The drive from Rochester to NYC was long but beautiful- upstate New York is gorgeous. We took a lesser-known route that Grant told us about and didn’t regret it at all- especially when we randomly happened upon a perfect curvy handicap rail and were able to break up the long drive with a quick session. Rest stop food got the best of me and I had to sneak off into the woods for a quick nature dump- no roadtrip is complete without one, really- and emerged to find two cars pulled up to our session with two busybody housewives arguing with Diana and calling 911 on us! Apparently our crazy city-folk rollerblading and video-taping ways were just too much excitement for these ladies to handle, and they felt it was their civic duty to rescue the banisters from our abuse by calling 911.

us- “Hey, isn’t 911 for emergencies!?”

crazy rural bitches- “OFFICER! SEND ALL YOUR UNITS IMMEDIATELY! THEY’RE… I CAN’T EVEN SAY IT WITHOUT FEELING DIRTY…. ROLLERBLADING ON THE HANDRAILS! SEND HELP!”

Fearing a Deliverance-esque confrontation with what ever country authorities these ladies managed to summon, we busted out of there right quick and Mike’s GPS phone once again saved our ass when I decided we needed to take a less-obvious route back to the expressway. We hit the urban sprawl that is NYC/New Jersey around midnight and made our way to our buddy Matt Wild’s crib in Staten Island. Unfortunately I’d had to delete Wu-Tang from my iPod to make room for movies for the drives, so we couldn’t bump an entirely apporiate Staten Island soundtrack, but I got us close enough with the GZA’s Liquid Swords. Matt is a Detroiter who moved to the Big Apple earlier this year for work and despite being embarrassed that he and his roommate Chad (more on him later) hadn’t furnished their place yet- it was literally bare- it was perfect for us to set up the air mattresses and crash out.

So, Wednesday. We slept in a bit which was well-needed by now. Being massively behind on updates at that point, I stayed at the place while everyone else took the ferry into the city and skated with Tim, and Drew Humphrey and some other NYC locals, so no photos from that session unfortunately. But hey, I’ll just steal some of Tim’s:

Make sure to visit Tim’s blog of the trip at http://tprkr.com/post/44221258/nyc-day-2.

I made pretty good progress on updates for a little while… until Chad got back from dropping them off at the ferry and struck up a conversation- more of a him-talking-at-me-and-me-being-too-polite-to-ignore-him, really- that lasted hours… and hours… and hours. I seriously have no idea how that dude talked so much for so long, but he needs to find a career doing it because he is AWESOME at it.

I got about two hour’s work done in about seven hours’ time, no update went up, and I didn’t even get to catch up on sleep or anything instead. I was well-versed in Chad’s opinions on every single thing in the entire world, though. The call to pick up everyone at the ferry was a blessing and I was out the door and in my van in a heartbeat. The plan was to pick everyone up, meet up with Austin Paz, and skate the school with the curved red ledges (Colin Kelso freestyle rockio in ONE) which was apparently “just” on the other side of Staten Island.

Pulling up to the ferry I was struck by three things. First, I was about to meet Tim, my Revival co-host and the impetus for this whole tour idea, who I felt I was pretty good friends with yet had never actually met in person, which I suddenly realized was really weird. Second, Tim was really tall, like way tall. Lastly, uh, how are all these people going to fit in my minivan? There were the five other Detroiters… Tim… his friend from Britian Nick aka NHRB who’s living in NYC this year… Drew Humphrey… and NYC local Vincent. That’s ten people and my van seats six. With Vincent in the trunk, four in the back seat, three in the middle, and two in the front, we made it work and headed (slowly) back to Matt & Chode’s place. We chilled a bit at the place, made some food, got ahold of Austin, and crammed into the van once again. More photos from Tim:

“That’s what she said” had caught on with our new friends and the ride out to the spot was… rambunctious, to say the least. We got lost driving on crazy-ass twisty roads through the woods, had to floor it going up hills, had to leave the sliding doors open because of heat, and only made it to the spot with the surprising help of some genuine NYC guidos in a Benz.

The spot was super fun, I had barely skated at all so far on the tour, and Tim wanted to borrow my flashes, so I didn’t get any shots, but here, I’ll steal another one of Tim’s:

And another:

You can tell this spot is Austin’s bitch as he was flying at it and we were all creeping at it like pussies. I love watching amazing skaters skate their bitch spots because they can work them like they owe them money. This spot’s actually kind of weird to skate because it’s not a constant curve, it’s a straight, a really tight curve, then another straight. Takes a little while to get the hang of, but I absolutely destroyed that shit with a Mach negative-2 soul grind and some awesome falls. The rain came back to end our session but I grabbed a group shot in the parking lot- that’s my van that we all fit in. It was like Ringling Brothers or something.

I dropped our extra passengers at the ferry and my van was quite relieved to be rid of them. Back at the place we ordered Domino’s from down the street and it took an HOUR AND A HALF to get there… lame. We crashed out in anticipation of a long next day skating in the city.

Next up- our Thursday in NYC.