Friday I arrived in Austin, dropped some stuff off at the hostel and then rode to the 9th street trails. I met some locals there who were fixing up the jumps, so I picked up a shovel, cracked a beer and started getting to know them. The jumps were in really rough shape, I guess it has been raining a lot the last month.
Small set is straight ahead, they call it "slacker"
Wish I could have got a better picture, these trails are alot bigger than they look
After digging for a few hours this kid called Randy says that there is an indoor park where some bands are playing tonight. A bunch of us ride over there and I meet a few more people at the skate park. The owner of the park says I can stay there all week for $50 if I want to. In the back corner of the park a metal band is playing with a bunch of people watching, blocking up some of the ramps, but most of the park is rideable.
That was fun for a while, then I went over to a bar called EMO’s to see EHG play(I wanted to see them again after that killer NYC show). A few bands opened, most notably this band called Kegcharge who got the crowd moving real good. EHG played another amazing set, this time I was right up front and got a few good crowd surfs in.
Saturday I checked out Empire, an all bmx store.
Outside Empire, another terrible picture
Then went to the 9th street trail jam, lots of really cool stuff went down including a rail sesh, high jump and long jump contest. The big set wasn’t in the greatest shape even though we worked on it for a while yesterday, so only a few people were trying to get through it.
So many little bikes
Here’s a video from the jam
Went out and saw a bunch of punk bands that night, good show. I went to see Negative Approach but ended up taking off before they played.
COP playing
This pizza place was blaring Slayer and served up some tasty pie. Awesome.
Sunday, checked out of hostel, didn’t do much during the day, rode at the indoor park for a while with some people. Later on me Randy and Angie(this chick who rides) went to see this band called Black Cobra play.
Indoor park called the shark tank
$50 a week and you can live here and ride as much as you want. Really good park too, lots of lines and everything flowed together smooth.
Monday, went to the T1 ramp jam early so we could ride for a few hours before it was packed. Joe rich, chase hawk, Aaron Ross, Morgan Wade, Robbo, and a few others were there. The jam was great, free beer and food, plus getting to watch some pro’s shred the ramp.
I didn't take any pictures of the jam, but here's a picture of the ramp I found online
Another picture I found
Then went back to the shark tank and rode for a few more hours with some dudes from Alaska and took a really hard fall. Gonna go ride ramp ranch tomorrow.
El Paso and North
Tuesday I hung out most of the day, ate at this place called Smokey Mo’s BBQ. It was really good, I think it might be a small chain or something.
Real good sausage and tatters here
Rode ramp ranch, it has this foam pit for learning new moves, I tried to learn 360 tuck-no handers, but ended up just tweaking my knee out really bad. After that I jumped one of the spines there, dodged some kid, and ran right into a metal pole. I had, had enough of the park by then so I started driving towards El Paso, only made it a few hours before I was too tired to drive.
Drove the rest of the way to El Paso the next day, I ended up arriving in the dark and drove to a Wal-Mart to sleep. Next day I got up and explored the downtown area a bit. Checked out the border, there is this huge fence that separates El Paso and Juarez, with a bunch of border patrol driving up and down the fence all day. Ate at a Mexican café where everyone was speaking Spanish, even the menus were in Spanish. Ordering and paying for food was interesting, I tried not to use any English.
Cactus patch
Driving along the border fence
Colorful El Paso skatepark
Stayed at the walmart another night in El Paso. I was thinking about taking a walk across the border into Juarez, to check out mexico a bit, but first I had to get an oil change. The girl who wrote up my work order asked for my address, I said I was from Canada, so she said she’d just make up an address for the work order. When I went to pay I had the following conversation…
Check out dude: “wow, your from Juarez?”
Me: “Nah, I’m from Canada, the girl musta wrote that”
Check out dude: “ya, as a joke, right? Haha, don’t go down there, they’ll kill you down there”
He then drew his finger across his throat for dramatic effect.
I told him I was thinking about checking out the city later on, and he started reeling off some facts that I later verified on Wikipedia here.
“Due to Juárez’s position on the border between the United States and Mexico, drug and arms traffickers have moved into the city and with them the local cocaine and methamphetamine market has expanded. Recent violence among rival drug cartels has resulted in almost half of Mexico’s 8330 drug-related murders reported to have taken place since January 2007; Juárez now has by far the highest murder rate in the world. As of August 2009, Ciudad Juárez registers 130 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Recent murders in the city have grown not only in numbers, but also in barbarity.”
So after that I decided against it and drove north to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Beware of Rattlesnakes
strange trees growing out of the desert
November 18
Lots of driving lately, I have been basically driving straight up from Albuquerque with a few stops on the way.
Albuquerque was alright, I mostly just checked out a few skate parks and overnighted there. This one park had this crazy full pipe that was fun to carve around.
Dog House on route 66, sells footlong hotdogs, real good.
Next I drove to Gallup, did some laundry and overnighted there. Then up to Utah to check out the natural bridges.
Frosty morning at walmart
More driving through the desert
Can you spot the bridge in this picture?
How about this one?
This was huge, 9ft thick in the middle
view from underneath
Drving through the red rock of utah
standing on the edge of this huge cliff
view over the edge of the cliff, Utah is like being on another planet
After that I overnighted in Richfield, then drove straight on up to Idaho Falls.
New shoes!
I got up early the next day and checked out this huge army surplus store they have there. The place was warehouse sized and they stocked all kinds of cool stuff for dirt cheap. I also took a look the falls before driving onwards to Great Falls Montana, that’s where I am now. Today I plan on driving all the way up Calgary.
I’ll post a trip wrap up in a few days.
A small part of Idaho falls
Another part of the falls
The drive through Idaho, Montana.. pretty uneventful