RE
COR
OR THE LAST SIX YEARS,
I've been hearing, "You gotta get on the road in
Obacone
121
8.
MORA
DRAINER
the States, man. Forget about Europe." Well, this
was finally the year, and wouldn't you know, it was
straight into a heat wave. Hundreds dead in the
Midwest, brownouts, blackouts, and seizures-my
brain needs to get drained. It started out 282 feet
below sea level and ended up somewhere in the
middle of the Rockies, 13,281 feet above. Talk
about the drainer. Here it is....
Dumpster-diving.
111°F
Espanola,
-Miles Long
andelier
Mon
NO
DEAD ANIMALS
ch
Goin' Drehobl.
Santa Cr
SANTA
Duahlo
U.S. GOV'T.
PROPERTY
KEEP OUT
Hurtis.
12.
NATL FOR Gascon
admit it. I'm a Barney. I'm thirty-five
years old and I can barely ollie. Every
single ollie I've ever done has
required everything I've ever had.
I'd rather scud a free-air anytime.
Until now there's always been one thing I felt
I needed to do before I died, and that's skate
the Amarillo Pipe. Nothing else really mat-
tered. So, long story short, we went on a trip
me, Jake, Janie, and Luke.
The thing is, when you get to our age, and
you are a skateboarder, it doesn't matter any-
more. For every new trick you learn, you lose
two. You distinctly remember how much bet-
ter you once were, not too long ago. But for us,
for whom our skateboard was once our only
friend, skateboarding simply remains the best
feeling in the world.
So I took my two tricks, and Jake his
three, and we went on the road. This is
what we found.
161
Torey Pudwill in Simi Valley bowl.
Valmora
SATLAB SU
SIMI VALLEY
SKATELAB
Amarillo at sunrise.
The lone star.
Damn.
Sea saw.
Yes, Barney-friendly: no vert on
the bowl. We skate the park with
Nicky Guerrero and a bunch of
12-year-old kids. Skateparks
breed skatekids.
SALTON SEA
Legendary pool
of lore and fresh
fuel for homespun Barney mythol-
ogy. "Yeah, bro, we bailed it at ten
in the morning surrounded by
oppressive lingering stench of
death in hallucinogenic one-hun-
dred-degree heat." Sick pit. Find
it, grind it, leave it behind.
ROAD DIARY
Day One.
We drove down 1-5 to Simi Valley, Los Angeles,
to a skatepark. Indoor, very hot. Drove through
Hollywood around sundown. Sunset was rich in
colors but its brilliance was taken away know-
ing it's all smog. Continued on to the desert,
east towards Salton Sea, between the Joshua
Tree National Forest and Death Valley. The tem-
perature was climbing to around 108 F. We
reached Indio, California about 10 PM. It was
dark so we got a motel room.
Day Two.
In the morning we drove to Salton Sea. There is
an old 1950s-era social club with a swimming
pool right on the sea. There has since been
some sort of biological disaster so that when
you open the car door it smells like rotting
flesh, urine, and really bad seafood. I walked
over to the lake edge by the pool, hoping for a
swim to cool my 110 broiling self, and found a
sea full of thousands of 10" belly-up fish. I had to
cover my mouth; I thought I might be sick.
Anyway, this eco-nightmare that created the smell
obviously contributed to the closing of the social
club, leaving an empty pool to be skateable. Jake,
Curtis, and Luke bucket-dried what water was in Dam; it's the third dam down from Hoover.
the bottom with local trash. Sweating bullets, "There were a lot of jetboaters and no skate
they finally got to skate, and it looked good. Too stuff. The temperature was up to 116 F; it was
hot. We left after an hour. Back on the road suffocating to leave the air-conditioned mini-
towards Arizona. They wanted to check out van. We went into town, checked out the London
some dams at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, up the Bridge, then we split. Back onto Route 66 (or 1-
Colorado River on Route 66. We went to Parker 40) to Flagstaff, Arizona. We reached Flagstaff
around 9 PM and checked into the Monte Vista
hotel: It's old and cool down in the old historical
part of town.
Day Three.
We tried to go to a local skatepark but it was
pouring rain, humid, thunder. We decided to go
to the Grand Canyon, which was about an hour
and a half away. We got there and were all
amazed at its majestic size. We hung out, took
pics, walked on the edge, etc, then set up camp
at the Mather camp area at the canyon. It
began to thunder and lightning after we barbe-
cued our dinner. We went over to the canyon
again. The electricity was so heavy in the air
108 THRASHER
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