- Wisconsin,After arriving, we chose the urban features that we wanted to hit and made sure we had a good night sleep. 19th January... My birthday!! Stoked finally 18, doesn't mean much here in America but in England you can pretty much do everything at 18 so, I'm happy! Breakfast that morning the Voss brothers took us to a text book American dinner, I tried to have the closest thing to a Full English Breakfast, but typically it came with pancakes and covered in sirup. Not complaining, staying positive was kind of like two breakfasts in one for me!Feeling really full after Paul's crepes too, we set off to scout the urban rails we wanted to hit. All were amazing but turned out to be in sketchy locations to hit during the day. Although we did find a perfectly place, pretty long quad kink and decided this was the one we wanted... It was a really hard slog as the first down of the rail bounced so much, but we cleared it just before we had a run in with both the police and the fire brigade, plus a very angry old lady!Ok so the quad kink wasn't a great success, but what was a great success we found an all you can eat sushi restaurant and maaan did we rinse that place for the best value we could stuff ourselves with. Steve, reining world champion at mass sushi eating - Props mate!The guys had found us a motel to stay in for the next couple of nights, to save us completely taking over their house, quote Dan Brown (the protographer, not the author), "this is where the trip turns bromantic"... Next to the Kitchen a double bed, and in between the two a hot tube and not much else.
After not the most comfortable sleep of them all it was time for us to hit up Cascade. The crew at this place were amazing, there were a bunch of guys who'd skipped school to come ride with us and we had a blast. Best trick contest, a bunch of rapid fire runs and chinese down hill races, I thought it was so fun!Dinner tonight, whaaaay Tilted Kilt! But our plans for hitting an amazing elbow rail were trashed because icey rain started to come down and there was no way for us to set it up, hit it and get the cameras out in those conditions. I was gutted but I suppose thats how it is sometimes.- Minnesota,oh oh oh...- Mall of America first,Wooooow that place is huuuge!! They got rollercoasters and a log flume INDOORS - what! Didn't take the nerd crew long to find the Apple shop and yeah I got bullied into buying a MacBook, so ok I'm part of the nerd club too.
- Minnesota,Brand new MacBook, 18 years old, going to stay at Willie Borm's house... Instantly turned straight back into a 12 year old and that goes for everyone too, we were running round having the biggest, maddest Nerf gun fight ever, probably the most fun in the world!! Cheers Willy and thanks more to Willy's parents for not chucking us out!
Next day, next resort, Hyland Hills. They have the fastest rope tow there which literally gets you up to the top faster than you can get down! A great range of rails, fair sized kickers, awesome crew and rapid lap times, all part of the recipe to an amazing session.
That night a big crew of us (myself, B Paul, Cody Ling, Willie Borm and a couple of Willy's team mates) all hit an epic street rail. It was a down rail but had a little bend in it, plus a small flat on top and dink at the end. Everyone threw down getting the tricks they wanted, it was a really inspiring session. I was well happy with myself because I managed to complete my challenge for the season and get a hard way, lipslide 270 onto an urban rail.- Road to Keystone, CO,After a bit more Nerf gun fighting and one more sleep at the Borm's house we left for Colorado, regrettably leaving B Paul behind (not by accident, he flew home to Quebec that day) and set out on a killer long drive. As I always say 'theres only one of me' so I had to swap between trucks when Dan and Steve needed company on this 18 hour drive. We made it to Colorado but stopped at a motel about 2 hours short of Denver, though in the morning we were so happy we did. The views were incredible! It was a blue bird day, deserted land all over and finally the site of the Rockies coming into view - I will never for get that.A few hours later we made it to Keystone at around 2pm where Walker, Hathaway, and a whole crew of riders were hitting the park there. Unfortunately we missed the blue skies, and there was only cloud when we arrived, so the kickers were a bit of a no go, but they looked amazing and we had a cool time hitting the rails there. Before I knew it the day was over, we'd had dinner and that was it. The last stop of the tour before X- Games, I'm back in Colorado and the trip is over. I'm here for one more month then I'm back to Europe.All I can say to round this off is wow - Thank you, it was an incredible adventure (to nowhere) but I got to see so much along the way and really gained so much experience. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the Salomon Freeski TV episode of this trip when it comes out...Woodsy :DPhotos: Dan Brown