California-Part One

I wanted to get some of these pictures and stories up, but I don't think I can do it in one shot. Therefore, I'm going to break it down into a few installments. So here we go:

Friday, May 9th, AKA, Day one: We left around 6 AM East Coast Time. Even with a layover in Chicago, we still managed to get into San Diego at 10:30 AM! Awesome. We had the whole day ahead of us. Leading us to our first destination, In-N-Out Burger, which begs the question: Do I travel 3,000 miles for the skateboarding, or the niche fast food restaurant that can't be found on the East Coast?



Our hotel was near the San Diego Harbor and had a stunning view....of this bank to wall and killer transitioned curb thingy! Yes, occasionally I would bust out the board and attempt a few wall rides before security took notice. Evidentally, I was not the first one to give it a try.

I also managed to take a quick trip to the Coronado Skatepark at Tidelands Park on Friday the 9th. It's pretty small, but really fun to ride and super-smooth. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I'm just trying to fill the text space to the right of this picture of our lovely Holiday Inn parking lot.

Bloopity bloopity bloopity-doo. Hey-hey-hey! Isn't skateboarding fun? In-N-Out Double Double Combo Meal!

Moving on (before we get to some skating pictures and content), I'd like to mention this great breakfast cafe, Perry's. It's very close to Old Town on the Pacific Highway.
Excellent in both the food and the decor, which is fantastically right out of the 70's, and there's no reason to change a damn thing.
"Any of you pigs move and I'll execute every last f-ing one of ya!"
Right?

After convening with Leach at his house on Saturday, I requested his services guiding us to the new skatepark in Pala. The journey would take us northeast of the city past avocado stands, lemon trees and tweakers. On that note, here we have the Pala Pipes.




Very skateable, but I was more concerned about getting to the skatepark which was just a few minutes down the road. We also stopped off to check out the legendary Pala Pool, which has sadly been filled in with dirt, but it was praised highly. I didn't get any pictures of the remains, just some video.



So here we are at the new Pala Skatepark, right down the road from the casino. If skating isn't your thing, you could enjoy the sounds of Ringo Starr or UB40 or check out the gaming tables.

First shot is just kind of an overview. There's a ton of nice stuff to ride, a combi pool, a great little kidney, a snake run and a street course.


From what I gather, it gets really hot in Pala, so hitting the park in mid-May was a great idea.


I wish I could have come back for a "day two". Easily my favorite park of the trip, but a little out of the way from everything.


Backside grind....woohoo!


"Yeah, um, see that spot right there? I WON'T be doing anything interesting there."


So yeah, after we skated we headed back to Ocean Beach and at went to Ortega's which is one of my favorites. Then Leach threw a party for us and all the OB regulars.

Bored yet? OK. This concludes installment #1 of the California saga.