Had a fun night with the kids after not seeing them for a week in Seattle.  We played kickball and my legs felt good after that.  I wasn’t gonna go skate, but used the excuse that I needed to deposit some checks and brought my board.  I tried to not take forever to warm up, but the first few ollies up a curb were wallies so it was scary.  I started over by Southside Cafe and ended up getting a couple decent runs for me.  Kickflip up a curb, nollie a crack (so sick ha), wallie a parking block/speed bump then ollie a pole thing by the cafe tables.  It was kinda scary because the landing was between two tables.  Coming the other way I did 180 over the pole, sw front 180 wallie, heeflip bail.  Coming back again I did a first try pop shove up the curb that surprised me, heelflip that also surprised me, wallie, pole ollie with an accidental bonk.  Sweet.  I ollied the pole one more time then left to the kicker area where I slammed a lot trying ollies.  I tried lots of ollies until I was finally happy that they were actually leaving the ground.  I tried a run with ollie, no comply, turn around b/s 180 into the kicker then fakie heel, but never got the fakie heel.  I tried that run a bunch which was nice to just stick with trying ollies.  Maybe I’ll learn to ollie before I’m 40.  At the very end I did a 360 flip in a narrow brick median by my car and left.  Stoked I got to skate for a little bit and how hard I skated.

Woke up in Seattle, ate a good breakfast, checked out of the hotel then walked/trained/flew/bus’d back home and my legs seemed happy to be back in the nice dry air of Colorado.  I didn’t want to wear the Etnies anymore because they were pretty blown out and my legs needed more support.  Seeing as how I have a stack of shoes at the moment I chose to rock some new eS La Brea shoes and their fake vulc goodness.  I picked up Jason and we met John at Valmont.  The mosquito population quickly discovered our whereabout, but it didn’t seem to really bother John and I too much.  After a minute Jason retreated to the car instead of skating.  He had already done front 50s, front tail, front nose, back nose, halfcab nose and back 50 anyway.  John did his patented sw slappy noseslides, fakie back tails, fakie front 50s and some other moves.  I struggled at front 50s, crooks, slow back 50s using my 90 degree approach, halfcab noseslides, etc.  After awhile John and I skated the low part of the kicker.  He hates doing tricks off drops, but managed front shove and kickflip pretty quick.  I did those as well, a lame halfcab and tried fakie bigspins unsuccessfully.  John put down a good halfcab and fakie ollie so I tried fakie ollie too and did the worst one ever before we left.  Sweet.  Coming home is nice.

Last full day in Seattle.  Spent the first part of the day thinking it was going to rain then eating and doing some kayaking.  Fun.  Later on Josh and I went to the “Lower Woodland” skatepark on a nice evening.  The park looked pretty awesome and I was kinda cruising around the outside looking at stuff, rolled off a ledge and ate shit hanging up on part of a inner tube from a bike.  Awesome.  Second time skating in a row where I fell on my knee/elbow immediately.  I didn’t get too bummed this time though as this skatepark seemed way funner than Seask8.  Josh was killing it out of the gates.  Boardslide transfers over the spine, front lips, rolling in, back lips on the bank to curb, everything.  The park was pretty crowded and weird to get used to.  Lots of kids doing flyouts.  I had a few wallies up the ledge.  Had a run going where I would rollin off the ledge turn on the jersey barrier, carve around, back 50 the qpipe then attempt to tail transfer the spine, but I only tried that a couple times before some kids started playing SKATE in the bowl and hogging it.  I got a couple axle stall transfers on the weird bank to bank kicker thing and boardslid the tiniest rail in the park.  Then got in a rut of trying to ollie the euro and front 50 the bank to curb.  Both took a depressingly long time.  I never got the front 50 but got a 5-0 to tail slop thing.  Josh was kind enough to cheer for me in between his ripping.  He was doing lots of no complys on the kicker thing and front 50s on the tall ledge.  The front and back lips on the bank to curb as well as the ollie transfer over the far hip thing were my favorites that Josh was doing and he had them on lock.  He also managed to slam insanely hard trying to gap to manual up the euro.  Near the end of the session I was too tired to really ollie and was just trying to no comply up the euro.  I did get a little line of b/s flip on the lower bank of the kicker thing then a boardslide down the little rail.  That park is really fun.  Josh killed it.  I sucked, but that park has so much fun stuff I wish I could skate it all the time.  I hate how jittery and heavy my legs feel when I’m away from home and have to walk everywhere.

