After a very long stop at 303 Carleigh and I parked on 18th & Champa and went street skating.  First stop was a 2 up 3 down and neither of us really had the legs for it yet.  A few blocks later we ended up at a fun spot with a 2 stair and a weird manual pad.  I eyed up a boardslide popout down the two stair and after 10 tries I landed it.  I was pretty hyped on it.  Before I could commit to it I would have to do some kind of frontside stall on this other ledge.  If I didn’t land the stall I wouldn’t commit to the boardslide.  So funny.  Soon we ended up at a very long two stair.  Well, “two stair” might be an exaggeration because it went from the ground up.  So it started as two cracks then worked it’s way up to two stairs.  Carleigh ollied the short part lickety split.  I tried a bunch, but kept landing with my back wheels before the gap.  If there is an easy way out I always opt for it.  When I was going back to the starting spot I was doing kickflips and man they felt good.  Vulcs are amazing sometimes.  Anyways, a few more deck checks and I decided to ollie it where it was taller so I can’t deck check it and I landed it.  Awesome.  That was a long gap for me.  Basically it was a 5 foot flat gap with a slight drop.  We cruised around for awhile longer.  Not much happened for awhile other than skating a curved ledge for a bit.  I got a back noseslide to fakie and a front 50 on it as well as an attractive woman in a small black dress and heels asking to ride my skateboard.  Ha.  After that we ollied some bushes for a bit until Carleigh almost shot her board into a window.  She got up saying “I would have ran away and then noticed the security guard standing about 10 feet away.  Ha.  Last spot was a 4 flat 4 where Carleigh tried to ollie both sets one at a time (I doubt anyone could ollie the whole double set).  She came close, but before she could get both ollies security gave us the boot.  Doh.  Street skating in the city rules.

I haven’t had vulcs in forever mainly due to the foot/leg pain that comes with the added board feel.  These have some weird soles that have EVA and a layer of rubber/foam that makes them beyond the average vulc so I’m trying them.After what was easily the worst and most annoying game of kickball with the family ever (at least one kid was crying at all times) I had to get out and skate.  Carleigh was nearby and down for a short late night session so we drove to the Basemar and rolled to the south side of campus.  First thing we skated was a 2 flat 1 flat 2 flat 3 flat 1.  It was fun to try to make it down all of them and we eventually both got it.  It’s so weird landing a set of stairs then immediately rolling off another set.  Next we were by the business building and both rolled in on the kinked and knobbed hubba.  I almost went from the top, but the skate stopper in the middle of the kink is so scary.  Next we hit up the curb/ledge on the other side of the business building.  Carleigh did her first ever boardslide pop out.  I got a few of those as well as halfcab boardslide and front board.  I came remotely close to slappy front lip, but we left.  On the way out I ollied some construction tape that was between two barriers.  I suck at ollieing over stuff and was feeling it so made it taller and tried again.  Two tries later I landed one of my best flatground ollies ever.  Sweet!  The new shoes feel ridiculously good while skating.  The board feel is incredible, but I could sense a bit of tenderness when I tried treflips.  I landed one of the funniest ones ever with at least 5 tic tacs out before the walk back.  Fun night.

Was already tired from when I got home from work.  Unloading tons of boards, bringing some to FedEx, playing football with Ollie and then playing kickball with the family and neighbors didn’t help the situation.  But since I have this goal of 300 days of skating this year I didn’t really have a choice but go skate in a beautiful evening.  I called up Jake who was down and after picking him up we went downtown.  We parked by the big parking garage with the white ledge, brick bank in the basement and kicker on the top.  We went up to the top to start things out.  It was pretty surreal up there.  Seeing rooftops while you skate is kinda weird.  Anyways, we warmed up with a friendly game of SKATE doing mostly basic 180s and shoves.  Once it started getting more tech it just kinda dissolved and we started skating.  We tried some runs where we did a trick into the downhill, manualled the manny pad then ollie the kicker.  Jake slammed really hard on an ollie early on and tore up his hand.  Ouch.  The concrete up there is not forgiving.  We both kinda struggled for awhile.  We had gotten the ollies, but scraped on the mannies above around the time Ted showed up.  Even Ted had some problems ollie’ing it so it can’t be that easy.  At least that’s what Jake and I say.  Jake got a run with a front 180 at the end.  I got a no comply shove into the hill, manual, then a horribly bad front 180 to finish off the fun at this spot for me.  Ted did like 10 perfect treflips, but didn’t get the weird wallride or 3 flip footplant he was trying.After a few wallride misses in front of the garage we headed out over to Wells Fargo area.  We hit mannies for awhile.  Ted did a no comply hardflip manny.  So sick.  Me and Jake tried the most frustrating trick ever for awhile.  Front 180 nose manuals.  Ugh.  If you don’t count scrapes I landed kickflip manual and sw front 180 manual.  But I do count them so I didn’t land them.  Then we went over to the qpipe where Jake learned back bluntslides and I added front feeble grind and fakie front tailslide to my tricklist there.  Fun times even though I was dead tired by the end.

