Trips to California from Arizona are always fun and have become a highlight of the yearly journey south. I drove out to L.A. (above) one morning to meet up with some good friends from Canada and skate for a week around there and San Diego. I'm amazed at how much we packed into one week.... from Venice Beach to super ramps and back. I love it down there....
CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE
Venice Beach.
On our second day in L.A. we met up with a good chunk of a 20-something-deep crew of fellow Canadian skateboarders on a yearly migration to warmer lands.... many of whom were old friends. We ended up reconnecting with them at several spots throughout the week for some great sessions. That's quadruple O.G.s John Raimondo and George Faulkner still waking up on a foggy morning in Venice.
Photo: George Faulkner
It's me, AC, on that lip in Venice B.
Unfortunately, on the second day in town I rolled my ankle playing SKATE with Haslam at Stoner Plaza. Luckily I got to skate it for an hour before I hurt myself... fun spot. Afterwards we went to Dwindle to skate the mini ramp and I made use of my newfound time off-the-board to shoot this photo of Chris, George, and Jeff skating quite close together considering how wide that ramp is. C'mon guys.
When George wasn't busy being new best friends with Skyla he was out stepping to some much larger transitions than this author ever has. Vans wanted me to pay $12 bucks to watch him skate the Combi from inside, and only if I could get a VIP to vouch for me. Rad. I just watched him from outside the fence with Chris and Skyla.... and I ate some expensive pizza... but it was good.
Come on down to DC's Super Ramp Warehouse ! We've got ramps so big, you can't even tell that Rob Bell is skating one in this photo !
Photo: Jeff Cole
There he is ! Rob came all the way from Nova Scotia to caress lien to tails on this monster. Interesting story - after we had been there for a while, Sheffey shows up with some other dudes and just casually drops in.... SWITCH, 1st thing. No pads/helmet. Apparently he rolls in switch to warm up too. His board was the flattest skateboard I had ever seen and I would be surprised if it was even 7 3/4 wide. That was a good sighting. We had literally just watched his part from the Life video the night before.
Photo: Jeff Cole
The Black Box park is right next to the Monster DC ramp and has a great minimal layout. These concrete quarters with mellow pool block were perfect. That's why they got the Hurricane Deetzy treatment.
Another day, another massive ramp. Guess who owns this one ?
T Hawk in the house !
Photo: Jeff Cole
George got up on it of course.... nosegrinds no problem and some nice Indys.
Later that day Tod Swank showed us around Tum Yeto in Downtown San Diego and we had a mellow session on the ramp. George keeps the rock n' roll photo tally rising with style.
Jeff and I hiked up a mountain full of rattlesnake holes to take photos of the sunrise in L.A.
On our last day in California our friend Patricia hooked up a session at Arto's pool for the morning. Not a bad way to start the day...
New Black Label am Jake Reuter dropped by with Doug "Pineapple" Saladino for a session and killed the thing.
George decks one in the deep.... keeping track yet ?
Jeff lays it back for a pineapple.
Huge thanks to Arto for having us at his skate paradise in Hollywood...
California was great... can't wait to get back there again. After a quick goodbye to our hosts and my fellow Canadians, I jump on the road for Tucson. Back to the desert lands for 2 more weeks... part 3 soon.....
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