I wouldn’t have much of any time to skate today with Josh’s wedding so I went to the park at 9:00am.  Way to early to skate.  It was hot out and I was grouchy.  On my second warm up run I hit a rock and ate shit hard.  It pissed me off soooo bad I almost focused my board.  Instead I putzed around for another 30 minutes mostly just dorking around and landed some stuff I hadn’t done there before.  I skated the 2 foot qpipe at the base of the bank to ledge and had fun on that.  I got lots of Rampy tricks like fakie pivot fakie, front d, fakie hurricane and a front tailslide.  I also got a front 5-0 to back 5-0 to fakie over the spine thing and managed to finally ollie up onto that wave thing out of the bank.  Morning skating is the worst.

After a chill night of chillin’ (chill) on the rooftop of our hotel in Seattle JP showed up around 10 am for a little “bachelor/skate” jam.  Unfortunately he had a rolled ankle and Chief had banged up his knee so it wasn’t as epic as it could have been.   We hit up a manny pad from Cory Kennedy’s part in Sasquatch a bit before hitting the park.  That thing looked easy to skate from the hotel, but it wasn’t due to a weird metal stopper on the edge.  Josh mannied it, but that was all that went down.Off to the park it was real sunny and hot.  There was some girls skate clinic to add some non-stoke to the session.  For a rolled ankle Josh was skating good.  Back smiths on the tight qpipe at the top, front rock on the big qp and lots of good ollies over the hips.  He also got front 50 and front tail on the bank to ledge.  I was sucking.  It took me awhile to have fun.  I got a noseslide on the bank to ledge, halfcab 50 transfer the weird spine thing, kickturns slightly on the window, blah.  I started doing more flatground on the top to start runs and that helped out.  I eventually got a run of fakie bigflip, kickturn, ollie, ollie, blunt transfer, halfcab 50 transfer then a b/s flip on the curved flatbank.  I failed at getting a front 50 on the bank to ledge for awhile, but landed a lot of 360 flips to setup.  At the end Josh worked on back tail the bank to ledge and I tried f/s flip on the bank.  We put them down eventually and that be the session.

Brought the kids up to Silverthorne to meet my parents halfway to their place.  Liz and I were heading for Seattle that evening and my parents were watching the kids.  After dropping them off I skated the park for awhile.  I was feeling kind of jittery from coffee, driving and the added stress of catching a flight later that afternoon.  I ended up skating the park for a couple hours and having fun.  Highlights were grinding a taller part of the tranny, front rock and front tail on a little  section, rolling into the bowl area (which was terrifying for some reason), front tailslides on the new tiny hip quarterpipe thing, back scratcher grind on the pool coping, axle stall and rock ‘n roll on the blue noping section, wallride a rock to transfer on to a ledge and a run consisting of front tail on the tiny qpipe, crooks the ledge, ollie up the euro. Fun times.

A busy night getting ready for the trip to Seattle.  Didn’t have much of any time so I skated Rampy.  Basically did most of my Rampy tricks which was fun and tried a bunch of kickflips and switch flips on flat to get used to a new Mall Grab deck.

