SkateAcrossUSA.com Trip One

Click here to watch the other episodes!

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Transworld

Make Sure to Watch Episode One first and episode three after!

Vimeo

Transworld

Quick Description of who we are, team of five people longboarded from Oregon to New York relay style to raise money for at-risk youth.
This Video covers Day 2 and features what will happen next, sorry its a bit long, ill try to shorten the future episodes, I hope you all enjoy.

Film Editor: Ari Mannis – http://arimannis.com
Edited: Windows 7, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, Shot using Cannon HSF10

Soundtrack in order,
Kiven – Find The Time
DRAKE-OVER(FILTHY DISCO REMIX)

Adam Colton – “Sweet as, will post this up in our newsletter, brings back memories.”

Jack Smith – “Enjoyed that very much…Deja vu!“

Click here to watch the rest of the episodes!

Vimeo

Transworld

Quick Description of who we are, team of five people longboarded from Oregon to New York relay style to raise money for at-risk youth.
This Video covers a couple days before the trip and through Day 1, sorry its a bit long, ill try to shorten the future episodes, I hope you all enjoy.

Film Editor: Ari Mannis
Edited: Windows 7, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, Shot using Cannon HSF10

Soundtrack in order,
The Madd – I Know
Connan Mockasin – It’s Choade My Dear
Ministesr De la funk – Believe
Awkward I – Sea Life

Click here to watch the rest of the episodes!

We wake up in the Bronx, the trip is over and we can’t believe it. After 20-30 miles of skating for 22 and 1/2 days straight what now, what do we do? Me, Dahnny, Jon, and Nikki head to Bustin Boards to check out there shop. We get there to find Mike D working the counter and even though he didn’t know we were coming, when we told him we just skated to New York from Oregon he made us feel right at home, we got a tour of the shop, got to see the screen printing process, and we hung out in the backyard and shared stories of our adventures. Mike is planning a cross-country skate trip of his own so he was super down for the cause. If you read the blog you will know that during the trip we lost all of our extra bearing/wheels. Without us even asking Mike asked us if we needed anything and happily threw us some urethane. He then told us about a skate called The Warrior Run, it is a skate from The Bronx to Coney Island a total of 26miles straight through the city of NY.

Me, Marc, and Brian showed up at Bustin the next day for the Warrior Run. We started at a fast pace and I don’t think we knew what we were getting into, as soon as the first big hill popped up, the Bustin Crew flew up the hill. We then continued to skate, we skated some awesome bridges, through central park, and time square, dodging in and out of cars and people. I had never skated anything like it but it was a blast. After 22 miles we wanted to quit, we were dehydrated and our bodies couldn’t take it. We couldn’t keep up the Bustin crew but we pushed threw to the end where we reached Nathans Hot Dogs. We did it and to us it was just as big of accomplishment as skating across the USA. I just hope next time we can keep up better! On the subway ride back from Coney Island Marc fell asleep and we all hung out while riding back to Brooklyn.

Next day me, Dahnny, and Jon started are long drive back to San Diego, but we made one last stop at Bustin Boards to say goodbye. We hung out in the backyard, they hooked us up with Decks and we were on our way. Thank you to the Bustin crew for showing much kindness and for the skate, keep rockin!

That night the team split up.. Me, Dahnny, and Jon headed back to California while Marc and Brian stayed in New York longer. We made the trip back in 3 days, one of us was always driving and we never stopped to sleep. We made a few quick stops, we stopped in Texas to visit comedian and radio personality Zach Rose, we stopped in Roswell, NM to visit NMMI, and we stopped at the Carlsbad Caverns. Finally we made it home!

Few days later it was ASR in San Diego, so I met up with Bustin Boards once again, I hung out at there hotel where we watched the evolutions DVD, skated around downtown, and skated a sweet parking garage for hours. Thanks Mike, Ryan, and Rob for the fun times.

Post will be updated with more pictures soon…

Ari

PS: I am in the process of editing our trips video, sorry for the delay, I’m a busy boy.

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After Little Mexico we were headed to New Jersey, roads were flat and narrow overall some good skating. We didn’t quite make it as far as planned due to getting lost and not finding a motel with vacancy. All campgrounds in sight were the same price as motels so we stayed at Quality Inn.  After filling ourselves up with some complimentary Dominos we watched a movie and went to sleep.

