Kinda sore and tired, but skated flat for awhile in front of the house.  Was gonna hang with the kids, but they were just watching a movie so after no good tricks I left to Valmont.  There was a big puddle there from the rain earlier.  I waxed up the ledge real good anyway because now the spot was like a gap over ledge.  I started trying mostly noseslides popped up to crooks, but never got one up into crooks.  I got a few front 50s over but struggled.  Out of nowhere I tried a nollie flip and landed it.  WTF?!?!?!  I giggled for a bit super hyped and almost landed the next one too.  That’s either the 3rd or 4th nollie flip I’ve landed and the last one was on Campus by the banked manny pad when I was skating with Nate and Jack a few years ago.  I started trying a line of a fast kickflip (that left me with enough speed to do a trick on the curb on the far north side of the parking lot without pushing) followed by a back pivot then front 50 over the water.  I think I got that once or twice.I was pretty beat, but Nate ended up being able to skate late so I couldn’t pass up skating with him again.  I went and picked him up and we went back to Valmont.  Nate of course front 50d the water like it was nothing.  He tried a bunch of noseslide nollie heels out.  Some were close.  Pretty good considering he can barely do noseslides.  We played a no holds barred game of SKATE which means Nate can do nollie and switch tricks.  Things started out bad when Nate missed the first kickflip and the double or nothing.  He made a bit of a comeback, but missed a lot of his tricks and will have to live with that loss for a long time in Portland.  Ha.  After SKATE Nate and I kept trying noseslide variation.  He was trying nollie heel out and I was trying to go into crooks.  At one point I got a first try 2mph front tail on the low part and Nate back 50d over the water.  Nate also landed his first ever switch front big heel.  Ridiculous.  Since I had landed a very rare nollie flip I went for the trifecta of nollie flip tricks I can do.  I tried nollie varial flip for awhile before getting a bad one.  Then I tried nollie treflip forever while Nate tried switch treflip.  Kind of appropriate considering we both learned those tricks at the same time.  After a good 20 minutes I finally got the nollie tre and Nate pretty much got my back with a switch tre.  Sick!  I was super exhausted, but man what a fun session and wow I will miss Nate.

John Elway cracked the first Coors and formed the Colorado River!

Met up pretty late with Carleigh on a hot night.  After some cruising around we ended up at the Wells Fargo qp and were warming up when some hippy dude came up to Carleigh and said, “You have big tits for a skater chick.”  Pretty funny.  We left that area pretty quickly.  Not because of the hippy dude, but because we felt like we were gonna shoot our boards into a window.  We ended up at a dumb little double sided curb that we waxed up with the first attempt at GraNULLa wax (way too oily).  Carleigh got quick up to boardslide.  I got manual to front board and quick up to slappy lip that didn’t slide, but I’m still counting it.  After some more dorking around we ended up at the popout ledge and skated it for a long time.  Carleigh got some good noseslides.  I did the best front board popout I’ve ever done then one of the funnest lines I’ve ever done.  Sw front 180 off the curb across the street, kickflip up the curb, crook, roll into the street then put down the easiest treflip I’ve ever done.  I giggled like crazy when I landed it.  It sent a jolt of happiness through my body I can’t describe in words.  Never have I done a 360 flip that felt that easy.  I almost wanted to quit skating right there, but instead struggled with some pop shoves up the curb.  This really tall dude Max met up with us for awhile and skated with a ton of energy and creativity.  Drop down nose manual across the street, axle stall kickflip back to axle stall (wtf?), lots of fun tricks.  After that we headed to Mountain Sun and had a few beers.  We even stole a couple from a table that didn’t drink theirs.  Awesome.

Super exhausted from the long day of skating / premiere before.  I skated in shorts for the first time in awhile just doing flatground.  I was skating a bit faster than normal which probably explains why I didn’t land much.  I struggled with heelflips, 360 flips and frontside halfcab flips while landing my first in awhile nollie varial flip.  I was barely moving for that one of course.

