Had to break in some new shoes since my Lakai’s were dead. I had gotten some Etnies Rojo’s awhile ago from Meta. They seemed great for skating and turned out to be decent at least. My board and wheels are totally shot too, but mostly my legs were just super sore and stiff from driving from Omaha. I didn’t do much even though I tried for awhile. F/s halfcab flip was probably the only highlight. Oh and a heelflip that rotated on the ground and a really bad slam due to wheelbite. Argh. Happy to be home though.

Goose turds everywhere.

Next morning we hit the Rochester skatepark after a fine breakfast at Grandma’s Kitchen. Yum! This park didn’t exist 20 years ago.

Ollie was cruising around and ripping. There was almost no one at the park so we could do whatever. He was doing 180 flyouts both ways, manuallying the deck of the crack ridding halfpipe, 180’ing into banks, doing hippy runs over ledges and having a blast. I didn’t expect much from myself and apparently was coming down with pink eye once again (it’s a symptom of reactive arthritis) and mostly just chilled. I did front rock and front d on the qp after cruising around for a long time then skated the smallest ledge I could find for awhile. Got crooks, noseslide, noseslide to fakie, front 50, front 50 180, front 50 shove, front 5-0, couldn’t do back 50 and it started raining so we left. I was hyped to see one somewhat older person at the park, but it sure is weird when everone wears headphones. Oh well, goodbye Rochester, maybe we’ll see you again some year and maybe I’ll still be skating ..

I started skating in junior high, but it was here in 10th grade that I turned into a lifer. I lived in Rochester for 5 years. Three years of high school and two years of community college. It’s where I decided that skateboarding was the best thing ever and found Dinosaur Jr. Not a lot has chanced since then. In the midst of a long summer vacation we had an extra day so I could visit Rochester for the first time in almost 20 years (19 to be exact). After seeing my old house we hit the nearby middle school where I learned how to grind on this curb. I still remember how the day went. Solo mission in the crisp midwest autumn air. Had never done more than a few lucky grinds, but did like 20 of them and a 5-0 or two. It was easily the most stoked I had ever been.

I had totally forgotten about this wallride right at the front entrance of the school. I did a few wallrides on it, Ollie did a little wallride to fakie with just the front wheels.

Not sure if I could do frontside wallrides back then, but I could now.

Ollie’s favorite trick is the Coffin and he had fun doing it down the hill.

I don’t remember this curb being there, it was fun to boardslide through the “skate stoppers”. This spot was funner then I remember, the little hill after the ledge was fun to do tricks into. This might also just be me being delusional and excited to be skating these old spots. Not even to just be skating them, but skating them with Ollie.

I had totally forgotten about the loading dock in the back too. A friend of mines car got stuck back there and he was pinned between his car and the loading dock at one point. So crazy. I’m not sure why we didn’t skate it more back then. Maybe it’s because people hadn’t really started jumping down stuff then. I 180’d it and Ollie rode off it. Then we went to lunch at Grandma’s Kitchen where I worked in high school. So awesome.

After lunch and checking into our hotel I brought Ollie to my favorite skatespot from my Rochester days. Kellogg Middle School. The loading dock in the back was my favorite. The metal ledge thing especially. I learned a lot of tricks on that thing. Tricks I can’t do anymore like front 50 to front lip to front 50 180 out. Ha those were the days. They had made an attempt to skate stop it, but it didn’t last. I did a bunch of 50s and 5-0s and had a weird familiar feeling. I skated that spot so many times back then it felt like I was home. I tried a few of the 50 to lip combos, but couldn’t do it. No biggee.

This gap started getting some play near the end of my Rochester days. I don’t think my brother or I ever even tried to ollie it. It’s kind of funny looking back and wondering why I would have never tried this knowing most of my friends did. I was longer then I remembered it being, but not as tall as I had thought. Which I guess made it a little hard, but I ollied it. Only once and it was sketchy, but whatevs, I’m just hyped that I ollied a gap at 39 that I couldn’t do at 19.

To hype me up for the gap I did a fakie nosegrind on the slightly downhill part of the ledge, treflip on flat then ollie the gap. Ollie was really stoked on the ollie (ollie ollie ha) and said he didn’t think I could ollie something that big. Nice. We used to do the fakie nosegrinds there a lot I remember. Super fun right there. It’s also funny that I did a treflip, because I never landed a treflip back then. I got close and I remember getting super close one night where I ditched prom for an H-Street demo and we all skated Kellogg after. That was a fun night. Anyways, yeah, more super hyper rambling. I was excited to do a treflip at a spot where I had tried and failed over and over to learn them.

I can’t describe how awesome it felt to skate an old high school spot with Ollie. He doesn’t skate a whole lot these days, but he seemed to pick up on my excitement and killed it. Back 180 off.

