Mammoth Skatepark

Whew! This park is huge! With a new addition to the park about a year or so ago, this park now has everything from huge unique DIY style tranny, to manual pads, rails, and lots of rock-rides. This one is really similar to a DIY style park, as it was built to the land mostly, and has lots of trees and rocks within the park, but all built well and super fun to get creative on. Jordan blew our minds with a few rock hops and bumps :0

Overview of the main bowl/transition section

Backside of the bowl, showing another bowl and some hips and stuff

Alfie, carving

Bryan, rock climbing

4-down

Jordan went down. Indy grab-to-primo

Air out to stall, then came back in and quick rolled into the quarter pipe

These walls are huge

Rock grind to steep drop!

Bryan, always blunted

Tree carve for that lady

I was only about 6 feet up, Bryan is only 4 feet tall

Tail stall on a rock?!

Bryan, when he's not blunted, he's tweaked

Alga Norte Skatepark

Alga Norte Park! 

New park + Kevin Smith = 100% good times

With KJ Smith with us, it didn't' matter if the park sucked or not, it was going to be great. We were beat from Pood park, so I think only Rio and Kev were the only ones still going hard, but nonetheless, this was an awesome stop at this park. 

Part of de crew

Bryan, uncertain of what to throw over the door

Park view

Bryan and some of the park :)

Look at this guy, he's great!

Kev, styling into the distance

Matt, the door session photog

Doorway sesh begins

Stallin for dayz

KJS stall

This guy does it all

Sidenote: We did other cool things, but we just didn't photograph all of it…

Rio, de-stroy-ing everything

We out.

Poods Park

Poods Park
425 Sante Fe Dr, Encinitas, California 92024

Two weeks ago, I finally made it out to Long Beach to visit everyone! The first day of my trip was spent visiting everyone at VANS, and then skating Cherry later in the day.

On Friday, Jordan, Bryan, Rio, Matt and myself decided to head down to Encinitas to check out a few new parks.

The first park on the list was Poods Park. Hands down the best skatepark I have ever been to. I won't go into too much detail, but the park had literally everything you could want, except for a mini ramp. The park was filled with ledges ranging in size, rails, hubbas, manny pads, and hips. Out of the 60 parks I have skated in the last 2 years, this was my favorite.



These photos don't really showcase how amazing this park is. You might just have to go check it out for yourself.


After we finished up here, we all headed over to Alga Norte park for another session. Next time I am out in CA, I plan on hitting this park again.

Cheers,

Kevin

Big Bear Lake Skatepark

Great, unique, welcoming sign. Arnold Schwarzenegger helped with this park. Great!

Well, this park pretty much sucked.

I'd noticed this park before as it's just off the road near Big Bear. Figured I'd stop and check it out, and get my skateboarding "fix" filled. This park however, did not fill my skateboard "fix" whatsoever...
Prefab ramps all around, with your standard ok stuff, and stuff that make your scratch your head and wonder who made and "arranged" these ramps…

One section that is clearly meant for BMX, with wonderfully rough (even by midwest standards) ground. I spent 20 seconds in this section.

BMX section. Super wonderful.

The other side had some stuff that could be fun with some friends around, but everything is slanted towards one corner, the rails were waxed more than Cherry park rails, and if you had any speed, you were going to run our of room in the park very quickly, and hit the fence, or a ramp, box, or table in the way. I also unfortunately could not muster up enough courage to skate the sweet launch ramp to large picnic table…Pass this one up the next time you're in the area. :)

Could be fun with a group of friends...

Donuts with a Difference

I won't even bother trying to live up to Jordan's M&M Donut review from a few weeks back. I will keep this short and let the images do the talking for me.... Donut reviews should be left to the master, not me.

Donuts with a Difference is located in Medford Square just outside of Boston. I remember reading a donut review on Boston.com a few months back. I believe Donuts with a Difference made the top 15 in independently owned donut shops in the surrounding area, so I had to drop in to check it out.

When you walk in the doors of Donuts with a Difference, you automatically feel like you are back in 1972. This is your classic downtown donut shop. It is about 10 feet wide, and 25 feet deep. The walls are covered with vintage coffee and tea wallpaper. 

This donut shop sold just the classics. There were no cereal covered donuts or donuts shaped like reproductive organs... Damn you, Voodoo Doughnuts. We had to go with the classic jelly & honey dew dipped donuts.

The jelly donut was nothing but amazing. It was heavily glazed and filled with just enough jelly. This might be the best donut I have ever had.

Another classic, the honey dew donut. Can't beat two great classics. 

If Jordan ever wants to come out to Boston, this will be a pitstop on our way into the city to skate.

Signing off,

Kevin