Merde Road Trip – Summer 2010. Posted 9-28-09 By Mike Egbert
Merde ceased to exist for a while, but like most every dead skateboard company that was ever worth half a damn, they have been resurrected.
Every Summer I try and put together at least two, 3 or 4 day long Merde skate trips. It’s not so much a demo, or tour, but more of a footage compiling mission and an excuse to camp and drink a lot of beer. I mean, it’s skating, camping, and drinking beer. What’s not to like. With that being said, this trip was with Chris Nukala, Shane Bell, and Boomer Cisler, and our destination was Irrigon, Pendleton, and Yakima (namely). We were going to have two cars (8 or 9 people), but some things came up and a few Merde riders couldn’t make it and the weather forecast for the weekend looked bleak at best. We scrambled to fill the second car with guests, but the forecast got so shitty for Saturday that I decided to forego spending dough on that rental, and just barge ahead in my own car with only team riders. Sorry dudes. Weather forecasters be DAMNED TO THE FIERY PITS OF HELL!
I’ve never been East of Hood River, so this was going to be all new territory for me. After a couple hours on the road, we pulled off 84 to get some water at a gas station. Low and behold, there is a bank to wall behind the building that is totally skateable. Straight up Natas school yard scenario circa 1987. I made sure to make a purchase before skating, so they might be more hesistant to kick out a customer. We skated for 30 minutes, or so, and never got kicked out. That was pretty cool.
Next stop was Irrigon. That place was pretty insane. If you like bowls with holes in them, you’ll like this place. We randomnly ran into some people we knew from Medford. Carlos, Gabe, Jason Garza, and Frank Shaw. They were BBQing some dogs at the park so we partook and skated. There was no one there, except for maybe a few people lurking on the grass. Shane did a FS Stalefish over the doorway inside the capsule and Nukes did this FS wallride on the outside of the capsule off onto this narrow part of deck and then reverted into the tranny. I think he caught maybe 1″ of whatever tranny was left. Both of those things were tits up rad. They were barging it for sure. We stopped at the gas station on the way out of town to get some refreshments and food. The bathroom at the gas station had some kind of metal chastity belt type of deal with padlock on the watertank. Upper deckers must be all the rage in Irrigon. Whatever floats your boat, or maybe just whatever floats, to be more specific. On an unrelated note, there were a couple of Army guys standing in front of me in the check out line. In walks this older guy, who I swear to God looked like Saddam Hussein with a unibrow. I saw those Army guys look at each other and smile. I was waiting for one of them to say something like, “Last time I saw that guy he didn’t have a head,” or something of the like. That’s what I was thinking.
Between Irrigon and Pendleton was Echo. I would suggest you stop here. It is a cool little snake bowl thing and some fun little plastic street benches/ledges. It even had a foot tall red fire hydrant bolted into the asphalt. Shane Bell did what seemed like a 20″ BS feeble in the deep end. Sick stuff. We then hit this ditch on the way out of town that was possibly one of the raddest things ever. The ditch walls were pretty good but the area under the bridge was boss. It was kind of banked, but seemed to really kick you up on the wall. It was dusty and rocky. Nukes was skipping rocks down the ditch and earned the title of “Dry Land Rock Skipper” for his escapades. Way to go Chris! Boomer ollied out of a tail stall from this vert ledge deal, over a few feet of dirt, and into the bank. I don’t have a pic of that, but I filmed it. That was sick.
We rolled into Pendleton in the evening. Got some supplies at Safeway and proceeded to the lit park. Now the thing you should know about Pendleton last weekend was that it was the Pendleton Roundup, which ranks up in the top ten rodeos in the world. So if you know anything about rodeos, that means a lot of male cameltoe (tight wranglers), crab sized belt buckles, cowboy hats, and sunburns. Not only was it the roundup, but it was the 100 year anniversary of the roundup, so that just meant more of the aforementioned. On the way to the park we saw horseshit on the sidewalk, so you knew the cowboys were partying. Seemed liked there were tents and fifth wheel trailers everywhere. Some kid told us how he and some other skaters watched some people have sex in adjoining field the night before. God bless America and Coors Light! We saw a truck bed that had at least 25 people in it. Another car drove by and said, “Skaters Suck!” That may be, but at least what we’re riding doesn’t have a cock that’s bigger than our own, just saying. Anyhoo, we split around 10pm for our campground 25 miles East of the big P. It started raining that night around 1am, just as those bastard forecasters had predicted. I kind of figured Saturday would just suck. Lo and behold, we woke up to partly cloudy skies and temps in the upper 70’s. Thank you Satan, God, or Oprah, whichever. We skated Pendleton again for a couple hours and then took off for Yakima.
On the way we stopped at Richland. It was big and there was a lot of scooters. I’m not really sure what else to say about that place.
We bailed on Richland and made our way up to Yakima. We stopped at a Burger King. Nukes and I walked in on some 10 year old kid taking a shit in the bathroom. It was one of those single use deals, and I guess he didn’t lock it, although he did say, “Dude, I locked the dooorrrr!” Nukes had to leave the BK because he was laughing so hard. I didn’t think it was that funny. I mean, I see my kids taking dumps all the time, so I’m kind of immune to such things. How he said “Dude I locked the dooorrrrrr!” was the funniest part. I guess I kind of empathized with him. I harkened back to a young 11 year old Mike Egbert that accidentally sat down on his crab dinner at his parents friends house right in front of their teenage daughters, some 26 odd years ago. I shed a tear for that crappy little BK bastard. But whatever, lock the goddamn door next time pin head numbnuts.
Next stop Yakima. I was super hyped to be here. We skated for a solid hour, maybe hour and a half before it started to sprinkle. I didn’t want to film anymore, I just wanted to skate. I felt like a little kid, I was so excited. We rolled over to the Wal-Mart superstore to get supplies for the night’s camping excursion. Let me tell you, this Wal-Mart had to be the last stop before Hell. We saw juggalos, cowboys, gangsters, hoes, and everything in between in that Wal-Mart. I’d say that pretty much describes Yakima too. Kind of a rural ghetto
That rainy Saturday night was our last night camping, so Nukes HAD to get drunk. He told me I was boring and old, and that I should, “Step into the rage cage!” He told the Medford guys that they sucked. He proceeded to stand in the fire, barrel jump over the fire, and do a handplant on some unburned wood in the fire. We was fun to watch. I remember the first time I got drunk too. He also did a random trust fall into one of the tents and broke it. Oh Nukes, you card.
Sunday was overcast, but dry, so we headed back to the park. We got there before anyone else and I think we were there for about 4 hours, or so. Shane Bell did a FS air over the mini ramp channel in the bowl. That was pretty epic. There were some guys selling drugs in the parking lot, totally lurking. They kind of sucked. There were a bunch of little Mexican kids (mostly 9 year old girls) heckling people in the bowl. Those kids earned my respect by naming Frank Shaw, “Pickle”. The street section of Yakima is sooo fun with the brick banks and whatnot. Great job Grindline! We split Yakima around 3pm and headed for Prosser.
Prosser was pretty much just a big gnarly bowl thing. We were there for a bit and then decided to bail for home. This guy, Jeremy, at the park gave us a short cut to get to 84. It seemed to take forever and only one of the roads we took were listed on his map, but whatever. It’s not where you go, it’s how you get there. I’d say that is applicable to any kind of skate trip. Over and out.
Merde Road Trip – Summer 2010. Posted 9-28-09 By Mike Egbert
0 comments.