Next day we stopped at a fireworks store where I bought smoke bombs and roman candles, then we made our way towards New York. As we got closer to the big city we had to do more city skating than ever before on the whole trip, people dodging became a new concern and we had to pay even more attention at all times. Our mile times became slower with the new obstacles.  The realization of finishing became real as we caught site of Bridges and tunnels going into NY. We pushed ourselves so that we could explore the city.

We did it, we were over the bridge skating in New York, dodging people and cars became a constant, we constantly had to jump off our boards to avoid a collision. That night we called our friend Nikki in the Bronx and stayed with her all of us were pumped to be finished we stayed up all night reliving the memories. Our cross country skate trip was over but our adventures were not.

Day Count from Oregon to NY: 22 Days XX amount hours.

Stay tuned to read about our stay in New York along with our stop at Bustin Boards, followups…

We  left Marcs sisters house and started our skate to Ohio! We ended our day in Edgerton at the Hickory Acres Campground. It was quite lovely there and we were once again made fun of for using the website called google.com. This campground had a lake with paddle boats and a lovely little store. We then skated to Akron Ohio where my girlfriend Heather was kind enough to get permission from her mother and grandmother to let us crash at her grandmas pad. Jon, Ari, and Dahnny got to catch a Indians, Yankees game. Heather’s grandma and mom was so lovely and enjoyed us there so much that we wish we could stay longer.

First night in Pennsylvania we stayed at another lovely campground that had a ping pong table. The owner challenged me to a game and I won and then proceded to beat Jon repeatedly. The owner was very nice and talked to us for a good hour sharing stories of his past as we shared ours. We got a late start and headed to our next city in in PE.

Next day while skating we happened to pass by Camp Woodward, this was completely unplanned and we didn’t even realize we were going to pass it but of course we had to stop and check it out. We got a tour of the camp, we got to see the giant skateboard, and hear all about the skaters that pass through.

We arrived at Little Mexico campground where they were so kind to us and helped us out with our supplies! This was a nice campground with a pool(largest above ground pool in the USA), game room, and a basketball court. Next morning we got a terribly late start and when we were finally all packed and going to get free Denny’s if we made it there before the manager was off, the car battery was dead. We got the car jumpstarted and headed to Denny’s. We made it to Denny’s in time where the manager filled are bellies with food and are cooler with ice. Re-energised we were off again.

Stay Tuned,

Ari

Upon arriving at the Sioux City, Iowa campgrounds, we were sure we were ready to settle for the night. The campground was in a beautiful, wooded area, and the camping fees were cheap. After being outside for five minutes , we discovered there were no showers or electricity, and the humidity started to get to us, so we decided to search for a new place. Although we all hate to be sissy city kids who needed showers and electricity, after skating 30 miles a day we all agreed for to treat ourselves to a hotel.

That night we skated through town and got great help from the local Applebees, Dominos, and Kinko’s. The next day we made our way farther into the state, where Walmart donated $25, so we got some food/drinks.

We passed many farms and it reminded Jon of the Movie “Field of Dreams,” which was where the baseball field from the movie is located. It started to rain and my (Ari) suitcase was tied to the top of the car where all my clothes got drenched. We decided to quit a little early for the day,  slowing us down even more. Even though breaking the record is important to us, safety and finishing the trip is most important, and if we can pick up the pace it is still possible to finish the trip in good time.

We woke up and started our day off as guests on CastleRockRadio.com radio in Denver. The show is awesome and we were so happy to be invited on the air. We skated all the way across Illinois and into Indiana where we are staying with Marc’s sister. It is very nice to stay at a house again, and I am not looking forward to waking up in the AM. Days are starting to blur together and it’s hard to catch up with the changing time zones. We are all tired and sleep deprived, but we are halfway through the country and having the times of our lives while helping out a good cause! I am happy that the trip is working out, and coming this far makes us feel very accomplished. Our slogan has become “We are skating across the USA, believe it!”

Stay tuned,

SkateAcrossUSA

We left the Dubois and headed for Van Tassel with a population of around 10 people however we all knew in the back of our heads that there wouldn’t be a place to stay there. After Dubois the land turned into desert and became very humid. It started to rain so we headed to Torrington and treated ourselves to a motel with money we received from the extremely generous Neale family. We then all attempted to sleep for the night while itching at the insane amount of bug bites all over our body.

