Words, photos, and audio captions by Jason Henry

It started at Mema’s in Tampa, and ended at Las Olas on South Beach. If you know what I’m referring to, then you already know the trip was banging. Not to mention that we had no demos planned, no schedule to stick to, and could go pretty much anywhere we could drive to in the south. Just a few good homies, some new ones, good eats, and a trip through my own backyard.
I linked up with Brian Delatorre, Danny Fuenzalida, Nick Matlin, and Mike Espinosa in Ybor for some Mema’s Alaskan tacos. We didn’t have to pick up Cody McEntire, Adrian Williams, or Manny Santiago until the next day, so we took advantage of our free time and indulged in enough alcohol to kill a small horse. We ended up getting kicked out of some art exhibit because Matlin was tagging up the walls. No big deal.

We had two whips for the trip, which is classy when you’re trying to stretch your legs, but annoying when not everyone’s at the same place at the same time. The team was in the van packed like sardines, while the media team and lurkers Jimmy Lannon and Yonnie Cruz were in filmer Ryan Gershal’s smelly VW.

We ate some Southern-style grits and gravy and made our way over to Viera, FL, to pick up Manny and check out a best trick contest. In typical Florida fashion, we were greeted by 30 mph winds and pounding rain. So we get back in the van and head back to Orlando to skate the fabled and splendid China spot with hopes of better weather. Upon arriving and jumping fences, we noticed a suspicious white car parked in the middle of this huge parking lot with all of its doors wide open. We walked up to it, expecting to find a dead body or something gruesome, but instead found a security guard sleeping on the clock. Fuckin’ tits. We all tip-toed right past him while he slept and skated for hours. Once it got dark we brought out the gennie and lights, waking him from his slumber. He wasn’t feeling our attempts to bribe him, so we left for Atlanta, lighting up Gainesville to skate a few spots on the way in the early morning.

Click to listen

Atlanta was hot. I’ve never gone through so many white tees in my life. Adrian Williams cooled everyone off with his water-squirting Giants baseball fan. Every spot we went to, the fan followed. Atlanta has a ridiculous amount of good spots. We heard about this school with butter ledges outside the city so we drove around for an hour on some shady directions—only to get out and get kicked out by a pressure-treating company. Of all the days, the one we went on is the day the ledges were being pressure cleaned, so we came back later that night and lit it up with a few beers while Adrian blew minds with his ledge wizardry.

We didn’t have to worry about summer monsoons in Atlanta like we did in Florida, but the humidity and heat made it so that everyone was over it by the afternoon. We stayed in Atlanta for a few more days and raped its spots—not without hitting up EATS on Ponce for some proper jerk chicken before leaving. We started on our adventure back to South Florida, lighting up a few spots along the interstate and stopping by splendid China again for good measure, where the same security guard was still sleeping.

South Florida didn’t treat us nearly as well as ATL, with crazy storms rolling in around 2:00pm no matter where you were, and random heroes kicking us out of spots. We made the best of it, dodging rain and cracking beers early in the day. We got the boot at this double set in Lauderdale—not for skating, but because some dude was supposedly walking around with C4 and blowing shit up. We came back a while later, and Nosa got his trick before it started to pour. We wound down the tour on South Beach. By then everyone was beat, so Cody, Nick, and I celebrated at one of Joel Meinholz’ bars, tossing back shots of Patron and beers over games of pool. Cody passed out in the bar at around 4:00am, with a flight to catch at 7:00. The next morning I felt like a vampire; the sun was my nemesis.

Besides the beach, the skating, and the homies, the best part of South Beach, to me, is Las Olas Café. So before dropping Adrian off at the airport, we grabbed a few necessary café con leches and some of the best Cuban food in Florida, and then headed home.