This might very well be the last skate session with Nate as he’s moving to Portland.  He’s been one of my favorite skate homies ever and a great friend.  Best of luck in Portland Nate, can’t wait to skate with you again.Ok, now that your eyes are all teary lets move on to the skating.  It seemed like things took forever to get organized, but eventually Jason, Carleigh, Nate, Neil and I headed to Broomfield to get warmed up.  Before we left I had skated the curb in my back yard for a bit and did a front smith stall kickflip out.  Nice.  Anyways Broomfield wasn’t very crowded and the weather was much cooler than normal.  We ended up all skating pretty hard for about an hour.  It seemed like everyone was landing new stuff.  I don’t really remember what everyone was doing.  I remember Nate trying nollie big back heel to fakie nose manual.  He didn’t get too close, but even just getting that close is ridiculous.  I found a new wallie angle at the bottom of the wallride bank that hyped me up.  I came close to kickflip manuals on the blue box.  I really don’t remember what we all landed, but we were all skating non-stop and having fun.The first place we ended up was this weird alley spot. Above is Nate doing a 5-0. Peep Carleigh’s site for more photos. This spot is way harder to skate than it looks. The air conditioning units get in the way and there are cracks everywhere and it’s downhill. But it’s so fun. John, Chris Jones and Daryl met us here. It took a long time for the older ones (Chris and Daryl not included) to land anything. I only got front 50 and 5-0 (but the 5-0 was intended to be a 50). I also did a couple rock stall funny turn arounds on other stuff. John got front 50 and sw back nose and a crazy quick up to front 50 against the window. Jason did a bunch of good front 50s and ended it with a sick front nose to fakie. Chris dorked around mostly and did some crazy stuff. Daryl pretended to be the pro oh his shoes (Pappalardo) and ollied up the crazy tall loading dock. Nate did everything. Front 5-0, front 50, front nosegrind, front 5-0 back 180, front nosegrind back 180, nose manny the wood ledge, he officially owned it. Carleigh didn’t skate it at first but started working on noseslides and shut the session down with an accidental 180 nosegrind to fakie. Sick!Next was the taller white ledge in the alley near Civic park.  Nate wanted to get a line with a kick back tail.  While he warmed up I ended up getting a decent run for me.  Good for me halfcab flip, noseslide, treflip.  The halfcab flip felt really good.  I slammed pretty hard trying to front 50 it.  Jason got a good front board pop out, back noseslides, front nose.  I filmed Nate for awhile try a line of nollie tre then kick back tail.  He put the best nollie tres down, but never got the kick back tail.  Doh.After a couple wallies out of the grate wallie dock and a quick kick out at the art center we went out for dinner then to the Transworld Hallelujah premiere.  It was pretty crowded and hard to see, but it was fun.  Tyler Bledsoe’s back tail for 20 feet to b/s flip out is ridiculous.  Taylor Bingaman skates coping  really well wether it’s down stairs or on tranny.  Pete Eldridge was in the crowd and looking sharp.  Denver is well represented in the montage which totally rules.  Ryan Decenzo does some crazy ass tricks.  Torey Pudwill does so many NBDs it’s ridiculous.  There was some controversy after the video finished in that Nate and I liked the NBD part the best, Fuzz and John liked the coping dancer the best.  But we agreed to disagree and everything was fine.  Seems like it’ll be a great video to watch over and over.After the premiere we went to a 24 hour diner filled with typical late night diner folks.  It was awesome.  I was exhausted.

Had a long day at work, my phone wasn’t working well, and I was tired when I got off work.  Before eating dinner Carleigh rolled up and after a stop to Meta we met up with Neil and Brian at Broomfield.  I started off sucking and kept a right on sucking until almost the end.  I did nothing remotely decent until “10 min and we’re out” when I finally got a front feeb on the little qpipe and backed it up with a 2 mph kick back tail on the blue ledge.  Carleigh skated pretty well.  She did lots of front 50s on the black ledge and boardslides down the little rail.  Brian has front baords on lock down the little rail, skated a lot of the pool and did a front feeble to fakie for his first trick while complaining it wasn’t a pivot.  Neil rips that place.  The front slash on the wallride to ollie over the little rail line is my favorite.  Max and Davis were there ripping too.  Max ollied up the euro ledge without the kicker.  Ridiculous.   Those kids rip.  I mostly skated like poo and was depressed about until the very end.  I guess it’s better late then never.

