| AlvaCollector: Thursday August 31st...Woke
up bright and early, started the beast and let it run the entire time
I was making myself pretty 3 minutes later I loaded up the gear(1
board, 1 backpack neither of which were used during the trip). My
biggest fear is that we were leaving during rush hour and Chicago
rush hour is nowhere to have a 1978 Jeep that you know nothing about.
I put my fears aside and headed over to Naperville to meet up with
EM Dash. Dash and I headed over to Indiana to meet up with ShackleMeNot.
To my surprise there was no traffic. Its like the Jeep was Moses parting
the traffic to get us to our destination. We arrive at Shackle's house
after getting lost in a network of twisted roads in his neighborhood.
We said our hellos and then Shackle proceeds to load up half is house
in the truck. Apparently, he's moving to Nashville, at least for the
weekend that is. Finally we hit the open road.......Having never met
Mike before we had plenty of time to get to know each other on the
way to Nashville. The one thing I noticed is...Mike likes soda. He
informs me that he's been up all night so I tell him I'll drive so
he can get some rest its going to be a long weekend. Instead of rest
he opts to drink 4 gallons of Mountain Dew and ask us to pull over
about every 15 minutes so he can piss. A little frustrating but knowing
the gas gauge didn't work on the Jeep I used these opportunites to
top off the tank of the Jeep. I was pretty much a nervous wreck the
whole drive, I just wanted to get to Nashville so I wouldn't have
to deal with this Jeep anymore. As the drive went on I found myself
more and more stressed. The last hour of the drive seemed like a week!
We finally arrive in Nashville and phone Lush as to where the hell
we can stay. He gives us directions to a hotel that was about twice
as much as Shackle and I wanted to spend but once we saw the room
we would have paid twice as much for it. We decided to head out and
grab some dinner and I needed a beer. The Alabama Bar and Grill was
our place of choice. The food was about as good as Alabama's music.
They should rename the place Alabama's Road and Kill. I was a little
nervous driving back to the hotel and I'd only had two beers. The
Jeep wobbles and shakes to it looks like your driving drunk even when
you're not. We made a quick stop to pick up some beer and smokes and
headed to our room. We didn't sleep too well due to the excitement
of seeing our bros the next day. Plus, everytime I fell asleep Shackle's
girl would call. While he was asleep and oblivious to the annoying
ring, I was not. |
| ShackleMeNot: Thursday morning Jeff
(AlvaCollector), and Mark (EM Dash) arrived at my house around 9:00am,
I had been up all night at my girlfriend's house and had just finished
up drilling new truck patterns into my SC Jeff Kendall deck. We quickly
packed all my stuff into the now infamous JEEP (more on that later)
and took off. We hit the road and I directed AC and EM through the
back roads of Indiana to get to the main highway which we would take
all the way down to Nashville. We made it there very quickly, however
an old man in front of us delayed the trip a bit because he was doing
20mph under the speed limit and swerving all over. I believe he was
either very senile or having a stroke. The first part of the drive
was very nice, I had never met Jeff before, so we talked most of the
way down, just shooting the shit. From skateboards, to music, to our
shared hatred for Indiana, it was great. We pulled off a few times,
because I was in the proccess of drinking 2 two liters of Mountain
Dew Live Wire, and constantly had to urinate. I then earned the nickname
"Bladder Boy". We stopped at a Wendy's somewhere south of
Indy to grab some food, I thought it was pretty shitty, although I
bought 4 chicken nuggets and got 6 instead. Good deal. The rest of
the drive was pretty boring as far as scenery goes, except for Louisville,
and getting in to Nashville. The only bad part was that the Jeep has
no working gas gauge, so we had to keep stopping on the way to fill
up every 150 miles or so. We made it to Nashville in about 8 hours,
and Jeff and I drove around downtown a bit to look for the hotel that
some of the other portions of the crew were staying. We called Lush,
and got directions to a hotel near the park and made our way around
the city to get there. The hotel was very nice, Hotel Preston on Briley
Parkway. Nice room, awesome bed, and killer view of the parking lot.
We hung around the room for a few and went to get some dinner...and
beer. We decided on eating in the South the right way and went to
the restaurant owned by the band Alabama, at the Opry Mills Mall.
Pretty funny place. After that, we hit the arcade/bar and I wasted
some money while Jeff had a beer in preparation for the next day.
We wandered around the mall for a few and went back to the hotel,
stopping on the way to get beer. Fell asleep early. Friday morning,
after our second shift of sleeping we went to get breakfast, and went
directly to the park. I got started skating, while Jeff got started
drinking. Not too long after our arrival, Steve (The Green Monkey)
showed up, as well as Mark. I stopped to talk to people once in awhile,
but I just wanted to get a feel for the park and start throwing tricks.
|
| Amorone: My trip began Friday morning...almost.
I had planned on leaving around 11am and being at the park by 2pm-ish
to get things underway. I had flown in from my project in San Antonio
the night before. I got up Friday and had to organize getting my junk
together, riding over to my pal, Little Jon's place, and then the
two of us went to the airport to pick up an Avis rental car...my car
was too small and his truck would not make the trip. So anyways, by
the time that was all said and done, we were on the road after leaving
Avis at around 2pm. They gave us possibly the shittiest car they had
too...and I am an Avis Preferred member from al my traveling for work!!!
The ride was uneventful for the most part...aside from me stopping
to get beer in one of Alabama's dry counties….doh! We got into
Nashville, called Lush to let him know and headed first to the hotel
to check in. Again, from traveling, I got hooked up with two rooms
at the Marriott Courtyard right downtown 2 blocks away from Printer's
Alley and Second Avenue. Location, location, location. Haha So after
that, Jon and I were starving and decided to walk down and hit Hooters
for beers, hooters and crappy food. We asked about the skatepark and
explained why we were in town. A manager there was all too happy to
give us directions to the park. We said "thanks" but soon
found out, he had given us possibly the longest way to get there!
It took forever! Around 6:30pm, we finally rolled up at the park.
Immediately, I picked out AlvaCollector, Gusto and Green Monkey hanging
out with another small group (who I later found out was ShackleMeNot
and others). |
The Craptastic Avis rental
(it actually looks better here than in person) |
Little Jon at least got something on our pit stop |
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| The Green Monkey:
On the way down, I stopped for gas in Metropolis, Illinois--the
boyhood home of Superman. The gas station I stopped at was half
Superman shrine/gift shop, and half grungy southern Illinois
gas station. I couldn't resist the opportunity to purchase an
overpriced ($4.99) refrigerator magnet with Superman in the
process of throwing an old Packard. In typical southern Illinois
fashion, I couldn't pay for my gas and my trinket at the same
register. Of course. How reasonable. After milling about outside
for a few minutes, I found a local redneck to snap a picture
for me. Instead of standing with my head above the Superman
cutout, I thought that it would be a much funnier picture for
me to just appear to be hanging out with a headless Superman.
The redneck didn't understand why I would want such a picture,
nor did he grasp what I thought was very straightforward humor.
Nevertheless, he agreed to take the photo, although I got the
feeling that he felt somehow sacrilegious and profane afterwards.
Here's the picture. Christopher Reeve died three days after
this picture was taken. I'm very sorry for whatever role I played
in killing Superman. |
TGM and the headless Superman cutout
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