Well the rash got worst over my 4 day course of the train trip. I was down to $4 on my last day of the train ride. On day 2 my skin rash started to get gnarly and I had a hold over in Chicago for a few hours so I got some poison ivy itch spray and then bought cheap socks at the Gap. Yep, I shopped at the gap for my first time because it was going out of business, I had no idea where I was in Chicago, and I got 3 pairs of fancy socks for $5. You know those fancy socks that go up really tall and are thing? Almost like oompa loompa style. Anyways over the course of my train ride I interacted with many people. I saw thousands of graffitied freight cars, met some kids and we breakdanced and freestyled in the dining car late at night, I slept in awkward positions every night at odd hours, and I realized surviving off microwaved train food ain't that sweet. Luckily the moment I got into the Fresno train station in Cali I was presented with my fresh luggage, the body shocks my skin rash was giving me were going away, and a white van full of 3 skateboarders showed up to whisk me away to paradise.

This here is beauty. Oh yea, I realized my skin disease was from not showering after swimming in an overchlorinated hotel pool at the Damn AM a few days prior to my train departure. So remember to shower after everytime you swim in a pool that smells like death.

Board making. Every week Cassidy would teach kids how to make mini skateboards and then hook them up with art. Cassidys a sick artist. There are these walls right by his art shed I wanted to see him paint all summer long, maybe next year.

I fell in love with the red Element canoe. I'd take that thing out and pretend I was in the olympics and paddle as fast as I could. It was fun to take photos from the canoe just because there was the slight risk of dropping the camera into water.

Ahh, a crystal clear shot of some flowers. I taught kids to get closeup shots of patterns and what not. This one didn't come out that great. Did I mention the camera I used to shoot all these pictures was probably from the year 1999 and it had a 1.96second delay after you pushed the shoot button?

One of the postcard worthy camper shots. Cat tails were fun to make lots of floating debree with. I even saw some amazing cat tail frog catching devices. A common trend amongst campers was catching bullfrogs.

A kid in my cabin shot this during the zine making class I taught. I told him to shoot the photo with a skateboard in the foreground and somehow he pulled this shot off first try.

Elemental Awareness is sick. You get all naturey and make ill structures like this too sleep in. I just shot photos of the things they made.

This is Lance. Lance was sleeping in this contraption one night when he heard purring noises and slight steps. He sat inside for five minutes silent just wondering what was creeping outside. Then the outside creature started to come in and thats when Lanced screamed "Ahhhhhhh!" as loud as possible. I'ma ctually not quite sure if he screamed "Ahhhh!" maybe it was "Shugguaaadibgaaah!". Anyways other EA (Elemental Awareness) members woke up after they heard Lance scream and they threw sticks and rocks towards his stick hut. Turns out the next morning there were Mountain Lion footprints right in front of Lances hut. Gnarly eh?

One of the Hagard brothers teachers a girl camper how to make a wooden spoon out of... wood.

The indians were highly favored even though skate camp was known as the pirate camp.

Before every meal all the campers and counselors gather up and do some strange activity. I guess volleyball isn't that strange. But our imaginations were used as we had to make up songs together, play the best rock paper scissors game ever called evolution, pretend we were skateboards and spots and come up with the best trick (our cabin won week 6 with a switch pole jam on a giraffes neck through a fire ring over the grand canyon).

Thats pine need tee to the left. I couldn't really drink it but others swore by it. I spent lots of time at Element Land piling out and just shooting photos. I took many naps under the tree because I was usually stationed there right after lunch and for some reason it was too hot for me to skate so I headed for the shade. Element Land was ill. It required lots of sweeping.

Another crooked crooked grind photo, minus the tat.

The thing about my campers was that they just wanted to have fun. Some of the weeks we wouldn't even skate together except for when we had too. The rest of time they would do weird cool stuff like slide in on the vert ramp and aim to slide under each other. It was pretty rad to see them do stuff like this while people tried to skate the vert ramp.

Good aim.

Gabriella and Lizzy. LIzzy was from London I think. Gabriella New york. Camp TQ lurkers who found skateboarders as interesting as a pink elephant.

throw it up, throw it up.

This bunny showed up and tried to drop in on the ramp.

It failed.

Making a spoon with coals.

Pine needle tea ready to be brewed.

Me getting serious with a spoon while somebody carries sticks.

Fire, fire fire. We cooked a fish late at night while the campers were watching videos. The whole time we had to make noise for fear of a bear or mountain lion trying to kill us and eat the fish. The fish was really good.

Rhys is from Atlanta and likes cheeseburgers and monster trucks. Nah, Rhys is an ill homie from London who has an accent and runs an Asian Mafia of midgets. Of course I'm not serious about the Mafia.

A camper does a tailslide.

This is a musician group playing music. I didn't take this photo, I did interview Ray Barbee with some campers and we had some serious artist shots. But whoever took this photo was not me, hence the serious look on Rays face. Aaron Estes is in this shot. He jammed after every campfire. Jeff the driver was the driver and he kicked a cow in the mouth for blocking his van when he was trying to get up the hill. The cow was just standing there chewing grass being a cow, then it spit out its grass and looked at Jeff meanly. Jeff didn't take lightly to the cows hate.

This is Jeff settling down after his run in with the cow. Oh ya, in the previous photo... ahh, nevermind.

The Element total seclusion besides the big Element logo van.

This is one of those lifestyle shots. A young boy thinks eagerly about dropping in and carving up a line of beauty, essence, and mystery.

Or he just wants to blast an air over the hip.

Yes, there were paint markers at camp.

Muska arrived like a rockstar. Joey cut the music during the mini ramp jam to announce the arrival of the Muskalade. Muska arrived, was cool as frick, talked about his new shop, hung out with everyone, announced a contest, and signed autographs for days. Muska is on his sheeeit. He is one of the coolest pros out there fo sho. He's got a new shop in LA. I can't remember the name but go there and say hi. And yes, he talked about Paris.

Girls helping girls. Sally likes the moon but not the sun.

Camper art. There was one camper from Chicago who was on some graffiti tip like Zephyr. Kid was amazing.

A camper does a boneless.

A headless Joey jumps headfirst into the lake. Notice the floaties on the I can't swim board.

Chomping at the beachfront blast, the beach wasn't a beach but we pretended it was and thats all that matters.

Muska tailslides.

Jess recalls his cow kicking footy while getting more footy. No animals were harmed this summer except for the fish we caught and ate, and the varmin that the EA guys ate on their gnarly mountain expedition high into the mountains.

Whodi holds down the fence while Esteven holds down the fence.

This is Mike Manidis, the Camp Director doing a frontside flip during the Beachfront blast. Mike Rips, he used to ride for New deal but now he has his own shop called Atlas. Mikes ill yo. One of the coolest cats I've worked for. I shouldn't even call it work.

This is Chris. He was cool, his mom was sick the whole time at camp so we made sure he was having a good time. He was bummed to be leaving camp but I'm sure hes still ripping.

This is one of the Hagar brothers. Don't know which but they both ripped.

Cassidy drilling holes for baby boards.

Jack Love works on a sign. Sweet mohawk. Word is Jeff met a beautiful girl at the train station while on transporation detail. Right before the girl left for her train Jack and her shared a serious kiss. Kinda like when the army dude is leaving his wife for months except the other way around. Why do I think of Marilyn Monroe as I write this?

A camper photo, good shot. Lake Launch open on thursdays.

Another camper photo.

Page 2 >>