The Eiffel Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, the Empire State Building, Yosemite and all the other famous tourist attractions don't mean squat! If I had a choice of seeing all those attractions or staying at Woodward Skate Camp for a day, I would pick Woodward without a second thought. Woodward is heaven to me. Let's face it, when you are a skater, the only thing that matters is skating great places with your friends. When some of your friends just happen to be professional skateboarders and bikers, as mine are, Woodward is THE place to session. It's also the best skate facility in the world, just in case you hadn't heard. Woodward boasts over 80,000 square feet of indoor skating surfaces and over 300,000 square feet of outdoor elements. I could flap to you about how great this park is but you probably need to see it for yourself.

The bus pulled up at 4:20. I think the guys were nervous about getting off the bus because it took them another 10 minutes to find their way out. I had the whole crowd of 3-4000 chanting, "get off the bus" over and over again and it finally worked!

The Tour line up was insane, featuring some of the biggest rock stars known to skating like Kris Markovich, Willy "Lito" Santos, Eric Koston, Steve Berra, Rick Thorne, "Rooftop" Escamilla, Steve Caballero, Mike Vallely, Colin McKay, Bucky Lasek, Kevin Staab and Tony Hawk. I call that kind of line up skateboarding's Dream Team. I thought I had died and gone to skate heaven! This place left such an impression on me that I called my wife and told her that our daughter Damiana will be attending Woodward park when she turns 7. Let me see, that would be the year 2007. I better teach her how to mow lawns so she can start to save her money. If you see a 2 year old mowing a lawn when you are passing through Santa Barbara, don't be shocked.

Cab represents the old school with a hard flip.

Steve Caballero wasted no time and was doing frontside sliders down a big handrail that was about 10-15 feet long. Kris Markovich was doing super-stylee 360 flips over a metal picnic table on the street pyramid, and Steve "Mister Flip" Berra was living up to his name by throwing down flips to 50-50s on the Markovich picnic table. Rick Thorne, my BMX hero, did a couple of nonchalant backflips. BMX extraordinaire, Mike Escamille (aka "Rooftop") was doing huge blunt to fakies on a fence that was about 12 feet high. Mike Vallely was doing big Benihana's. Funny, I just thought it was an over priced restaurant.

The vert portion of the demo took place on the Woodward B3 ramp. Hmmm, I wonder how they came up with that name. I'm sure Tim Payne and the boys had something to do with it. This thing was gnarlier then the former Taj Ma Wall at the Powell Skate Zone back in the early 90's.

Joining the Dream Team was BMX intimidator Kevin Robinson. K-Rob must have been a bird in his former life because this guy flys way high. One of my favorite tricks Kevin that does has to be the flair. You would be hard pressed to find someone who does them cleaner then Kevin Robinson. Towards the middle of the demo, I looked up and some Amish dude was cruising by in full garb with a horse and buggy set up - gotta love Pennsylvania!

Hawk lands his third 900 of the 2001 tour.

Out of nowhere, Tony decides to go for his famous 900. I have been so blessed to witness two of his most recent 9's. I feel like the luckiest man in the world sometimes. On the 4th or 5th try Tony pulls it off! The crowd was spazzing out real hard after that. So now, I've seen Tony pull his last three 900s off LIVE! The weird thing is, I also predicted in all three cases which attempt he would pull it off on. Now I am either psychic or really lucky - it's probably the latter. Moto X Ruler, Mad Mike Jones was also there. He even helped by lending his shoulder to Jason Ellis to stand on, making a big phat bomb drop. Jason pulled it first try. I guess people really do get high with a little help from their friends.

Props to Mad Mike, Kevin Robinson and the whole Tony Hawk Dream Team! Oh yeah, I almost forgot major props to Woodward for having the best skate facility in the world! Next stop, Cornelius in North Carolina. We are planning to rent a boat and I get to be the captain! I hear it rains a lot in NC... oh no, not again.

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