A nice day in the 80s.  Bernie and Sam showed up at my house wanting to go to Brighton.  The plan was to go to Longmont, meet Cheyenne Matt then head to Brighton.  Well Matt was running late so we were gonna skate the Longmont Library area for awhile until they showed up.  We ended up skating there for a long time as Matt was running late.  Bernie and I started trying some lines and we eventually filmed them.  Bernie got a back 180 on flat then a bangin fakie varial flip followed by a gap to front 180 nose manual in under 10 tries.  My line wasn’t that quick.  I was doing f/s wallride, b/s wallride side rock, manual, 3 flip.  The downhill manny was the hardest because I suck at downhill stuff and the treflip wasn’t meant for that spot.  So I went with no comply shove.  Stoked on that line, thanks for filming Bernie.  Sam was up next and got a line with switch 180, nollie heel, gap to manny.  Next we went to this weird bank spot that is way harder to skate then I remembered.  When we first go there I wasn’t even feeling like dropping in on it.  After awhile I started trying to no comply into it but hung up and rolled down the bank.  Awesome.  Bernie suggested I do the grab version of the no comply and a few tries later I did it.  Then Bernie shot a sequence of it.  How embarrassing.  I’ll probably have it soon to post up here.  I can tell everyone is holding their breath to see it.So then we went to Brighton and started at the skatepark.  My legs were dead when I got out of Bernie’s car, but after some cruising around they started working.  My highlights were no comply wallie thing out of the flat bank over the ledge, 3 flip on flat, rolling into the halfpipe section and skating the mini ramp area not as horrible as normal and rolling in and doing a tiny little ollie onto the flatbank.  Bernie had some good front tails and tried to blast a f/s air.  Joe landed the high to low air.  Sean had huge flyouts and mad popped blunts to fakie in his warm up run.  Matt killed it.  Back 50 the hubba, ollie the hubba, sw heel up the euro, so much more.  Lastly we went to the Brighton kicker where I shot photos with Bernie’s camera and Matt nollie inward heeled it all steezey.  Joe did front 180 mute and back 180 melon.  Rad.  Fun day.

After a night of camping involving late night beer drinking and then a good breakfast we arrived at the skatepark on a cloudy and nice morning (well, probably afternoon).  We kinda cruised around for awhile everyone figuring out what energy if any they had.  I felt slightly better then the previous day somehow, but still couldn’t ollie up the manny pad very well.  I don’t remember much until everyone started skating the bigger bowl.  Skelly had joined us so found some new lines and got Brian and John hyped on the bowl.  All three of them were skating it good.  Brian almost got 3 f/s grinds in a row.  Sean was rolling in everywhere.  Neil was doing some low ollies when he wasn’t off trying to skate in front of teenage girls.  I managed some b/s grinds in between bailing when Brian called me out and told me to stop being so timid on the coping.  Kinda made me think about it and skate harder.  Thanks Brian (honestly).  The bowl session went on awhile.  Sean did a back 50 on the tallest part which probably isn’t quite vert, but scared the crap out of me when I dropped in on it.  I got a tiny scratch grind on it.  Brian was doing sick FSGs on it (frontside grind).  Sean was also doing crazy lipslide rollins from the deck.  So sick.  John, Reed and I played most of a game of flatground SKATE and I started off with like 7 tricks or something out of the gate that I couldn’t believe including a treflip.  The fun had to come to an end eventually and we headed back down to the front range to spend the holidays with our loved ones.

After a million phone calls, rumors of people bailing and whatnot Neil, Brian, Maria, Reed, Lazer, Mary Kate, Gordon and I headed up to Winter Park.  First stop was setting up the tents followed by a bear sighting then the skatepark.  The skatepark gets littered with kooks.  Kids learning how to bike, skateboard, scooter, stand up.  Parents standing around acting like idiots.  Ugh.  This session wasn’t so great.  Brian and I were struggling and it showed.  Neil did all his tricks and bailed front 50s in the bowl.  Reed has a broken hand and could only skated for awhile.  Early on I got a little crooks jib up the handrail so I thought it would be a good day.  Nope.  I did have fun on our group session of the tiny qpipe.  Neil and I both got front pivots which was not easy for us.  Lazer and Brian did everything.  I eventually got a rock ‘n roll on the tall part.  Skating the flow bowl Brian and Lazer killed it.  So many grinds over hips and lots of tricks on lock.  Around now John showed up and added some positive energy to the session as he started killing it immediately.  Before we left I got a line of manual along the elevated ledge and a rock ‘n roll on the taller steep qpipe.  I struggled at b/s flip on the steep wall for a long time and eventually put it down followed by a blunt to pivot.  John did a gnarly blunt to pivot to fakie on it and we left.