manual I had to weave through cars or bikers. On the way back I had fun trying nollie tres and was getting super close. Also tried kickflip up the curb, kickflip off, kickflip a manhole but ate shit when I got to the manhole. It was one of those “wow I’m skating really hard and slamming feels good” slams. I went and got some water, lurked at the new area for a bit, cracked my board on a boardslide on a bench (not bad enough to stop skating) then went and skated flatground at the art building. It started off horrible, but I got one of the best flatground lines I’ve ever done. Heelflip, treflip, b/s flip, fakie flip, f/s halfcab flip and almost a nollie tre. I guess that would be the PJ inspired part of the session. I tried a bunch of nollie tres, but never got one. Half the time I wouldn’t even snap the nose. I did get quite a few treflips though. I felt like trying some more stuff, but after kind of just looking around I headed home stoked that my body/mind felt great and I skated as hard/good as I did. Skateboarding rules. So does Dinosaur Jr, I think they get partial credit for the evening being so amazing as I went through YLAOM, Bug and Where You Been. 3 of the finest albums ever made.

Pretty tired from a late night before and lethargic from the heat I met up with Carleigh around 6pm to go skate the Rockcreek ramp. There was actually some cloud cover and it was pretty nice out. I started off sucking like no other. It took four tries to do an axle stall. Ugh. I had been in the mood for street skating so I guess I wasn’t ready for this. Carleigh pretty much did all her moves in the first few runs. Well, everything but front disasters, which is my fault because I had them for the day. After my slow start I skated decent and had fun. Almost got a Joe Hamilton (fakie 50 to rock ‘n roll). Did some more wannabe smith grinds. Had fun. Tried a bunch of kickflip f/s boardslides on the flatbar at the very end. Got remotely close, but mostly just lost a lot of griptape.

Back home on the scolding hot front range. Got a bunch of stuff done during the day then took a siesta knowing I’d be skating late. Fuzz and I turned down a Northglenn park invite because as Fuzz said, “Parks are for scooters”. Ha. We had both watched the amazing Austyn Gillette QUICK part and felt like pushing through the streets. While waiting for John we went to a parking lot near Fuzz’s and got things moving quick. Lots of boardslides on a parking block, ollies up curbs, etc. We were having a blast. It was pretty funny too, as we were skating Colorado legend Travis La walked out of a restaurant he works at and hung out awhile. John eventually showed up too. We kept skating. It’s funny that John struggles with boardslides considering all the other amazing tricks he can do. It took me awhile, but I managed a slappy crooks which really hyped me up. Halfcab boardslides went down. Fuzz’s slappy 50s and noseslides were so good.

Off we went to meet up with Meta at a loading dock spot. Meta kids were going off so us three old men played a game of SKATE for awhile. It didn’t go so good. Fuzz had a heart palputation, my feet stopped working and we lost interest. After awhile we went exploring. We saw a crazy bump that Dompierre busted a huge tailslide on a window sill out of. Ridiculous, completely ridiculous. Then some dudes at a warehouse told us to come check out their miniramp. What? Ha, it was in a loading dock hole and too dark to skate, but we saw their board press and stuff. Pretty random to say the least.

I was trying some stuff on the other side by myself mostly. Ollie up the little curb, front 180 over a pallet, f/s halfcab flip. Tried a few rick flips, not even close. I got a couple ollies over the pallet up the loading dock which was fun for me, actually going kind of fast. Then I skated this door wallride thing with Jack and John for awhile. We all did the basic wallrides which was really fun. John and Jack did soft rocks. Jack did a wallride to manual. I got a f/s wallride that felt great. After that John and Fuzz got in on the loading dock ledge action. I got too tired and didn’t have the will to ollie up the curb four pushes deep. It was already like 2am at that point. Sean, Josh and JJ got some cool stuff on that ledge though.

Woke up early on another sunny and hot day in Durango. Waited forever for Ollie to wake up and lost a bit of my motivation. For some reason I had been craving skating the six foot qp all morning waiting for Ollie to be ready. We stopped at the Board Haux to show them Four/Null and they were super hyped on both, even bought some boards. Sick! The park was almost empty. Luckily no parents yelling at kids or razor scooters. After some basic carving around for warm up I actually started skating ok. I got a little line of f/s ollie over a nipple bump, manualled the long section and then back 50 on the qp. I also got a line of switch boardslide to regs on a parking block, noseslide down the hubba (came out early though) then ride over the pyramid, pump to fakie the big qp to setup and get a fakie bigflip over the hip. Ollie cheered for that one so I guess it must have been ok. Ollie was cruising around, mostly just joking, but still skating. He had some little 180s (the hard way) on the hips, early grab cannon ball airs over the nipples including a switch one and the gnarliest trick he did was manual up, over and down a nipple. I seriously have no idea how he did it. He wasn’t even going fast. So I sucked it up on the qp after that. This always happens to me. Anytime I think of something I want to skate I can’t do anything on it. Since I had been thinking about all the tricks I wanted to do on the 6 ft qp I was doomed to not land anything other than the basic back 50. I tried hyping myself up by doing flatground before it and even landed 3 treflips in a row at one point, but no, I could not land a front disaster and eventually had to just leave because Ollie was bored and we were supposed to go tubing down the river. Oh well, I guess the fact that I was able to land several 360 flips outweighs not being able to land a tranny trick.

This years family reunion for Liz’s family is in Durango. We arrived early so naturally I went to the park to try and get in some skating before the madness started. I had thought that park was fun years ago when I was there with Jeff and the Fremont dudes. But no, it’s not. Especially when the flow section is inhabited by by moms yelling at their kids on longboards. It was some of the worst skate coach parenting I’ve ever witnessed. The mid sized bowl is a joke of transitions. My arthritis was hurting and took away any sense of confidence I had so the big bowl was too intimidating. So I just fully dorked out on the mellow hip, went slow and hucked some tricks. To my surprise I got a fakie big flip within a couple tries. Also managed a bad b/s flip and an awkward f/s halfcab flip that took a lot of tries. There is a really good 6 foot quarterpipe lining the back wall of the park. Normally six feet is about 3 feet past my tranny trick limit, but after getting axle stall first try I wanted more. I threw a few front disasters and really wanted it, but we ended up having to go. I might skate that park again, but I’ll probably just end up skating flat somewhere instead because that park is about as motivating as the Boulder park.