Solid Foundation New Jersey
Friday (Trip to Jersey)
Setting up this whole trip has been so crazy and everything didn't look like it was going to work out. However last minute everything fell together, lots of thanks to Josh Whittemore for driving us to Albany, NY to make it possible for us. I left School right after class at 1 pm, picking up Kenny Hopkins, in Glens Falls, to go on the trip with me.
We took the Grey Hound from Ablany at 3:30 headed for Ridgewood, NY, about 15 minuets away from Steve Wolfe's house, (The founder of SFNJ Skateboard Ministry). We spent the night friday and saturday at his house. The weather didn't look so good for the saturday skate jam.
We arrived in Jersey around 5:45. Neither me nor Kenny had a cell phone with us this whole trip. We tried to call Steve to pick us up at the bus station, but the pay phone wasn't working. Thankfully there was a nice girl who let us borrow her cell phone.
We got to Steve's house, going out that night to skate the SFNJ barn. Steve is very creative with his skateboarding equipment. In the photo to the left he uses old truck parts and coat hangers.
Saturday (Jersey)
It rained Saturday morning, so Steve had to cancel the whole event, that Kenny and I went down to see/help with. Steve left to some things that day. Corey (Steve's Intern) came over to show us around Jersey. Kenny's shoes were completely blown out, so we left for the 2nd biggest mall in america.
When shopping for shoes on sale, someone told us the Habitat skate team was at the CCS skate store signing autographs. We headed down, and lone behold the legendary Kerry Getz was there along with Tim O'Conner and the rest of the team.
<-Tim O'Conner and Corey
After skating all day already we headed to the SFNJ barn to skate when it got dark outside.
Kenny Hopkins 50-50 the Jersey Barrier
Upstairs in the barn is one of the nicest mini ramps I've skated. It was given to SFNJ by a family who also gave Steve his outdoor mini ramp. Helping him out a lot with his ministry. SFNJ probably has the one of the nicest mini ramps in Jersey.
Kenny did a blunt kickflip to fakie that night.
Sunday (NYC)
The next morning we took the train into NYC at 11:00 with Jake (photo to the left) and Andrew.
We headed straight for the famous Brooklyn Banks. There was many skaters there, along with some bikers and kids on scooters.
The Banks were pretty steep, Kenny and I managed to pull off a 360 flip on the banks with the little energy we had left.
Steve Williams did a fs flip into this bank from the top.
Then we headed down to the China Town Mani pads, which also had a group of skaters already there, and more came while we skated it.
Kenny got a Nose Manuel Nollie flip out.
After that we got some pizza and went over to L.E.S.
I didn't know much about L.E.S except for the fact that Dustin Dullin gapped to 50-50 these stairs right onto that chunky ledge.
By this point Kenny and I were getting really tired because of all the skating we have been doing. We haven't skated this much in years. We skated a combination of about 8 or more hours before this, and by the end of the trip will have skated for about 13-18 hours in 3 days!
It was great just being able to see all these places you have seen in the videos and all the skaters around. While skating we saw the whole 5boro team going spot to spot.
After a long day of skating, we departed from our friends, and headed on a 2.5 mile skate to the Grey hound bus station. Not having a map on us, I tried to remember how to get there. With a little help from civilians we got to the Grey Hound Station.
It was a very tiring few days but it was a great time and would love to go down again when it doesn't rain the Saturday session out. Getting back was a little more confusing but everything seemed to work out some how.
