The trip is over, we live in Mobile.

We were only about 9 hours into 2010 when we woke up in the Red Roof Inn in Mobile, but so far, this year was sucking. Our bus was toast, our coleman stove was gone, and to top it all off there wasn’t a skatepark anywhere near us. Everett called Everett and gave him the go-a-head to throw in the used carbureted engine he just happened to have sitting on the floor of the shop. The whole situation was pretty funny; as soon we pulled into his shop and Everett heard the bus grumbling, he bet our Everett 50 cents it wouldn’t make it to California. He suggested we sleep in his lot and let him throw in the new engine. Now here we were, less than 24 hours later, with a new char black paint job on the bus and a whole lot more respect for the wisdom of our elders. It was Friday, the work would be done Monday. That would have been nice. We decided to take a stroll/roll through the massive retail complex next to the hotel. We ended up lurking in a “Books-a-Million” and doing the quick page flip through all 5 skate mags on the rack. “Whoa! Dudes with boards!”, exclaimed a voice with a southern accent from behind us. We looked up from our stunt ‘zines and laid eyes on about 3/4s of Mobile’s skate scene. Jonathan, a lanky, dreaded kid, and three of his homie/cronies immediately started rappin’ with us about what else but skateboarding; our lowest common denominator. Within five minutes we had a ditch to skate and a place to sleep lined up for the following day. The Mobilians headed off to Mississippi for the night for a show, while we whiled away the rest of the day getting kicked out of a department store spot, wandering around Wal-Mart for an hour, and watching shitty movies in the hotel. We found these 8 packs of burritos in Wally-World for a whapping $1.50 a pack. Needless to say, we got our money’s worth out of the hotel microwave (and toilet) that night. The next day Geoffrey and I skated 6 miles to the post office. On the way to the post office we couldn’t help but notice the tallest building in Mobile scraping the sky close by. After we went postal we skated in the direction of the looming beast. Within a few minutes we discovered it was a hotel, and we hung out on the steps for a minute or two before deciding to go inside. I wanted to see if we could go all the way up to the top floor and check out the view. The streets of Mobile were eerily empty, and inside the giant hotel, things were no different. We quickly made our way to a stairwell; anybody going up or down would most likely avoid the strain and take the elevator, so we had much less chance of getting the boot. We started climbing and about 20 minutes and 40 floors later we were on the top floor...in a room with no windows, and only one door which was locked of course. We had a decision to make: backtrack a few floors to a door that was propped open, or go for broke and climb the ladder in front of us that led to a hatch on the roof. I flipped a coin, and proceeded with the latter. The hatch had no lock, and with a click of the latch, I opened up to a brisk breeze and a view of the open sky. Geoff and I climbed out to discover an amazing view view of Mobile and the opposing body of water. There were dead birds littered all around. I made my way up a series of three other ladders, up into the tall spire atop the roof. I shot some panoramas, we checked out some dead birds, and then made our way back to base camp. The only person we saw in the 40 story hotel was a the dude at the front desk when we came out of the stairwell. Neither of us looked as we snickered and made our way out onto the street. If you’re ever in Mobile and want a good view, apparently nobody gives a shit if you go up there. From there we made our way to John’s place, our newfound Mobile skate connect. He had some friends over, and with us included, about 10 people ended up crashing in his tiny apartment that night. Everyone got wild, we tossed some ping pong balls into solo cups, Geoff and I had a spaghetti fight, then we woke up to John’s mom walking into the flop and flipping out. We immediately began packing up as John tried to explain the situation. Once she heard the story she calmed down, but at first she was much less than psyched on us. Back to the Red Roof. Everett got a ride while the Halls and I skated the 6 miles back “home”. Monday came and the bus wasn’t quite done. John showed us the local ditch complete with parking blocks, shitty graff, and a crusty diy crete’ roll in. We had some fun, did some bertlemans, and got the locals psyched on the ditch again. Apparently they never really skated it. The next day we got the call, the bus was done. We thanked Everett and hit the road for New Orleans. We made it 30 miles before we discovered a massive oil leak. Back to the Red Roof...again. We ended up sleeping in Everett’s shop the following two nights. The leak was found and fixed, we all tinkered around and fixed a bunch of random stuff around the bus, and on the last day the we got our horn, blinkers and brake lights back after losing them when we almost left the first time. During our down time, Geoff and I took a 12 mile walk for a sleeping bag and we skated a super crusty bank spot right next to the garage. At one point Everett insisted that we take showers at his daughter’s house. We reluctantly piled into her SUV. After our showers she asked “Do you guys drink beer?” We returned to the shop clean with a huge bag of “Cheezies”, 2 cold pizzas, and a case of Bud Light bottles. It was all leftover from a party, and now it was ours. That’s southern hospitality for you. That night we made a sweet beer commercial. We left Mobile on Friday the 8th. It was a glorious day.