Troy Sliter was part of the crew from the Northwest that went on the road trip this year. His faction split off to hit some Norcal spots. He made a video and slideshow that starts where everyone split up. It’s a mixed bag of tricks… You’ll see a backyard bowl, a major new skatepark with a Ffej sighting, ShawnF crapping his pants at an NHS production facility (kid in a candy store style), some 360’s capped off with spacewalking action and live freestyle that isn’t an interpretive trail reenactment. MC gave a good account of his experience, now you can get the rest of the story…

This was my fourth year going on this trip. This year the group was in full disarray. Hailey, Lake Cunningham and Washington State were all possibilities being discussed. In the end, small groups went their separate ways. We started for San Jose but ended up touring southern Oregon and the Oregon coast. Too many choices!

Lance Robson snapped some photos at a Tampa pro vert contest. Which one? I don’t know. That’s right, I don’t know. AST? Actually, this was the warm up day, not the actual contest. He’s also got some shots of the Bro Bowl from the same day thrown in the mix. He’s got a photo set and a short but interesting write up. Check it out on Flickr.

I don’t get “Go Skateboarding Day,” but this kid in the shot above certainly does. Carl Warren went to eight different skateparks on GSD and took a bunch of photographs. Update: Ugh. Follow this link then hit the link that says “go skateboarding day 2008”

Word from Portland Parks is that the official opening day for Gabriel skatepark is July 11, 2008 – a short 16 days from now but in fact it may open for skating sooner than that. Stay tuned for more details.

update: No word on early opening. They still need to do some hydroseeding. There is a Portland Tribune article that talks about the budget woes. Enjoy the complaining about the city spending money on anything and a particularly uniformed shot at the new mayor, even though Parks is Saltzman’s bailiwick, in the comments.

Sports Illustrated Kids has a video tour of Kona skatepark. Think of the intended audience and get prepared for you Federal Recommended Daily Allowance of flyouts. For a video tour, there sure are a lot of still photos. Check it out

Colin went to Sweden and all I got was this picture of a bunch of smelly dudes in a car instead of their famous bikini team I keep hearing about. That’s the Swedish Bikini team, not the Bacon Bikini team. (Shudder!)

But seriously folks… I’m going to beat that joke like a dead horse. He actually did take pictures. The occasion for the road plane trip was the Bowl Rider’s Cup in Malmo. He said something about “epic,” so give him some time to assemble his thoughts and do some typing.

Mark Conahan, Rich Burton, Shawn Reinert and a few others are road tripping down to San Jose as you read this. Mark is making progress reports via cellphone snaps on Antigrav Remote. UPDATE: “Too far, too hot.” Supposedly it hit 100° yesterday. MC and Rich are hitting the Oregon Coast parks instead. A couple other guys are still going to San Jose.

[Photo: California Skateparks]

Two of the event locations for this years Oregon Trifecta have been announced. For some reason one is still in Washington. The overall purse looks a lot bigger, and appears to include some sort of ATV. (Not that kind of ATV as seen on Wheelbite) What’s the stock photo graphic doing up there? It came from a recent iStockphoto.com promotion and signifies my surprise at finding out that the Trifecta’s official web site thinks I’m running some sort of free stock photo service. I don’t begrudge them, but a heads up and a spot on the links page would have been nice. Crap. I think I’m in Chicago for my grandmother’s 90’th birthday that weekend. – Thanks to Ryan Hass and Jeff Hottle for the tips.

Fishbone Skatepark is the name of the entity that ended up using all the donated ramps from the X Games appearance in Mexico City. It’s open, and Urbeskate Magazine has the action photos. Chica Rider off shoot Open Skull is an organization set up for teaching and promoting skateboarding for girls, which is kind of what I though Chica Rider was, but… Open Skull has already had lessons at Fishbone. I guess it’s 30 pesos or about $3 to skate there. I don’t know how that translates in the standard of living there. – Thanks to John Aguilar for the tip.