I figure I’d better get this up here before I forget what happened.

Since my very good friend Micheal Colby moved to Las Vegas I had wanted to go and visit and mostly I had been looking for a good excuse. Since I really don’t care about gambling I figured it would be some sort of skate adventure.

Lucky for me that Las Vegas became a convergent zone for some Oh My Back skater pals. Scumtash was heading into town from the UK for a wedding and Dan Hughes said he and his wife June could also make the trip. Perfect! A weekend with good friends and skating!

So Friday March, 25th I jumped on a plane to Salt Lake City. What? Cheap ticket buyers have to make some jumps sometimes so I got to cool my heals in SLC for tree hours. Good thing I had a book. So after eating dinner and drinking a few cocktails I was on my way to Las Vegas finally.

So I got into Vegas at about 10pm and drove to my hotel and checked in. Put my skateboards back together and set the alarm for 4am. There was a pool to check out and I was not going to give it a miss.

4am came around and I skated from my hotel to the pool. I had been told by a friend about it and heard it was pretty good. When I got there my heart sank. It had water in it from the recent rains and I was not prepared to move any water with what I brought with me. I am a pool mission failure. Damn. I skated back to my hotel and got some sleep.

When I got up Saturday morning I skated down to Murphy’s Law to meet Micheal. He runs the kitchen there and he was taking care of a few things before we got going. I had the not so Irish Liam Neeson scramble a couple of Bloody Mary’s and fun conversations with Michael and Kitty the bartender while we waited for Dan and June to meet us. If you’re in Las Vegas you should stop by Murphy’s Law and say Hi to Michael (he’s mostly there during the day) and check out what I mean when I say, “Plaid belt”.

Dan and June showed up and we jumped into the car and headed to the Boulder City area looking for a ditch. Boy did we find one! It was so much fun to skate and went on and on up a hill. After clearing away some rocks it was on. We spent most of the day there skating until well into the late afternoon. It was super fun to see Michael get the gleam in his eye after not having skated much in the last 20 years and it only sucked when the session ended with Micheal hitting the concrete and pulling a muscle in his leg.

On the way back towards town we stopped at A & W and had some burgers and root beer before heading to Anthem (a swank part of Henderson) to skate the park there. Anthem is a pretty cool park and once you figure out the scooter, bike, skater kid flyout line you can get some runs in and have a good time.

So Scumtash arrived from the UK and we set up meeting to skate Sunday morning. Dan and June went their separate ways and Michael and I hung out and caught up with each other over dinner. What a great first day! When I hit the pillow back in my hotel I was out like a light.

Sunday morning I picked up Scumtash and headed to our first skatepark destination. Desert Breeze skatepark was where we were going. We had seen Sammy Baca’s line in Thrasher’s King Of The Road video in this park and we wanted to check it out. Holy shit this park is a jankfest of the highest degree. I’m now convinced that Sammy Baca’s line in that park is truly amazing.

After Desert Breeze we hit the Wayne Bunker skatepark in which we had a few fun lines to ride. I do have to admit that I’m kind of spoiled living in the Pacific Northwest of the USA with all the great parks we have here. The parks in Las Vegas are a shadow of what we have here.

Next we went to the Buffalo / Doc Romeo skatepark which is another spot that Sammy Baca ruled in KOTR by doing a power slide. This park was truly strange but we had some fun there too because skateboarding is simply fun wherever you are doing it.

We went and checked out the Let it Roll skateshop where we met Tim and his family. They have a really nice shop and are stoked on skating. If you are in Las Vegas you should check out the shop. After visiting Let it Roll we went next door and had some pizza and wings. Scumtash had to get outside of some wings and I think he wasn’t disappointed. After that we said goodbye to Dan and June as they had a six hour drive back to Salt Lake City. It was super good to skate with them when it wasn’t freezing cold. Good times!

Scumtash and I headed back to the ditch near Boulder City and got even more skating in until we could hardly walk. If I didn’t say it before I’ll say it now…. That ditch is EPIC!

Then we hit the Double Down Saloon which is truly the happiest place on earth. What a great punk rock dive bar. Awesome. Then we had some dinner at Murphy’s Law and Scumtash schooled my on the finer points for rugby until he fell asleep sitting on his bar stool. Super good fun. I dropped him off at his hotel and went back to mine to pack for my 6am flight home.

A good weekend to round out the week of my 43rd Birthday. Thanks to Dan, June Micheal and Scumtash for making it a great time. Let’s all skate together again real soon.

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