Liz’s birthday!  We had dinner, hung out in the mountains and I skated Rampy while she read to the kids.  Nothing new went down.  I struggled a bit at frontside disasters, but got a few Rampy tricks I haven’t done in awhile.  Fakie front 50 stall to rock ‘n roll, fakie front smith stall fakie, front 50, it was fun.  It’s nice doing a short Rampy night followed by long hours in the streets the next night.

Pretty Epidumbic!

Jason biked to my house on a nice night then I drove down to the manny pad.  We warmed up for a bit as the last few minutes of sunlight dissolved.  For maybe the first time ever we both landed our first manual attempts.  It took me a few tries to get nose manny and Jason came close to that trick too.  I got a heelflip up the curb first try and thought I could back it with a heelflip manny, but ended up not being able to even get the heelflip again.  Love it.  Other then that I got a kickfrip manual, fake bigspin up, and was trying nollie shove manual when we left.  On the way out I took a few tries to get the stupid tiny ollie ollie up the two curbs.  So bummed.We cruised up Walnut like the old days.  We used to warm up at the manny pad a lot then cruise up Walnut.  But now Walnut isn’t so great so we walked here and there.  Jason seemed to be more in the mood for sleeping and backed it up by not really skating anything for another hour or two.  It’s so weird skating with someone who doesn’t seem hyped at all.  Ugh.  I guess some people would probably blame me for enjoying crappy spots too much, but I’m not gonna apologize for enjoying skateboarding.  So anyways, I skated, Jason kind hung out and sat around, bitched, watched, texted, etc.   I had fun at the median spot across from the bus station.  I tried front 180 nose manuals, kickflip manual, kick back tails unsuccessfully.  I had fun in the brick area for a bit trying flip tricks and ollieing onto the narrow ledge around the flowers.  I got a couple front 50s around the knobs on the red ledge, back 50s and even a couple front crooks to fakie using the wall  It’s a lot harder to manual with all the flowers sticking out.  I did a couple mannies and noseslide the tall two stair ledge I skated once over the winter.  I was happy that the ledge didn’t seem nearly as tall.   We hit the alley kicker for a bit.  I got a couple mediocre ollies, back 180, crappy b/s flip, slammed going fakie on a rock.  Jason did a couple ollies.We ended up at the white ledge spot and Jason finally skated.  We both got some back 50s.  He does them way higher up further than me.  Jason got a good noseslide too.  I ended up getting a few crooks which surprised me.  Not sure if I’ve ever tried them there before, but it worked out pretty good.  I grinded a lot further then my typical little jib.  I ollied the yellow curb into the lower sidewalk.  It’s not much of a drop, but it is fun.  Then we both started trying lines.  Jason got ollie, back 50 easy.  Then he did it with a little quick up to front board transfer on the yellow curb.  Tight.  I had a couple crappy ollies followed by crooks and then would bail a 3 flip.  Eventually I tried front shoves and ended up putting down a good run for myself.  Front shove, crooks pop out then 360 flip on flat.  That really hyped me up.We headed out to stop by Carleigh’s new place.  I’m not sure which route Jason went, but I decided to hit a few things on the way.  Front 180 up onto the ledge behind Wells Fargo followed by sw fs 180 off, back 180 up some curbs, back 50 the red knobbed curb, manual a median, manual up the bust station median, etc.  Fun way to end it.

I was super beat from the downtown denver session the night before.  So beat that I fell asleep on the couch three times.  I didn’t think I’d skate at all, but I ended up going out to Rampy for a short session.  Two Daisy Chainsaw songs on the boom box later I was done.  I landed almost everything I tried and got a few tricks first try like fakie pivot fakie, back 50 fakie, front tough guy fakie which was enough for me to feel satisfied.