6. I've just changed buses for the
last time in Denver, Colorado. I
feel like a stiff, greasy noodle.
5. I've just seen an empty
round swimming pool on the
side of the road in Kansas. I'm
considering holding the bus
driver up with my Swiss Army
knife and making him stop.
still rides his skateboard really well. Dick just hap-
pened to have one of Craig's first pro models with
him-another one of those ko-inkidinks. Craig signed it
for him. This made Dick very happy.
We took a couple of trips with Jon and Dan
around Texas. One of the trips was to a place called
Austin. Austin had some fun places to ride skate-
boards on, but mostly it was just a fun place to
go. At nighttime you could walk around down-
town. There were lots of people everywhere.
There were people who stand on sidewalks and play
really good music. One of those people was called the
"Bass King." He was awesome. There was another guy who
had bells wrapped around his ankle and
watched him for hours.
played the violin really well. I could've
We stayed with a guy named Tex. One
day he took us to a skatepark in a place
called San Antonio. It was in an aban-
doned building. Dick sprained his ankle
right when we got there, though. Getting
hurt on the road is not fun.
When we got back to Dallas, it was
my turn to get hurt. My shoulder came
out of its socket. I put it back in, and it
made me sick to my stomach. So we were
done riding skateboards for a while.
Our next stop was New Orleans,
Louisiana. We stayed there for a couple of
days and slept in Dick's car. We mostly just
walked around in the French Quarter, which
seemed to be the most entertaining part of
town. We ate Gumbo and bought a neat little
flute. At night we played the flute, and I drank
alcohol. Our feet got sore from walking around so
much, and our eyes got sore from seeing so many
dumb tourists like us.
Clockwise
from the left:
Jesse frontside
grinds on some
brick coping in a
kinked pool in Santa
Fe, New Mexico.
Richard Kirby slaps a
mean frontside rock in
a pool just outside of
San Luis Obispo.
The locals in Austin call
this hip The Best Bank. It
might not be the best, but
it's pretty damn good. Dan
Ehara enjoys a big
backside ollie.
The second day we were there was
Halloween. We made last minute cos-
tumes using paper, stickers and
magic markers. Dick was a
unicorn, and I was the
Lone Ranger. We
looked pretty stupid,
but it was fun.
We saw lots of
weird stuff
that night.
Our next
stop was
a little
town
i n
tened to Neil Young on the way. He's
awesome. When we saw the first
palm trees, I knew we were enter-
ing paradise. It was paradise.
We stayed at my uncle's house on a
bayou. We ate good food, played
music, went on a boat ride with my
cousin and just generally enjoyed our-
selves. We needed that.
Our last stop was Dick's hometown
of Abingdon in Virginia. Dick's par-
ents are cool. I like them. We kid-
napped some young skateboard-
ers and forced them to ride down
some hills with us. They couldn't
understand why we wanted to do
that. Abingdon has some pretty good
hills for such a small town.
7.It's now the last night of my bus trip.
There's hardly anyone on the bus, and
tim genting ready to lie down across two
seis of seats. If anyone has to pee or
poo, they're just going to have to step
over me. When I wake up, I'll be in
Portland, Oregon. Goodnight.
Florida On our way back to Dick's house, we got
called a police escort down a hill. The policeman
Destin, was actually trying to pull us over, but
we wouldn't stop until the bottom. He
where my
aunt, uncle
and cousin
live. We
was very mad that we didn't stop
right away. We told him that we
couldn't stop. He warned us never to do
that again or else...