Photos & story by: Brooks Fritz

I used to love flying. I’ve always been fascinated with it. Still to this day I trip out that we can herd people like cattle into metal tubes with wings and wheels and fly anywhere on this earth. The airplane is amazing thing. Too bad the beginning of my excitement for flying all ended when I had to fly from New York to Portland, Oregon. Here is part 3 of my East Coast to West Coast trip.

I was stressing on getting to the airport on time in the first place since I was already lagging getting back to NYC from Philly and then when I did get to the airport the first thing I saw was how long the line was to get your boarding pass/check in…… Those Arabian people sure get hassled.

When I finally got to the front of the line the Jet Blue ticket doosh bag was trying to tell me I was going to have to check my tripods and skateboard in since they were weapons. Yeah weapons. This was pretty much the first time I really had any problems and I explained that to him. He said good luck getting through security and when they turn you around you are going to have to go to the end of the line where it just took me over an hour to get through. I took the risk and for once the people at the security check point didn’t take me into secondary to harass me about the quantum battery pack.

With that all said in done I barely had enough time for one quick drink and the plane was boarding. When I got on the plane and disassembled by bag so it would fit into the overhead I looked out the window and saw a shit load of airplanes. Way more then usual. Picture it backed up like freeway traffic.

What happened next was just beyond retarded.

On both sides of the plane as far as you could see there were planes in a row waiting to take off. I was so over it I didn’t even get my camera out. The pilot said we would be taking off shortly. No drinks or food were handed out and six hours later the plane took off. Jet Blue rules.

Like I was saying in part one about saving your time & money with direct flights; here is a perfect example why to besides spending all your money at the bar. So the plane was 6 hours behind schedule. That means my connecting flight in Georgia was fucked too. By the time we landed in Georgia my flight was long gone and there were no more connecting flights for that day. It looked like I would be getting comped a room at a local hotel by the airport or something right? Nope. Sorry. I Don’t even want to try and explain.

The next day I got the hell out of Georgia and made it to Portland finally. Friends Ryan and Luke picked me up at the airport and forty five minutes later I was listening to Sleazy Steve talk about some crazy ass shit while shooting these photos of Drew Potter trying to do this 50/50

and Peter Gunn Slamming….

and Peter getting back up for the make that I managed to fucked up.

That night we stayed in Portland at our friend Jamie’s house where there is a bar 1 door down. In the morning I had to piss so I went outside to pee in the alley. Some how the door shut all the way and I was locked out. So there I was in just my boxers yelling upstairs for someone to open the door. No one could hear me so I had to walk down the street and find Ryan’s car where I could at least curl up in the fetal position and lay in the front seat to wait for someone to wake up. Later that day we drove out to the Coast and met up with my friend Alex wells. Here’s his dog SA.

This shit was pretty crazy.

The only kind of fly out allowed: Kyle Gallagher with a roll in off the back of the cradle to disaster to roll in at the downstairs of Lincoln City.

It’s a long way down from the top.

Angle two of Ryan Williams back smith grind.

Flashes in photos are making a come back.

We stayed on the Coast for a few days skating Lincoln City and the few surrounding parks in the area. Then we made our way north. This photo reminds me of the movie The Goonies

Speaking of the movie The Goonies. The town Astoria is where they filmed most of it. The helmet law is strict here. Kyle takes a quick run with a grind in the deep. Think it’s 11 with 2 ft of vert?

Mandatory lame nature photo

Captain Booh Jah with a almost pad-less front side air in the big boy zone of the Astoria Dreamland park.

After a quick session in Astoria since we only had one helmet between the four of us we drove to a place a little more adult skateboard friendly. Bainbridge Island.

Here’s Luke Girling with the best move in the history of skateboarding. The frontside grind.

I laugh now because I consider these people my friends.

We first thought they were Canadians and after hanging out with Ryan a little too much I started not liking Canadians for no reason. Well at least I have no reason. I’m still not sure why Ryan dislikes them so much. Maybe because he lives so close to them and they are notorious for the fly out? But what I was getting at is we were kind of avoiding these guys thinking they were Canadians. We seen them at a couple other parks but always when we would be leaving or vice verse. Here at Bainbridge was the first meeting and we we’re relieved they were Australians.

Here’s Dorfus with a first run frontside air from shallow to deep.

Definately not from Canada. Not even sure if he’s from this planet. Skateboarder of the millenium Dorfus with a hefty smith grind…

and a lien to tail

Luke wishes you a good weekend…. See you next week.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 4:03 pm and is filed under PHOTO OF THE DAY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.