“Go Skateboarding Day”.  Pretty cheesey, but it’s nice when you can tell people like Nate that he absolutely has to skate and can’t hide out at work.  ON a nice evening Jason, Nate, Carleigh and I piled into Carleigh’s car and we met Brian and Neil at the new and not quite finished yet Broomfield park. Skelly, Mike and the Ft Collins crew were there ripping too.I picked the wrong day to be sore and unable to ollie, but we skated for awhile and it wasn’t super bad.  It didn’t hurt that I had a new deck and the new Null wheels.  Neil was there first doing nose mannies and ollie norths everywhere.  Nate started ripping  and sweating quickly too.  He foamed at the mouth with all the ledges and manny pads and even did “the Dill trick” – nose manual back revert switch manual.  Ridiculous.  Carleigh ollied up the stepup easy, almost manualed the blue pad and much more.  Jason was “taking it easy” because of back pains, but still managed 50s on the convex and concave ledges, manuals and tons of tricks on the little cement qpipe with pool coping.  I made Brian fall by saying “Hi Brian” real loudly as he flew through a corner grind.  Sorry!  He ripped the bowl, made a couple attempts at his dream trick, got some front 50s on the ledges, destroyed himself trying a back 50 and skated hard.  I didn’t skate great, but had a blast and some tricks hyped me up.  Like I said my legs were sore and ollie’ing wasn’t easy, but I got front d, front tail and front feeble on the little cement qpipe, fakie nosegrind the blue ledge, 50s over the convex and concave ledges, front 50 the ledge to drop, carved the bowl for awhile and finally landed a trick I’ve tried so many times.  A kickflip out of a side rock.  Straight out of Little Jack’s bag that I saw him do in Denver like 3 years ago.  That’s how long it took me I guess.  Ugh.  I did it on the main angled pad in the middle.  Fun session.  Another fun park.  CO is looking good these days.

Fathers day, but since I’ve spent two weeks straight with the family it was skate day.  Well, it turned out that it was father – son skate day since Ollie came along.  Around 11am Jason, Ollie and I went to the Mikes Camera manny pad and warmed up.  Nate met up with us.  I didn’t land much for manny tricks.  Got a lot of fakie bigspins up the curb, but never landed in manny like I wanted to.  Nate did a front 180 nose manual 180 out on accident.  Jason mannied it first try which is rare for him.  Ollie did a back 180 off.Later on Neil, Carleigh and Lazer met at my house and after bringing boards to Community we hit the new Arvada park which ended up being amazing.  Maybe my favorite park in CO now?  It’s a small park, but it has lots of well built goodness with low obstacles that are good for skating.  The short parking block spine rules.  Anyways a ton of stuff went down.  Jason ripped for a bit, but hurt his back once again and slept it off.  Lazer killed it.  Big ollies, grinds in weird places.  Ended his session with a kickflip over the euro and a back feeble on the really hard to skate bank to ledge.  Neils of Fire skated longer than normal.  Steezey back shoves up the euro, back 50 transfers over the hip, big ollies, and lots of good skating.  Carleigh made some new spine transfer tricks she’s never done look easy, pop shove up the euro, slammed rolling in on the 2 foot qpipe, skate hard the whole time.  Ollie ripped it too.  Board stall transfers over the spine while waving to us while he was stalled in the middle, rolled into the little qpipe, back 5-0s on the slappy qpipe, front 50 on the little qpipe, nosegrabs off the ledge and a mean mongo push.  I had a blast.  I total blast.  I did a fakie rock fakie over the spine, fakie rock to rock ‘n roll over it as well as a few front feeble to back smith transfers over the spine, front 50’d around the corner, did my first front 5-0 on tranny in forever on a 1 foot qpipe, rolled into more spots than normal, etc.  I kickflipped up the euro then kickflipped up onto the ledge without the kicker.  Also front 180 the euro and posed some f/s halfcab flips off the ledge.   I somehow even manualled the ledge which is way tall for manual for me and crooks it first try.  I ended it with a line I was hyped on.  Back 50 the ledge, front feeble the little qpipe then 3 flip on flat.  So much fun.  That park rules.

Definitely feeling the effects of sitting in a car all day the day before.  Picked up the new Null wheels in the morning and they look good.  Helped clean for awhile then met up with Jeff, Bernie and Mikey at the Boulder park which wasn’t very crowded.  We started with a few games of SKATE.  I was the first one out in the first two, but the third game went well.  I got tricks like 3 flip, frontside halfcab flip, fakie var flip and more.  Jeff got to SKAT, but beat me.  Fun.  We cruised around the park for awhile and I was not skating well at all.  I tried a few backside kickflips on the flat bank and didn’t even get close.  Ugh.  Jeff was destroying.We went to the Sussex ledge after that.  I tried to front 50 it, but didn’t get very close.  Mikey nollie nosegrinded it.  So sick.  Instead of just sitting around I skated other stuff at the spot like the little bump and the curb.  I had a run going of ollie the bump, slappy tailslide the curb to fakie then f/s halfcab flip.  Never got them all.  Never quite got a f/s flip over the bump either, but I got a second try no comply bigspin.  Skated pretty hard for how sore and tired I was.

