After two nights of camping with thunderstorms and a daughter that is terrified of lightning, a 22 mile kayak ride down the Niobrara River a six hour drive home and Carhenge I went for a quick skate before picking up some things at the grocery store. I was literally so tired I could not speak a complete sentence to Liz before I left. It had rained a bunch and everyone else was at yellow curbs. But I only had a few minutes (and I was tired!) so I left thinking I would probably go to red curbs, but it ended up being dry a few blocks away (typical colorado) so I went to the hardest place to skate around, campus. And I skated some really dumb stuff that was way harder than it should be. First place was that perfect parking lot with the 1 up 3 down manny pad. I did a super dumb line of manual, ollie up onto the somewhat narrow sidewalk, olllie a tiny gap then kickflip off the curb. All the cracks and my exhuastion made it so much harder than it should have been, but I did it. Then I cruised down the hill and did some fun powerslides on the way to the curved two stair area that I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that has ever skated it. I took a long time to get ollie up one, ollie up the next, front 180 both. The quick up was hard. I tried just ollieing up both in one ollie, but I’m not gifted in the ollie department. Especially when I’m tired. Last thing was 10 flip tricks before I could go to the car. Kickflip, fakie flip, varial flip, heelflip, 360 flip, halfcab flip, f/s halfcab flip (took forever), b/s flip, fakie varial flip and fakie bigflip. Time for sleep!

After a long day of heat playing mini golf and other family filled fun I met Matt, Joe, Dan and the rest of Fremont at Dan’s place. We went to a bank spot to start it.

This place was pretty cool. The bank gets taller further down. On top of a fun session that was going Drew met up with us! So stoked to see that dude again. He’s still the same genuinely nice ripper he has always been. We had a fun session. I almost got a wallride, but am not Neil. Drew got a floaty jibby one on the front wheels. Joe and I got back to back tricks on the bank (joe front shove, me kickflip) and some other neatness went down. No one quite got an axle stall on a narrow edge of the cinder block.

We went to a double bank spot after that. It was pretty sick too, but kind of awkward to skate. I don’t remember much going down, but that spot has lots of potential for sure. Next up we went yet another bank spot. This one Drew knew about. This spot is sick! There was a truck on one of the banks which took away from it, but we still had a blast. I may have flatspotted some supers for the first time ever doing a back 50 to fakie, but I slid down the rough concrete sideways the whole way down. It’s not enough to notice in the streets though. Drew ripped it. Front 50, alley oop front 50 and maybe front 5-0 on the yellow bar. Whoa. Man I can’t remember much more here. I know pretty much everyone did back smiths. Joe and I had fun ollieing into the mellow bank to start our “runs”. Matt almost got noseslide on the yellow bar. Dan and Cory manualled between the banks. At the very end Joe made us ollie the middle part of the bank. He did it easy. I didn’t because I’m a pansy on gaps. We were rushed out of there by rain drops and some gnarly spinning clouds that didn’t amount to anything. Good skating though.

Oh yeah, I had new shoes in effect:

Another pair of es edgar’s. This time in gray.

Man, I’m not even going to pretend I will be able to remember everything that happened almost a week ago. But the family was in Omaha to visit Liz’s parents and it worked out that Matt, Joe, Dan (aka three of the best dudes on the planet) were having a grand opening party for their new skate shop Motive. I brought along Ollie who is still pretty into skating again and he knew he could score a shirt or something.

Lucky kid scored a shirt and hat. After mingling for awhile and eating some free Zesto’s (yum!) we went to Fremont’s most famous spot, Linden. The 30 foot long angle iron ledge that is about 8″ tall. You might remember this from my Busenitz line in Off The Couch. Since it was a Grand Opening party everyone in Fremont joined. Dan was there doing about one million manual tricks including original tricks like manual to front 180 into disaster on the end of the manual pad. Ridiculous! A bunch of other dudes in DGK shirts and basketball shirts were there too skating the little gap off the ledge. Some neat flippers went down. Ollie was shy with the big crowd so just cruised around on the outskirts doing 180s (all 4 non-switch or nollie variations), shove its and ollies. He rules. I basically just tried front 5-0 kickflips out the whole time and didn’t get very close at all. Doh, if any ledge was perfect for that trick, Linden is it.

Next we went to the Fremont park. A miniramp session started it. Everyone seemed to skate it pretty good. One dude did back tail kickflip out, switch blunt nollie flip out and some other tech tricks. I slammed pretty good trying a fakie pivot and my foot came off and I tried to put it back and pull it off. Nope. Ollie was cruising around the park doing back 180s out of the flat bank. Dan and I went on to play the longest game of SKATE ever in which I believe he won with a nollie bigspin late heelflip. Seriously. Ollie did a body varial out of the side of a flat bank that was so insanely sick that Dan and I were in disbelief for awhile. He was just messing around and did it first try. Lucky kid.