Journey

Around 4 hours south, by car, our next destination after Nashville was Birmingham, Alabama.  We arrived in the evening and found a skatepark called SkateHaven. Unfortunately it was near closing time and most of the park was already closed off.   I would have loved to skate the mini-ramps, but they were barred off, and so I decided to hang out and watch the vert skaters who were catching air on the vert ramp.          Vert was not for me, I was content just watching these guys.    ...and my father was content checking out the underside of...

 About a 3-hour drive from Louisville, KY was the next major city on our route, Nashville Tennessee!  We found a pretty large outdoor skatepark with plenty of ramps and street obstacles available.   It was pretty large for a skatepark and i was amazed at how much there was to explore.  I loved the wide mini-ramps, and the freedom to skate without many people around. It was truly a mini-ramp paradise for me! Hooters and Gatorade; I guess somethings never change. Plenty of ramps, and not many people.  What a great facility though for 1991.  The wide assortment and quantity of...

The next stop after Ohio was Louisville Kentucky.  We found an indoor/outdoor skatepark called Audubon.   Right beside the skatepark was a skate shop called Skateboards Unlimited. It was the perfect pairing!  Finding a bottle of cold Canada Dry Ginger-Ale in the middle of the USA made us feel right at home.  Powell Peralta, The New Deal, and Bad Boy Club were some of the big names back then.    We must have been there mid-week or something as it was empty and I had the whole indoor and outdoor park to myself.  Needless to say I had a great time skating both the indoor...

One of our first stops was a small shop in Dayton Ohio called Ohio Surf & Skate.  It was a really cool local shop which had a half-pipe in the back.  When we arrived sometime in the early afternoon, there were no other customers.   It really felt great because we had the full attention of the shop owner who was super stoked we had traveled from Canada to come shop and skate at their location.  It's hard to believe this was 30 years ago!   Back then, stores were stocked with Powell Peralta and Santa Cruz classics which are highly...

It was the summer of 1991 - My parents and I set out on a drive from rural south-western Ontario to Denver Colorado, USA . The three of us, driving across the United States with my dad at the wheel of a 4-door Mercury Topaz (the sister version of the popular Ford Tempo back then), my mom the artist in the passenger seat, and me, crammed into the backseat along side our luggage and a sandwich-stuffed Koolatron that ran off the cigarette lighter.  The trunk was packed with artwork, and of course my complete Powell Peralta Steve Caballero Mask model skateboard...