Surprisingly the day after seeing Pissed Jeans I was not wrecked. Bernie and I took the Metro to downtown DC with no idea what to skate other then Freedom Plaza. We didn’t want to start there though. First thing we found was this little flat bar that you didn’t have to pop out of. I was feeling really weird, maybe it was old age. I’m gonna say that at least. Bernie did a bunch of front boards and some to manny off the curb. We saw these dollar bill people walking and he asked them to pose for the money shot. Ha ha. I had a fun run of back board pop out on a different one, then crooks this one then a b/s flip to stop. Every trick landed like I was about 55 years old.

We found this a few blocks later. It was another frustrating session for me. I actually slammed pretty hard and rolled down a couple of them. Ugh. Bernie was killing it though. Manaul the low one ollie up to the 2nd still manualing and ollie the 2. Mannies, nose mannies, 180s out, kickflip out (with a sore ankle even). Bern was ripping. I got one lousy manual and a bunch of frustration. Some dude in an I Love Haters DGK shirt came up and did a heelflip on my board in some thick basketball shoes. Pretty tight.

Pretty sure we ended up here next. Bernie did this ride over the grate a few times. So sick. I struggled to ollie that high, but ended up getting a couple wallrides and a front 180 fakie one like Bernie did a bunch.

We pushed downhill through crowds of people and ended up at Freedom Plaza which was totally mobbed with people. We didn’t even try to skate. Those ledges are not short. It was cool to see such an iconic skate spot. The Suciu back tail gap out is pretty nuts.

Saw the gold rail nearby and whipped out this NBD first try.

Then we hit this fun somewhat downhill area for a bit. There was a circle of stairs. 3 or 4 down, 2 up. And some good asphalt in the street and sidewalks above it. I started with ollie up the curb, ollie down the 3, 180 up the 2. Bernie manualed the sidewalk then ollied the 4. I ended up doing my favorite line of the trip with kickflip up the curb, manual a sidewalk section, ollied up the curb then ollied the 4. Put a smile on my face. It was a narrow 4 too and my knee almost hit the ledge. It felt cool to ollie it. We moved on.

We found this little kicker in a back alley that had lots of weird traffic. I guess it was kind of an art studio area or something, but it was weird. We both had some some ollies off it. Mine didn’t pop of course. I back 180’d it with some nice tic tacs that Bernie called steezy since his phone took the photo way too late.

Real close was a sick ledge as a manny pad or off a 3 stair. We went around the corner just to see what it had to offer and it was this cool downhill long ledge with flat gaps in it. Bernie ollied one then ollied the next to manual. So sick. I couldn’t ollie one of the flat gaps to save my life. We got a friendly kick out and kept going. There was the same downhill ledge going the other way which was more of a frontside ollie and I was finally able to ollie a flat gap.

This was right nearby and easily the hardest I’ve laughed in awhile. Bernie would ollie onto it and when he would ride off he would fall into dirt every time. It was so funny. I had to do the lame ollie up to rock and yank it up onto the ledge to ride it. Then we spotted a weird ledge. See where Bernie is in the photo above? Click on it, blow it up, analyze it. The runway is a narrow step. If you go off into the metal grate you hang up. So no angle at all in the approach. The ledge was a bit taller to get on then it looks, but still not tall. The landing has a handrail if you get too out of control.

Bernie back 50’d it a bunch then back 5-0’d it first try.

I took a million tries to get a front 50 both hands down that would only count if you were 50 or older. Oh well. I normally take a lot of angle into front 50s so it was really weird for me. Hyped to have mostly landed it though. This was pretty much the end of downtown. We found a little granite ledge that I did a few crooked grinds on. It was not waxed and sharp and felt pretty raw to grind. It put some crazy grooves in my trucks too. I thought we were done for the day, we took the Metro back to Alexandria, but got off at a different stop to meet Josh.

We got to the stop before Josh and this was directly across from the Metro stop. WTF!!! There were 4 of these in a row and they were not even touched. We got to skate for about 30 minutes, all of which was a blast for me. I thought this spot was beyond amazing. Wallie’ing the corners ruled. Bernie did a front wallie to manual. These did not grind unfortunately. Some wax would have made them go, but we didn’t have any. I just had a blast lining out wallies and different stalls. Got front feeble, back smith, back crooks, a lot. Finally didn’t feel old. Got a wallie front 180. Then we was out.