He also boardslid this side. Bad cell phone photo on my part.

Ollie got a little board of the blue ledge spot, so we went and check out the new stuff. I think this might have actually been put in right before I moved. You can see how serious the session was in the video. When Ollie did his run the first time I got his back with an ollie over the curb out of the ramp. It was fun. There was some rad ledges nearby too that I’m not sure why we never skated in the past. They were waxed up real good too. We sat around for awhile and I kept thinking we were in Boulder since I totally felt like I was at home. So funny. We went back and met a friend from high school for dinner and talked to him for several hours.

So good to see you Pat!

I thought I’d be retiring for the night, but since it would be my only night (ever again?) to skate downtown Rochester I went for it. First spot I ended up at was really fun. I started with a manual across this which had a horrible approach..

.. ollied up the curb, then did a fun little carve on this, then ..

.. noseslide or boardslide on pretty much the most perfect marble ledge ever. Well, except for that fact that it was really tall and I was really tired. But look at that ledge? It’s perfect!

I wandered to this other bank spot I remember only skating once back in the day. I have no idea why I thought this downtown was big. It’s like 6 blocks, it’s so easy to skate it all. Anyways, the bank spot was not as good as I remember, especially with the pebbles everwhere from the road construction. I moved on, saw this in the road and ollied it in a couple tries. It was easy one way as it had a long approach. I wanted to ollie it going to the other way too though which was close to the sidewalk so I had to setup quick after dropping off the curb. Being the dork I am I decided to line it out, back 180 up the curb, sw front 180 in total darkness, then ollie the pole. It took me forever and my first few back 180s were so ridiculously dumb. After that I rolled and walked around for awhile not really finding anything.

I saw this, kinda surprised it didn’t have any marks at all. But the rail was weird. I considered dropping in on it, but used my exhaustion as an excuse not to.

I came up on these. They are insanely perfect. The entire building was surrounded with them. I wanted to front 50 one of them, but kept slipping off and almost hitting my face on the wall so I settled with crooks. I rolled out because I thought it would be a bust.

I came up on this corner and about freaked. There was a perfect round bar, perfect ledge (behind the round bar) and a decent flat bar (more behind the round bar). Being the exhausted old dude I was I went with the easiest of the three..

.. the ledge! I remember skating this back in the day too. It grinded really good. I had some from 50s and crooks that felt so good. Cops drove by and didn’t say anything. That definitely didn’t used to be the case. It was kind of weird because the only people out that late were people in scrubs or Mayo Clinic patients so skateboarding definitely stood out. I skated it for awhile though. I did a bunch of crooks going backside because it was just so fun. It would lock in and go. I don’t think I got anything crazier then a front 5-0 the other way, but I had a blast regardless. I cruised around a bit longer, but was too tired to skate anything else. Super hyped I went on the night mission. Super hyped to have seen Rochester again and skate some of the old spots. Sorry for what I believe is the longest skate journal entry I have ever wrote. Hopefully it wasn’t also the most boring. I should add that this was the first day I truly enjoyed having the bigger setup. Maybe it’s because my body remembered the huge boards we rode back then.

It took me literally 2 hours to find the location of this skatepark online. Note to the city of Waunakee, put the address to the park in your literature. Geez. Anyways, I recruited Ollie (he wouldn’t go until I actually knew where it was) and it was pretty early still. There was a family there when we arrived. The dad was doing kick turns in Nike running shoes (same thing as Nike SB in my book) and his kids were scootering, biking, or running around the park. We started on the ramp. Ollie did rock ‘n roll which is kinda tall for him. I didn’t do much before we moved over to the “street course”.

The photo above is a bit of a park overview. Okay, well it shows everything except two flat bars and the back of the halfpipe has a quarterpipe. Everything was built great and skated great. In other words it’s way better than Boulder park. My side was not hurting anymore. I got a run of b/s flip on the flat bank then manual across the lower manny pad. Ollie did a sick front board on the low box, back 180’d off the taller one, and cruised around for awhile before wanting to go. I did a few front lips on the low box, front 50s on the tall one, crooks, ollie onto the low box to boardslide the tall box and ended it with an ollie onto the low box front 50 on the tall box followed by a treflip on flat. Neat. Time to go have a family bbq.

I laid off the sauce at the bbq with the intention of breaking loose later on and skating the University of Wisconsin. I was tired, but I knew this would be my only chance. I started here as it’s where I had stayed for my brothers wedding. It wasn’t as good as I remembered, but I skated around, did a few ollies down 3 stairs, some bad tailslide attempts, etc before moving on. I had my directions backwards though and started skating the wrong way and ended up in a weird area of campus that doesn’t have much.

I found this though. It was dark which made it even scarier than it should be. I ollied into it and had a fun powerslide in the parking lot below.