Another hot and humid day in Wisconsin with some wind.  Ollie and I arrived at the park after a long morning of badminton and swimming in a cold lake.  To our surprise there was finally a couple other people skating. Probably in middle school.  They were ok at skating, but had the typical small town attitude towards new people.  Oh well.  I had thought about how I still wanted to do a b/s flip over the hip and a front bigspin over the hip.  I started out dorking around doing a few funny blunt stall reverts over the hip to get used to it.  I almost slammed super hard a couple times though.  I did the front blunt back 270 out that Fuzz can do on real stuff.  That was fun.  I ended up getting really close to the front big , but couldn’t land it.   I didn’t do much but a bunch of Rampy tricks on the tiny qpipe.  At one point I did a rock fakie on the top qpipe and almost died riding down the flat bank fakie.  Whew.  Ollie didn’t do much new other than a back 180 over the hip which he said he has done a few times.  He also did a back 180 out of the mellow bank.  Last day in Wisconsin!

Everyone was kinda doing there own thing in the mornign so Ollie and I took off to the park for awhile.  It was hot.  No one was at the park.  Does anyone skate in this town?  My board was less soggy than I thought it would be, but pretty flat from the rain session the day before.  I seemed to be really into slamming this day.  Not sure why.  I tried a front shove over the hip and slammed hard.  Tried to ollie the rock and slammed hard.  Ugh.  Part of the family was on a 4 mile walk around the city and was close enough to witness that slam.  Awesome.  As far as new stuff this session I managed to filannly front 50 the black ledge down the long two.  I did this after I challenged Ollie to get a blunt to fakie thing over the hip which he did first try.  Hypes us both up.  Ollie also did a bunch of ollies off the curb to manual to the next curb.  I didn’t do anything else new, but came close to b/s flip and front bigspin over the hip.

Day 3 of the family reunion and it was dry out.  Things were mellow enough for Ollie and I to take off to the skatepark.  On the 7 mile drive to the city the clouds got darker and started to mist.  Ugh.  We got to the city and it was wet.  We got to the skatepark and it started raining.  Suck.  Ollie is 8 years old and doesn’t really care about things like a noodle board or wet griptape so we decided to skate.  I didn’t skate too hard obviously.  I did a few ollies well below coping on the concrete hip, ollied up the step up, cruised around and ended things with a kickflip out of the mellow bank first try and we left.  Ollie didn’t really do anything special for him.

Today was to be day 1 of Liz’s family reunion in Black River Falls, WI.  Since they have what looks like a fun park we arrived early so that Ollie and I could skate it for awhile.  We had left from Stoughton where my brother lived and the rain was threatening the whole way, but waited until about 10 minutes from BRF to actually start sprinkling.  Ugh.  We arrived at a mostly dry park and jumped out of the car to skate.  A few warm up runs and I went down all 3 levels and missed the step up.  Ollie was right behind me and did the same thing, but didn’t know to avoid going down the step up.  I thought he was gonna die because he was going really fast after dropping down two levels already.  Somehow he pulled it off without even bailing.  I could not believe it.  I was seriously terrified that he was gonna get really hurt and he didn’t have his helmet on.  Whew.  That basically set the tone for a weird feeling that was in my stomach.  After almost getting hit by two foul balls at the Madison Mallards game the previous night I noticed that the skatepark is in the line of fire for foul balls from the nearby softball field and that scared me too.  Ugh.Anyways, the skating itself ended up being pretty fun.  I tried a run for awhile of dropping in on the top qpip then doing an axle stall then a boardslide on a bump to ledge.  Never got the boardslide clean.  I tried a bunch of frontside ollies.  There was a line where you could ollie on the qpipe, ollie into the bank, ollie over the hip, then ollie over another qpipe it, then turn around and hit the hip backside.  Pretty fun and I think a few of the ollies even left the ground.  I tried a few flippers over the street hip too which would be great but everytime you bail your board goes into mud.  There were also little rocks everywhere that would pitch you into the ground.  The rail I wanted to boardslide from looking at the skatepark photo had absolutely no runway.  I got on it, but didn’t make it to the end.  Other tricks I got were manual up the first stair and almost ollie up the second curb.  Back 180 over the hip.  Front tail on the little qpipe section.  Rock wallie.  Drop in on the weird section qpipe to wall section.  Not a great performance by any means, but it was fun and what a weird park.  Ollie was having fun cruising around too.  He did lots of slappy 50s on both the escalator qpipes (frontside was new for him), drop down manual on the very long 2, little hip ollies, rock fakies, ollie off the black ledge, manual across the deck of the street hip, and of course, managed to not die when rolling into a step up at full speed.  Pretty fun session, but man, that park is weird.