#SummerofBrooke: July 19-25

My what a busy week it’s been at Yobeat! Between this story, this story, and this story, it’s possible that we went “too far” for the summer camp scene, which much like its mascot, is white and soft. But it’s ok, getting 86’d is sort of a badge of honor and if we’re being honest, I’m way too lazy to walk from the snow to the parking lot anymore anyway, so I’ll just wait until Public Park gets moved up to Palmer to finish out my 15 days. And don’t worry about me, I had no problem finding other ways to entertain myself.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the past week was the arrival of Chas “The Catfish” Truslow as Yobeat’s new IT guy. You’ve probably already been noticing his handy work around our video feed and social media – he kills it. Here we see him Interneting while Nate tells an exciting story. I’m sure Instagram is more interesting that whatever Nate is rambling on about, don’t judge.

I’ve knocked a few more days of boarding off the list (I think I’m up to 9 but have been doing a horrible job keeping track.) Before boarding though, one must prepare with a stop in Govy. “The Bleachers” are a top secret location where those in the know hang out to do things we are not gonna talk about here.

We also had to grab a board for Hondo, who came up from San Francisco for the weekend. The guys at the Burton Demo center were nice enough to wake from their drunken stupor to set him up a board – the only board that didn’t require him to fill out any paperwork, that is. But Hondo’s skills transcended and he ripped the hell out of that cut down learn-to-ride board. Sort of.

One of the reasons Hondo was in town was to ride High Cascade and check out the Merrill Mini Pipe Invitational. Well, as you might have heard, I was 86’d from camp the day before, so rather than ditching me, he just focused on his tan. Thanks Hondo!

The highlight of our day on hill was for the annual A-Rob palmer lap. I would say out of the 100 or so boarders who gathered to celebrate Aaron’s life, at least half of them were shooting photos or filming the whole time. At least we won’t forget it, right?

Beware Govy biker gangs.

No trip to Govy would be complete without too much time spent at Charlie’s. Hondo and I actually left town to skate Estacada, but then went back up for some unknown reason. With Bode’s comp the next day, the patio was a who’s who of media and professional boarders, having the same conversations, over and over and over.

We awoke to a cloud settled in over the mountain, and hurricane force winds canceling the MMPI for the day. So Hondo and I set off on a skateboarding adventure. First stop, Hood River. George here was nice enough to do some tricks for my camera, such as this fly out. Now I took a few years off from skateboarding, and last I remember fly outs were only cool for little kids and razor scooters, but George assured me that fly outs are “legit” now. Whatever.

Next stop, Bingen, WA. The kid in the yellow helmet strongly resembled Shaun White at age 9, but this is actually a photo of Hondo’s front board shuv. He was going for a Dylan Reider thing. Think he pulled it off?

The new bowl at Bingen is tight.

This was my most-liked Instagram (@brookegeery!) of the week, so I figured I should include it.

After dropping Hondo off at the airport on Sunday, there was only one thing to do: Stripperoake. As the name implies, it’s a hybrid of Karaoke and stripping that goes down at Devil’s Point every Sunday night. The legend of Stripperoake has permeated board world, so it was no surprise to run into Haldor, Ethan Morgan, Diggles, Johannes Brenning, Andrew Brewer and more. The boys got their phones taken away for trying to film Diggles’ stunning rendition of Safety Dance, but at least Molly was kind enough to post for a picture outside.

Did I mention we’re making a magazine? It’s happening…

On Tuesday I headed up to Seattle with PJ from Fluofun (the French Yobeat) for a little industry tour and elbow rubbing. First stop was the Delridge Skatepark, where the Libtech Skate team was putting on a demo. They were pretty good, but once I showed up, the demo was really on. Photo: PJ Rueda

Just kidding. This bowl is 12 feet deep and these guys are ridiculous. Edwin Swagerty.

Next stop: C3, the home of Capita, Union and Coal. I was under strict instructions to not distract Mark Dangler, who is diligently trying to finish Defenders of Awesome 2, but I did sneak a peek at the track list for the movie. Ok, actually, I just tried to take a photo of it, but Dangler snatched it away from me. Jerk. Anyway, here we see PJ working harder than me, which was sort of a recurring theme on our trip.

I love tour-guiding and since PJ had flown all the way from France for this, I figured we’d better hit as many attractions as possible. You may have seen the Fremont Troll in 10 Things I Hate About You, but either way, it’s a troll under the Fremont Bridge. You can tell it’s a big deal by how many people there were taking pictures.

Next stop: Ride HQ, where Sean Tedore is cleaning house as the new Global Marketing Director. For those of you wondering if Ride will soon sponsor every professional snowboarder, the answer is no. You should see their cut list.

The real purpose of our trip was so PJ could interview Peter Line about his new gig designing apparel for DAKINE (among other things) for Fluofun’s upcoming “Gear Week.” When I was 15, I remember having Peter sign a t-shirt for me at High Cascade, so it’s always kind of a trip going to hang out at his house. But a good trip, like mushrooms or something.

Mellow view of Seattle from Peter’s balcony.

“I’m on a boat!”

Our final stop in Washington was for an official tour of the Mervin factory, which I will be posting about this fall. While you wait, here’s a photo of the one and only Barrett Christy with her Apple Jacks box. Though it is still filled with cereal, it expired in 2001. Actually, Apple Jacks aren’t made of real stuff, so they’re probably still good.