Slyde Handboards Tour Across America to Surf Expo 2012
04 Jan - 20 Jan 2012
Surf Expo 2012 from Venice CA to Orlando FL - drive roundtrip over 5,000 miles!!
Whomever coined the phrase "it's not about the destination it's the journey" . . . was not talking about us because there is no doubt it's definitely both!! Here's a blow by blow of two weeks and 5k+ miles on the road for Slyde's inaugural surf expo.
We figured why not drive so at the end of December we bought a van off craigslist:
She had 115k miles on her but our wild man race car driving neighbor, Jerry Toporek, who drives Heap-A-Trouble Racing #40, gave gave us a line on a mechanic named foogert who'd take a look at her.
Jerry who is most comfortable racing the figure 8 at radical speeds which is a basically a track that any time one car can collide head on with another so we trusted his referral!!
(c. tonymacx86.com)
After NYE 2012 we returned from JacksonSave Hole and Steamboat after some fun in the upper altitudes. After jsut 24 hours being back in SoCal we hit the 10 on thurs evening but not before dropping in on our local beer & pretzel burger joint (the tripl yes that’s a plug, now where’s our pints you promised). We made it to phoenix early the next AM got in a solid 8 hrs of sleep and saddled up in the slyde ryde. Not too sure if it was doc holiday’s “i’m your huckleberry” or Geronimo calling but we jumped off the 10 to catch up with wyatt earp and the gang in Tombstone.
Toured the Boothill Grave Yard and and you guessed it the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral which is outside the window of doc’s prostitute girlfriend's room (she’s not much of a looker to be jumped outside her room & we personally thought val kilmer could have done better!!)
As the regulators mount ed up out of Tombstone the sun fell and it was absolutely memorable for its beauty. We now know why Gernimo and the Apache natives ferociously fought to keep their land from being stolen by the greed of silver & gold.
Back on the 10 we saddled up for pecan island where we were meeting up with a few friends at a camp in the south Louisiana marsh on friday night. However, being 1,200 miles away at sunset on Thursday, we were well behind schedule and on top of it were losing an hour to time change!! The next 28 hours were a marathon, we stopped for an accumulation of 3 hours to take on some fuel, food and 1 hour of roadside sleep just before dawn on friday.
Back on the road we swooped in on an old friend's grandfather’s ranch in weimar to have a peak at a number of solid memories, Mr. Rowton was a tough ole coot!!
Texas was a beating all 881 miles of that state but there was one shining star in texas at exit 593 which was initially a stop only to hit the toilet but ended being one of life’s meant to be moments. The BEST biltongue aka beef jerky or smoked beef strips EVER appeared behind the refrigerated glass case which was close enough to the register where one isn’t sure if they should open it themselves or ask, we opted on kindly requesting since after all it is texas and everyone pack heat & it was the dodgiest of places. We loaded up on the beef jerky and sausage, sent an email to our dentist telling him to clear his schedule for our return, we were sure to be stopping back at the shell truck stop on our return to SoCal. The label on the beef jerky and sausage indicates it is made by Kaspers Packing Co. and after researching where to get our next fix we found it can be bought in Weimar Texas at the Kasper Meat Market.
We eventually crossed the border into South Louisiana.
Bayou country, the home of the coon-ass aka Cajuns
It was immediately noticeable when we pulled in for some fuel and at the gas station you could fill up on petrol, load up on the booze, buy any array of fried organs and get all the 9mm bulllets you need on a Friday night. After a few logistical misteps in the swamp we landed in pecan island at the camp.
A proper coon-ass came around out of what seemed out of a rabbit hole named Jeff Guidry and did the one of coolest and kindest things we have ever witnessed by someone we'd just met which was without any hesitation proceed to immediately open all of the 5 bottles of homemade wine he brought over for us "cause he heard we in town". . . . you heard them pop one after another. His family makes he wine at home and he had all kind of flavors called persimmon, muscadine, and a few other bizarre sounding fermented mash berries or fruits that grow in the swamp marsh which to our astonishment tasted unbelievably well!! Thanks again for the wine Jeff!!