I saw this. I’m not sure what’s up with the part that isn’t waxed. I’m thinking the city recently put in the straight part of the ledge or something to try and deter skating?

Finally found a good spot! It was under construction though so almost no run up and the landing was a few feet before a busy street. I managed to boardslide the whole thing and hang up on a noseslide. I was getting really tired and frustrated that I couldn’t remember where the ledges were I really wanted to skate. I rolled past my car, tempted to retire for the night, but decided to move on.

I was rewarded with immediately finding the spot I wanted to skate originally. Awesome! But kind of a bummer that I spent so much time pushing around before I even got to the good stuff. This ledge isn’t tall and there are a bunch of them around this building. It’s on an upper level so it’s kind of weird seeing the ground below when your grinding. That and those lights in the background are super bright. I got front 50, front board, back noseslide, back crooks and was working on more, but was told that I couldn’t skate there by security. Doh. They said I could skate in front of the building though…

So I skated this for a bit. Front rock, axle stall and rock fakie. I was so tired. There was some other stuff nearby that looked really fun, but there was a ton of college kids walking by and I was too tired to deal with them.

Oh yeah it turns out I was also right next to the building where my brother’s wedding reception was. Pretty cool.

I went around a corner and found this. A perfect metal ledge on perfect ground. I couldn’t pass it up even though I’m sure it’s still on campus grounds. It didn’t even have marks on it yet. I did a couple front 50s then decided I wanted to get a nosegrind on it. It took awhile. I had some pretty bad slams doing flatground due to the crazy wheel bite you get with a bigger board (will ever get used to it?). I kept bonking the back wheels on the nosegrinds, but everytime I would get a little further out until eventually it was just a little tap with the back of the tail which I’ll accept as I’m still getting used to the bigger setup. All in all a fun night, glad I went, wish I would have gone the right way right away as there was even more fun stuff around the area.

Day 2 started at Donut Hill as well. Same crew, but no Drew, he would meet up later. Riley was super beat up, sore and tired. I was feeling better and instead of filming I skated. Other then the weird pain in my side only when I would drop in I was good. I got grinds around the corner (top left in the photo above), scratch grinds on the pool coping on the top right and carved tile in the deep end. I was hyped. Dan was ripping too and got a front disaster. Not bad for a dude that claims he can’t skate any tranny over 4 feet. At the very end Matt said you cant treflip on big boards so I beat him to a treflip challenge. Take that Matt! Ha as if I’m that defensive of big boards. We went to a few spots, but Riley wasn’t feeling them. Then we ended up here:

Drew knew the people that live at this and invited them all out for a session. Everyone was super good except me. You had to roll through a little dirt patch and it messed with me so bad. I only managed rock ‘n roll, front rock and a weak little crook/jib thing. One of the dudes did kick back tail. So rad. Riley killed that thing. He got a bunch of tricks including a stalefish disaster. WTF? Oh and it was first try. After that Drew had to go so we went back to Fremont. Matt and joe had shown us some good spots and we ended up at a bank to loading dock manny pad where Riley got a banger. I skated with Joe a tiny bit before Riley got close and we were playing a game of SKATE, but I was sucking to new levels and was happy to film Riley. Last spot was a pretty long 3 flat 1 that Riley committed to sw heel on, but rolled his ankle bad. Doh. Day done, session over, sleep time. Riley it ruled seeing you. Drew, thanks for the amazing tour guiding. Motive, you guys are the best.

So hyped to see Riley again. It’s been way too long. Riley and his homie Brandon picked me up i Fremont then we met Matt, John, Dan and Drew at Donut Hill. I tried to skate, but it wasn’t really happening with my side. So I filmed mostly. Everyone killed it. We went to spots, Riley and Drew got tricks. Things were groovey. Filming lines seemed to somehow strengthen up my side and around dusk I was finally able to skate a little. We were at a bank to rail spot. Riley and Drew filmed sick lines. Joe and i did some little tailslides. Matt got an ender. Crooks to forward. So gnarly. Dan manualled a lot. A Element pole jam was brought out and we dorked around on it. I hadn’t really done any regular pole jams, but then they wanted to film a sequence of all of us doing pole jams so I had to man up and did a few of them. The bigger setup sure is nice for that. Riley did about 10 different pole jam variations including switch 180, back 180 and skier. So sick. After that I started posing my dream trick of no comply pole jam finger flip. I was getting close and Dan insisted on filming it and somehow I landed it. Pretty hyped although it was kind of a weird one where I held onto the board for awhile and stood there. Oh well, we had fun. Then we crashed at Joes.

