Lets go back to…
August 9 2009
I checked out of the state park in the morning and started driving up Mount St. Helens. The road had some great views on the way up:
Halfway up the van was getting pretty hot, and I had to pull of for a bit.
View from the top (up 4000 ft)
Next day I drove down to salem to check out the trails there. The jumps were huge and I could only clear the first double, He’s some pictures:
Next day I met up with Jim in Portland. I can’t remember what we did there, probably went to a punk show or something. Anyways the next day, drove down highway 101 to Eugene and checked out a metal show there that was being put on by one of the chicks from that band Kittie. Oh ya, Jim’s camera broke at this point so theres no pictures really. I bought another one but it only took me 2 days to break that one too. Technology is a rip off.
Over the next few days we drove down the coast and checked out the redwood forest, and camped around that area on the coast.
Little rock I climbed
A chill beach with lots of rocks to climb!
Now that's a big tree
Went to a bar in some coastal city that was totally dead, except for these two aging punk girls. They turned out to be cool. Much beer was drank and karaoke sung.
In Eugene there was a couple people riding the skate park that were from Redding, CA. So we decided to go check out their skate park. It was pretty cool, no pics of it of course.
Spent a day or 2 in Redding, then down to San Fransisco where we met up with a dude Jim knows, he showed us a good skate park and we rode some famous street spots downtown. Ripping through the downtown traffic is super fun. The skate park we went to was right next to the abandoned naval base that the myth busters do a lot of their filming on, too bad they weren’t there.
We went to a show to see the Capitalist Casualties play, but they had cancelled. Anyways a bunch of other rad bands were playing, I don’t remember their names at the moment. I’d look them up but this bastard at the coffee shop just cut off my wireless.
Yesterday we check out an Oakland A`s game. They were playing New York and got crushed 7 to 2 or something like that. Still cool to check out though, we had good seats and the beer was flowing. Today we mainly just hung around downtown and checked out the stores, lots of amazing record stores (I can`t buy records now, so I waste money on Tapes for the van.) and a cool Anarchist book store. This is only a small portion of all the stuff that’s been going on in the last while. Its hard to keep updating the site because anytime we get internet the first thing I do is check out the punk shows, bars, skate parks, and walmarts to park at. After that my computer is usually dead and the deep cycle battery in the van in knackered, so its tough to charge it. Maybe now that I brought this semi-up to date I can keep updating it instead of putting it off.
August 23
Stayed 2 nights in San Jose. The first night we went out to the bars with this dude called Chris that Jim knows. The booze was flowing and the next morning we got up around 11am(Chris was supposed to wake us up at 10 before he went to work.) Anyways, as we emerged from the basement Chris’s mom was standing there staring at us(I guess he never told his parents two hung over Canadians were sleeping in the basement. ha).
San Jose had some good skate parks, and the weather was terrific.
Then we drove to Big Sur, which is on the coast, an hour south of San Jose. We met Ryan, a friend of Jim’s from Calgary and his girlfriend Lynda, and we all guerrilla camped on the side of a big mountain ridge, because all the campgrounds were full.
Then we all drove back to LA yesterday and went to a party at a bike shop, then hit a burrito stand and went to another house party. Looks like we’ll be in LA until Friday while Jim does work on Ryan’s companies website. Ryan has a clothing company called Boycott, he makes shirts, hats, patches, and puts on BMX jams. Maybe Jim will post a link to the website when he’s done building it.
LA and Coasta Mesa
August 28…?
The last week has been great
Once again, there’s hardly any pictures cause our camera sucks, and the picture that were taken are not the greatest because the camera has no screen or viewfinder.
Sunday Ryan took us to check out sheep hills, which is a set of trails that use to be good, but they were pretty much unrideable because the summer heat was causing them to crumble. After that we went down to Newport beach and drank some beers before going to a beach bar. The bar was packed but we managed to grab a table with a couple girls. After that we headed over to the pier and out-skidded some fixed gear kids.
Monday I woke up with a killer hang over and spent the day hanging around the beach. Later that day we rode UCI which is this big university that has a ton of ledges and rails that can be ridden. It was such a great spot, almost nothing was capped and the ledges were all waxed and super smooth.
Tuesday I hung around at the beach most of the day while Jim worked on the Boycott website. Later on I went to Detroit bar, and it was pretty lame. Oh ya, I think on this day me and Sawyers(another dude who rides bikes) went and rode this awesome drainage ditch that had a killer wall ride and banks galore.
Wednesday we Chilled at this Jaren dudes house, which was like a warehouse/store front type of space that was covered in graphitti and art on the inside where he fixes up cars. Met some new people there, then we all biked over to the Converse Shoe company offices and rode their ramp set up outside. After that we headed to a couple bars for some beers.
Thursday this dude John gave us a tour of the S and M bike factory. It pretty much looked like your average machine shop, except there were bike frames, bars and metal tubes staked everywhere. They had a small ramp/bowl in the back room of the shop too, but it was full of stuff so we couldn’t ride it. After that John and Sawyers hopped in the van and we took off to find this pool on the edge of the city. Hiking to the pool took about 40 mins, all up hill on this sketchy gravel/sand rode(riding back down was a trip).
Hangin' at the pool, terrible picture
Bikes!
Anyways we hung around there till nightfall and had a great sesh. Then we made our way back down the steep, sketchy gravel rode in pitch black darkness (most of our bikes don’t have brakes either). After that we headed to a biker bar and filled up on greasy food. The group split, with Jim and Ryan going back to do some work, and me John and Sawyers took off with a few others to try and get some riding done at Red Park before they shut off the lights. Anyways we only got to ride for 20 mins, then we all headed back to Ryan’s.
Friday we all(Me, Jim, Ryan and Lynda) went to the beach at night and drank beers while watching the waves roll in. Then we went to a bar, played darts, and some dude was talking smack on Canada so I set him straight. At this point we were all loaded, so we stumbled to an arcade, and grabbed some more beers before heading home.
Saturday began with a brutal hangover, I didn’t even make it to the beach this day. Later on we met up with a bunch of bike riders and drove into LA for the bike film fest. First we watched a film by Ruben and Joe Rich(two bmx pros), then we viewed a documentary that some guy had done on FBM bikes (an east coast bmx company that’s been around for years). Both films were pretty rad. After that we picked up some beer and headed to a curved wall ride.
The wall ride was amazing, a full 180 degree curved wall that you had to pedal super fast at. I managed to get about 2/3 of the way around, but I never could ride the whole wall. Next we all rode over to a bar that was having an after party for the film fest. The bar was alright, but across the street we saw a ton of people partying on a roof top of someones house. We took our beer and headed over there… at this point things get blurry but eventually we all crashed at this Mark dudes house(another bmx dude).
Sunday we said goodbye to Ryan and Lynda and all the LA/Coasta Mesa people and began our drive to Burning Man, which is in northern Nevada(north east of Reno). We stayed overnight in Yosemite National park, which is about halfway through Cali.
Monday we drove to Reno which took way longer than expected because forest fires were shutting down multiple highways. Overnighted in Reno, parked in a walmart parking lot. Tuesday we bought supplies for burning man: big water containers, goggles, dust masks, garbage bags, waste water pail, filled up on gas and propane. Lastly we hit the liquor store, I love how cheap beer is down here!
After that it was time to drive the last 100 miles out into the desert…