The intent was to accompany our friends on a duck hunt the following morning but after the wine and so little sleep over the previous 2 days we slept in.
We did go out the next afternoon on a really sick tour and brief hunt but we think it was either the head mounted gopro or the black & florescent orange board shorts that kept the birds away although our coon-ass friends assured us it was too windy!!
The next day we took off finally back to the water in Santa Rosa Beach Flordia where the sand is as white as the tips of the grand tetons in the dead of winter and water so blue it would make chlorine envious. The beaches from Pensacola to Panama City are this Appalachian crushed quartz snow white which makes for an absolute beautiful beach and killer sunsets also known by as the “filet of the day” which was coined by a wise friend from South Louisiana.
We chilled for a couple days, the waves are perfect for bodysurfing and the swells are primarily driven by the wind. While there we dined on some gulf shrimp, drank a few red stripes and watched the tigers lose to bama in an embarrassing defeat for lsu, our coon-ass buddy Emanny Pie stopped running that mouth by halftime!!
Orlando was 6 hour drive to the Surf Expo so we left there at midnight on tuesday and we eagerly arrived just after 6AM when the doors didn’t open till 8AM.
Indoor Skate Park @ Expo
Some got it immediately and said “yo you guys are the first to do it like this, that's so sick” and “dude these are amazing, bro you’ve done it” and then there were others who weren’t sure what it was but grasped the concept, knew it was cool and wanted to be a part of bodysurfing for the next generation.
As our fortune had it Tim Patterson’s booth shared a common wall with ours and what a cool dude and total class act that dude is. Patterson collaboration will be coming soon!!
The event concluded on Saturday at 5PM. We sold out of a van full of boards and walked away with a notebook bursting full of contacts.
We had the room so brought back the remainder of Timmy’s surf boards that he didn’t want to sell at the show.
We headed back to Santa Rosa Beach, FL and put the chill on for two days repeated the red stripes and ate delicious food at the local haunts which included a parrot in an Irish pub that nearly took a bite out of a nostril when it came prancing across the bar and jumped up on my arm and lunged forward for my face . . . WTF is up with that bird bro cage that beast!!
We headed west to New Orleans were we met up with a friend who took us out for steak and scotches to celebrate our 1st of many successful surf expo’s. Woke up the next day grabbed a cold draft beer and a half shrimp, half oyster po-boy at Domilise's and went down to the French Quarter to watch the New Orleans ladies sachet by.
I’ve always wanted to skate the quarter and we took off down bourbon street past lafitte’s blacksmith shop, pat o’s and big daddy’s hung a left toward acme oyster house en route to Jackson Square when the “HEY BOYS, HEY!!” was belted out from the quarter cop walking his beat. He explained to us very carefully that its against the law to ride a skateboard anywhere in the Quarter on the street or the sidewalk. A on or off duty drunk sanitation worker (we couldn’t figure it out but he was wearing his 2 mile visibility vest) decided to get in on our action and offer his two cents of advice and to protest keeping down the man. The cop wanted ID’s and eventually let us go with a very stern verbal warning after he saw that we lived in California.
After our afternoon in the quarter we climbed back in the van on our way to the other side of the Atchafalaya Basin Spillway to Breaux Bridge (Crawfish Capitol of the World) for some mudbugs!!
That night we landed in Houston, the next Las Cruces and finally back home where it was collectively confirmed by a very thorough assessment that we live in the greatest city in the U.S.A. We couldn’t wait to see big blue to throw our boards out on her surf, skate the boardwalk, be back with our people and above all else have a beer in the Slyde Cave surrounded by our hard work and dedication to the next generation of bodysurfers!!!!
We would like to thank the artist who very succesful contributed their work at the Surf Expo 2012:
Boardwell - Lindsey Carron & Courtney Branch
Tommy La Verdi
David Kim
more pics may be found - Slyde Life
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 7:18PM
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