Day 6
It was June 25th and the lovely Andy Ryan made a little mistake and had us all wake up at about 6am? I felt like I only went to sleep at four so when that wake up call came I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Andy thought that Chicago which was our next stop was a little further away than it was so he got us up at the crack of dawn so that we wouldn’t be late. I was tired and grumpy and the first thing I see when I get on the RV is Andy Ryan comatose and snoring on one of the bunks in the RV. There was no more sleeping room to spare so I wanted to tie some soap up in towels and get everybody to whack him over the belly like Private Pile in the movie “Full Metal Jacket”. I love Andy thought and couldn’t do such a thing. So I just put on my most vicious bitter guy face and just rolled with the punches.
We got to the hotel in Chicago rather quickly and everybody was looking horribly tired. Unfortunately we couldn’t check into our hotel rooms until about 2 or 3 and I think the demo was at 3pm at Wilson skatepark. I was planning on getting to the hotel and sleeping like a champion so that I’d be all bright-eyed and spunky come demo time. Well we couldn’t get into the rooms so we held it down in the lobby of the hotel for eternity until they finally kicked the other bastards out of their rooms and let us in them.
By that time I would’ve been able to pull off a half hour nap but that would’ve done more harm then good. So I opted to stay in an awake state as most other people did.
So demo time came along and we headed over to the outdoor park near the water called Wilson Skatepark. I’ve been to this park a bunch of times and I like this park a lot. It can get a bit crowded but sometimes I like the dodging other humans factor. I felt like doo doo once again and I think I’ve learned my lesson as to sleep more and be sober on every trip from here on out. Kids don’t want to see me looking like a dead body which is pretty much what I gave them. I guess I’m getting older so now I need to do yoga and eat vitamins rather than party.
The younger cats were rippin’ it as usual. Justin, Jake, Danny, David, Alex, and Reese were blazing around the park doin’ their thing. Everyone was throwing some moves down on the bump to bar. Alex did one of the best front 360’s I’ve ever seen over the bump to garbage can and was boosting up the giant picnic table contraption from flat with ease. I tried to shock myself into being awake by sessioning the stairs as one of my first feats and I think upon landing on the ground a little muddy nugget came out of my booty hole. I was in bad shape. Again…I’ve learned my lesson after this tour. Smoothies and sit-ups is all I’m doing all day when I’m not skating. There was a good turn out at the Wilson park and every time I’ve been there the kids were super cool. This time it was no exception and it was cool talking with a lot of the kids around there.
Dickie grilled up his final masterpiece and hit the kids off with some cous-cous for goodness sake. All for free too! I was psyched on how good Quik was hooking it up for the local folks out there and I hope everybody got some free grub and some gear/stickers and all that good stuff.
Honestly…thanks to everyone that came out for real. Thanks to Uriah from Uptown and everybody else that was a part of the whole shindig. I love Chicago and I know that I’ll be back there in the not too distant future.
Thanks to everyone from Quik for the whole tour. Thanks to Modaddy for driving. Thanks to everyone that organized every last little bit of the whole trip. And thanks for having my name on the bus cus’ it made me look a hell of a lot cooler than I really am. Okay…I’m sick of thanking people for now. But if I didn’t give you a high-five and you deserve one…I’ll get that to you as soon as possible. Peace for now everybody.
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Tim O’Connor
Day 5
We had a free day this day as far as demos go. So we took a trip to another section of Michigan called St. Joe’s. We set up shop and posted up on the beach of Lake Michigan for the day. Some of the lovely people from the shop Outpost which was right down the beach from where we were chillin’ came out and hung out with us for the afternoon. We all rode on the Quik boat that Tom Holbrook and the other guys were towing behind their car for this specific day. Some peoples that knew how to do so did some wakeboarding while the rest of us tried our hands at some other water sports like paddle boarding. It’s where you stand up on a giant board and paddle like you’re in a canoe or something. It’s way harder than it looks and I had no idea that it was going to be difficult as it was. Apparently that Laird Hamilton guy did that ‘ish from island to island out in Hawaii with doesn’t even seem possible. But I think that guy was Zeus’ son or something so that might make more sense. We had a gay ol’ day jumping off the dock and throwing a frisbee around like a bunch of pale jocks.
We did the BBQ thing once again as always and bit the shit out of some food in between jockin’ it up and getting in the lake. It was a seriously fun day and I’m sure we all looked like a bunch of goons the whole time but who gives a shite cus’ we were lovin’ it. I think a couple of us might have gotten a little less pale as well from this day. Hell yeah to melanin!!
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Tim O’Connor
