8/13/10-8/15/10: Plundering Villagers (Funday 7)

So we took a way overdue camping trip to Oregon this past weekend. The crew included Zeb Bruser, Luke Elliot, Eric Logan, Jake Knapp, Josh Peterson, Cody Sewell, Andy Snyder, Dave Waite, and myself Matt Nielsen. We ended up staying right next to Windell's, allowing us to skate the holy grounds as much as we could. Two days of skating there was not even close to enough. I didn't take as many pictures or videos as I would've liked, as I was so engulfed in skating myself, but here's what was captured:

The above video takes care of most of the pictures, but here are the highlights of the trip.

We all met up at Eric's house to pack up, go over the game plan, get hyped, etc.

The three whips (left to right: Cody's, Jake's and Andy's)

Our first stop was the Kelso park, which was super fun, as you can probably tell from the picture below. Such smooth, fast tranny and fun weird things to be discovered. Apparently some locals of Oregon refer to it as "janky." That's the difference between Oregon and Washington I guess...

Next, we hit up Battleground. It was ridiculously hot and very hard to stay skating for more than ten minutes at a time. Nonetheless, everyone ripped the place apart, including Eric seen below front rocking a beast.

Finally we met up with Dave's friend Tim, who used to work at Windell's and was the guy who made all of this possible (much thanks to him). He led us to this sick camping spot in the middle of the woods. We set up tents, got some food going, and settled down for the night. By settling down, I mean we began a multiple hour long drinking, yelling, singing, music playing, yelling, laughing, eating, yelling session which took us well into the night. Good good times.

We awoke early, ate, and headed out to Windell's.

Hard to tell, but this was Windell's. That thing they're sitting on isn't even part of the park, and there was stuff like this everywhere you looked. In fact, the park took up maybe one sixth of the property. There was also and indoor park, crazy front area with ramps going through trees and the like, a bmx course, even a fucking mega ramp. This place had it all, and it was all amazingly well constructed and ridiculously fun. I wish I took more pictures and stuff, but I couldn't help satisfying my own skateboard urges.

I don't need to tell you what was done here.

Moments before Eric tried to pull the canoe onto shore with Josh still in it...

...dumping him in the water.

Some of us went back to Windell's again later that night to try and get some more skating in. It got dark pretty quickly, but there was one ramp that was still lit up. Zeb took the opportunity to do this gnarly tail drop. What you might not be able to tell from this picture is that the transition is about four feet away from the edge of the roof. Obviously, it wasn't a problem for Zeb.

This night was even crazier than the last. The smarter ones who tried to get some sleep found no such thing over the shouts and rampage spewed by the remaining troopers. Sorry...

Alas, it was time to leave. We packed up and headed out to this secluded swimming hole Tim told us about to get nice and refreshed for the trip back.

This place had a fun little cliff to jump off of, which we took full advantage of.

After swimming, we headed out to our last stop, the Hood River park, where much fun was had despite fatigue and heat. Again, Zeb killed it with a precise gap ollie into a skinny back. On the way there, we pulled over to take some majestic photos.

Eric, of course, threw rocks down the hill.

Brave Captain ponders the next excursion.

Overall, it was an awesome trip. We all skated way too much than our bodies would have liked us to, ate good food, drank good drinks (besides the mandatory PBR), laughed, argued, yelled, sang, hardly slept, and just enjoyed each other's company. Thank you fellow villagers!