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.

Saw this on Jack’s blog and laughed forever.

If there was one day you could predict I’d be too tired/hungover to skate this year, the day after Josh’s wedding would be a pretty good bet.  Ha.  But Josh doesn’t drink anymore so I have no real excuse other than I really didn’t want to skate that park by myself again and I was really sore.

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.

After setting up camp we drove into the city to skate and saw a bear!Starting with Roxy the dog going clockwise.  Roxy, Reed, Neil, Gordon, Mary Kate, Lazer, Maria and Brian.Brian sleeping, The Brandows and Reed with his knive.John brought his laptop to show some secret Stereo footage.  Brian disapproves with the thumbs down.Most disgusting photo ever?Nope, this is even more disgusting.Skelly showed up!Brian woke up.In time to see Maria get handled by wine.Reed surprised everyone by throwing a pack of fire crackers into the fire.  Luckily he knew that the forest probably couldn’t handle roman candles.Or maybe he didn’t want to go fetch a very frightened Roxy out of the woods again.Last ones up!  Didn’t make it to the sunrise though.

Even with a shovel and broom he can ollie better then me.

Had almost do desire to skate at all.  Last day I didn’t skate was June 18th.  I’m sore and burnt.