The next day our goal was to make it to Cody, Nebraska but it became even more hot and humid and we got very tired so we stopped in Valentine, Nebraska and set up camp at Wacky West. The town was very small but the people were very nice.

We then headed to Onie’ll Nebraska, there we got an oil change. We set up camp at Carney Park and it had free camping. The humidity started to get to me as I was unpacking the car while being eaten alive by pesky skeeters. We met three bikers our age that were biking across America and they were very nice. When the thunder and rain started we took the bikers up on there offer to stay under the awning with them. So we all hung out and shared life stories. Towards the end of the night some of us had a little to much aggression from being in a cramped car with five guys so Jon decided to punch the female biker in the face while Dahnny held her down and kicked her. We didn’t know what to do besides run so we left the camp site and left our extra skateboard bearings and wheels behind. Ok that whole punching and kicking thing never happened but we did forget our extra bearings and wheels somewhere. The next morning we got an early start towards Iowa, more on that in the next post.

Stay cool three bikers which I apologies for forgetting your names,

Stay tuned for more posting,

Ari and the SkateAcrossUSA.com gang

PS: Click our facebook link to the left of our page under links, we have some more pictures on there for now…

More Pictures and Video coming your way soon.

The skate was a hot uphill battle for most of the way, it started to flatten out and the weather cooled down. We started to pass beatiful fields as we got closer to Wyoming. We passed through town where Trevor at Pizza Hut really helped us out! We have had tons of pizza on this trip(eating pizza as we write this) but we are not tired of it. Our rear right blinker/hazards is out of order and the back right door seems to be coming off the hinges.

The next day we entered Wyoming it was insanely beautiful and green we loved to skate there. We passed Jackson and Yellowstone. When we got closer to Burris, WY we relized it was a very small place with absolutely no where to sleep, so we stopped in Duboise population under 1000. We got there and every motel/campground was full we were scared we had nowhere to sleep and 5 guys in a car is not comfortable. We stopped on the main street and we met some people outside of a resturaunt who saw our car. As we drove away not knowing what to do a woman followed us into a parking lot and heard we needed a place to eat/sleep. We said yes and we followed to her house where we met the Neale’s. We were overwhelmed by the kindness this family showed as they cooked us dinner, found us a place to stay, and sent us off with extra food. There kindness is something we all agreed we have never seen before in our lives it was very hard for us to leave such a friendly beuatiful place but we fianlly headed back on the road.

Stay rad Neale family,
SkateAcrossUSA

Towards the end of Oregon things got kind of difficult as we were skating along the highway with temperatures over 100 degrees, the car started to overheat from using the air conditioner so we had to sit in the heat. We were then pulled over by a police officer for skating on the highway but when we told him what we were doing he just gave us some advice on how to follow the skater and he was on his way. Seeing the Oregon trail was pretty cool and we now no what those travelers had to go through… kinda. As we crossed into Idaho the roads became flatter and smoother, the highway was wider with more lanes, more cars, and a wider shoulder. As the car followed us we got many friendly honks. We then made a stop at the first rest stop where a passing trucker came up to us asking all about our trip and he said he saw us in Oregon, he was super friendly and stolked on what we were doing. We decided to spoil ourselves on day 3 so we slept in a motel, I planned on getting some video editing done but by the time we were all unpacked we passed out.

As we made our way deeper into idaho the highway became narrower with less cars and more gravel however the wind was on our side pushing through the 90+ degree weather was surprisingly not so bad especially comparing to the day before. Passing through the more desolate parts of Idaho the people became less friendly yelling at us to get off the road… We were again pulled over, the police officer said someone called the police on us for hanging onto the car while skating (never happened). We explained to him we never did that and what were skating for and he said that was ok and left us be. We then made our way to Picabo with a population of 130+ people. We decided we would go a little further and we made it to Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve which seemed like it would be rad. When we got there it was filled with insects and was hot. The closest place which sold food and drinks was 20 miles away in a town called Arco.  We went into town and the Lost River Drive In was very nice and hooked us all up with free burgers and fries. We then headed back to camp and spend the nigh in tents where we made friends with the local chipmunks.

Stay Tuned,

SkateAcrossUSA