After a night of enjoying the wineries in Palisade, then a long hike and directly after stuffing my face with tacos I attempted to skate the park. It’s terrible, super compact with a bunch of features shoved in. Everything is built well, it’s just crammed together. The bowl had water in it. I felt very out of it. I did some bad flyout kickflip attempts, a couple axle stalls then just decided to do 5 tricks for my 50th year. Except I couldn’t land anything and this took like 25 minutes to do. The treflip being so bad worked out so I could say 4.9 on my 49th. Not my best birthday session, and actually maybe my worst. Getting old sucks.

(setup null smoke valley 8.3, venture 5.8 titatnium, bones medium bushings, 52mm spitfire classic shape f4 99a, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 3/10)

Heard about how Mesa Univ remodeled and made all of their ledges skateable so went there on Liz and I’s mini trip. I had heard they were all tall and that was accurate. I cruised around and didn’t see anything I wanted to so we left. Went to the old skatepark there that I haven’t skated in 20 years. Last time was with JP and Jason! Or maybe even the NE dudes and Jeff, but wow it’s been a long time. I was excited, but the wind and my sucking drained me quick. The curbs on the banks looked fun, but they were all super crusty and didn’t grind well. I tried a line of kickflip on a bank then kickflip to fakie the next bank. But I took way too long to land one kickflip. I skated the ledge for a bit. Had some okay crooks, noseslides and one bad front nose that was in Jason’s honor. Couldn’t get a front 50. There was a dude there that could hardly ride his skateboard, but he could pop super high onto tall flatbars and stuff. It was a weird scene. The wind kicked in ultra fierce so I called it good.

(setup null smoke valley 8.3, venture 5.8 titatnium, bones medium bushings, 52mm spitfire classic shape f4 99a, new balance numeric 288S grey size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 2/10)

On a really nice day Rob and Dave picked me up and we went to Evergreen park for a bday tradition session. We met Jake and Venture Dave. I am writing this way too late after the session so hardly remember anything. Except unfortunately it also seems to be tradition that I completely suck and get bummed on myself. Pretty early on Jake and I did warm up lines of noseslide to fakie, switch or fakie 180 off the curb, kickflip to fakie on the bank of the hip. Also early on we saw a patented Rob bean plant over the hip and a Venture Dave fakie impossible. After establishing I was struggling badly I went and hid in the corner and tried a bunch of halfcab flips to start a line. I had a few in a row at times, but then would miss a lot too. Argh. I did halfcab flip then crooks, but never got the treflip after. Rob had some really long back 50s on the curb, manuals, maybe nose manual, halfcab board pop out. Oh yeah we put a parking block on top of the bank which was super awesome. Dave did pivot shove then switch pivot shove!!!! Rob had some banging front tails, pivot to back tail. I had some fun slappy crooks, but they were nowhere near as good as Dave’s. I took to may tries to also do front smith stall and no comply to tail. VD almost got back 180 nosegrind, lots of impossibles, shoves, manuals and nose mannies. Jake lined out some gnar. Nollie back tail, wallie, back 5-0 the qp, hurricane the gnar qp. Front 50 up the hubba and maybe front blunt the main qp. Dave was of course the last one skating. His last line was nollie the a-frame, back disaster the main qp, gap front tail the parking block on the hip. So sick.

(setup 8.25 null spanbauer, jessup ultragrip, venture 5.6 cast plate v-hollow hanger, bones medium bushings, spitfire 51m 101a f4 classic shape, new balance numeric 288s grey size 11.5 no insoles)
(pain level 5/10 lots of knee pain)