Still dealing with the side pain quite a bit and it caused my neck and upper back to go to shit as well. Ugh. On top of that a 9 hour drive to Omaha and I was dropped off at the park to meet up with Joe. We skated the mini snakerun section. I was sucking. I tried a hurricane and that set my side off. Ugh. I posed around the rest of the night, but that was about it. Came close to an axle stall in the 7 foot section. Joe killed the ledge. Fakie hurricane, hurricane, back 50 boneless out, so many tricks. He was ripping. Drew showed up and killed the park bigtime. Crooks transfers on the tall flatbar, back 360s over the hip and atf ripping. Cory Foster and Trey were there too. Not sure Trey landed any tricks, but Cory did some insane stuff. It was funny seeing them do some “Muska flips”. And we were out.

Met up with Bernie and the Commission dudes at the Winona ditch for a skate jam. I just watched of course and filmed with Bernie’s camera. The casper flip that went down was pretty sick. Some other good stuff went down. Click on the photo of Carleigh for Jack’s photo blog of the day. Next spot was a long ledge. My side had started hurting and I thought I could loosen it up with a little skating. Nope. It got really bad. So bad I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get in a car. Luckily it takes people forever to land manual tricks and it loosened up enough could at least get in a car. Jack got a sick manual. Chad and Derek almost did.

This was a reminder why I normally avoid skateparks in the summer. It was packed. But it wasn’t that packed with actual skaters. There was at least a dozen kids on scooters, bikers, ICP worshippers, gang bangers, dogs, lurkers, people trying to bum cancer sticks, drunk dudes calling me newby and saying nothing in this world is better than beer except for pussy, and the list goes on. Well, with that said on to the skating. The crew was pretty awesome. Carleigh, Jack, Connor, Fuzz and John. Carleigh and I skated the bowl for a little bit and got the legs going. After that I kind of just tried to hide out in corners and dork around doing dumb stuff. I think I killed about an hour doing that. The ledge area up to cleared out and I joined Jack for a flat bar/ledge session. It’s kind of weird northGLENn is the park I associate most with my arthritis pain as I tried to skate there when I shouldn’t have been skating at all. So there are so many things I haven’t even tried there and have to overcome my silly mental blocks. Basically I’m just making excuses for sucking. Jack was trying back bluntslide 270 out on the flat bar at the top (seen here in picture 15 look at Derek in picture 15 yes!) and I’ve wanted to boardslide it forever. It took us both several tries but we got them. Jack’s trick being ridiculous of course. I boardslid it a few times and was hyped. It’s not a big rail by any means, but it’s the biggest I’ve done since the arthritis ordeal. Jack also did boardslide 270 shove and crooks on the following ledge. He told me to do boardslide the rail, crooks the ledge so I did it first try. Although the crooks was about 1 inch long. I blame the big trucks. I messed around for awhile again, not sure what was happening. I ollied the little part of the step up poorly, but first try. Bailed the kicker flat gap. Lost horribly in a game of SKATE with Connor and Jack then ended up back at the bowl with John and Fuzz. Both were ripping it. John had feeble grinds. Fuzz had a run with a ton of tricks including a fakie rock in the deep end that impressed me quite a bit. I didn’t bail axle stalls and I got tile in the deep end. I might have even scratched a little frontside slash in the shallow. Pretty fun. Some weirdness happened after that and I ended up soloing it trying noseslide 270 shoves (not close), b/s flips on a mellow bank and treflips on flat. I got about 5 treflips before the lights shut off. Happy to have landed tres on the big board and they felt fine. Kind of a weird skatepark night, but it was fun.

Carleigh, Jack and I met Brian and Neil at the old Lville tech center bank to wall spot. My OCD about board sizes had taken over and I went big, setup a 8.38 deck with some Thunder 149s I found in my garage a few days ago. Yeah I suck, I’ll give my 3 day old 8.1 to someone worthy though. Jack and I found a nearby different bank/dork spot that was super fun. He was doing cool lines of ollie over a curb, ollie back over it, then bigspin pivot to fakie. Not sure he got the big piv fak. I had a couple back tails, front board stalls that were fun. Then we went to filming as Brian wanted to do alley oop wallride. He got super close, but broke his board which messed with him. That’s what happen when you don’t skate Nulls. Jack on the other hand was on a null, and he got a banger of a trick. Ha. I was feeling out the board and rolled my ankle on a nollie shove. Ugh. Somehow and I have no idea how, it didn’t hurt. I guess having rolled it numerous times over the years helps out for something. I tried a couple wallrides, but never really committed to trying it. Brian and Neil left then we just tried manny tricks over and over. Jack did some neat balancing acts. Carleigh scraped the crap out of her tail. I might have done nose manny front 180 out, but I think I touched. Posed nollie bigspin out a couple times. Manualled a taller part of the pad. Couldn’t nose manny it though like Jack did every try. We left for trivia night, but Jack and I skated a curb in front of the liquor store for a few minutes. It ruled.