The park in Phoenix is sick,
with big hips and lots of space.
Everyone was going off. Jesse
got frontside flips over the box
every time. Karma rolled his
ankle but still yanked out a
360 over the volcano. We were
all psyched at nightfall when
the lights came on and there.
was Busch in our hands.
Everyone in Phoenix was skat-
ing. Some kid was
pulling blunt
to fakies on
his knees.
After much-
needed rest,
we embarked
on the best session of the trip.
Jerome took us to an aban-
doned water park with a huge
50-yard blue cement wave.
There was a set of stairs in the
middle which was conquered
instantly with a show of hands
for Jesse's backside flip over the
damn thing. All the surrounding
walls were banked or trannied.
There was a gap over a rope
that was ollied, and Dale rolled
down a waterslide.
We rested for a bit until
Richard started tailsliding the
wave. Everyone got their sec-
ond wind as Rich pulled a tail-
slide to fakie and Jesse skimmed
through a noseblunt slide. I
don't know how they were
doing it. There's no lip.
Just when we had had enough,
Jerome informed us of a bunch
of full pipes down the street.
Five minutes later we were
pumping back and forth in three
or four different metal tubes. We
were stoked at the end of the
day, but bummed to see the
other half of our cartel go their
separate ways back home.
At this point it was Karma,
Doug, Richard, and I left to
carry on with the trusty
Daewoo. We set off on a gloomy
day for a park in Flagstaff, but
snowflakes prevailed and we
were forced to turn back.
We had been on the road for a
week and I had a dollar to my
name. Things were looking grim
too, with Karma's ankle increas-
ing in size every day, but we had
to push on a bit further, at least
to skate Flagstaff.
I awoke the following morning
stoked to find twelve dollars in
my pocket after I put my last dol-
lar down on a game of dice the
night before. Jerome became our
tour guide once again and led the
Daewoo down the road to this
DRAY
huge park with banks and low
rails. There were dudes skating
everywhere; it was crazy. They
were building a skatepark right
in the middle of the place too.
These kids had it made.
Our welcome at Jerome and
Liz's house
was being
overstayed,
and we knew
it. So after a night at some crazy
dance club, we said our good-
byes and headed up to
Flagstaff. Four thank yous go
out to Jerome and Liz.
Flagstaff had a sick park-a
clover bowl with coping, a
snake run, and a good street
area. Doug was skating the shit
out of it. Rich was screaming
down the snake run. Karma
couldn't even push and I was
bumming smokes, even though
I couldn't breathe because of
the altitude.
The energy we had at the
beginning was fading fast as we
pulled into Winslow, Arizona. I
Clockwise from sequence:
The Legend erupts into a
frontside 360° over the
Phoenix park volcano. Sittin'
back on a tall tailslide,
Doug Saenz lays into the
Flagstaff 'crete. Eternity is
just across the street.
78 THRASHER
79