Van: This is not something you see on every trip. Jason: Synonymous with an old-man trip; that’s definitely an over-30 trip. Garrett: My freak grips, and Tech- 77’s. Always a good sign of a road trip- stacked bikes ready to go.

Jason: We had a couple of crazy California moments at this pool. We were in the middle of nowhere. Van: This guy in an S&M shirt and his kid walks up and introduces himself as Bo. We’re like, “Bo, as in Bo’s trails?” Those trails were in all these old Props videos. He was psyched we knew him. I feel like you’d have to be over 30 to have any idea what Bo’s Trails are. Garrett: This pool was definitely different, but as soon as you got a feel for it and made it work, it was fun. Good thing Enns had his pick-axe to get his little souvenir.

Jason: This was a good day. Van: That’s probably why Jason got sick after the trip, breathing in all that shit flying around this pipe. Garrett: These pipes were so cool. This was my first time riding a pipe carving back and forth in total darkness. We literally rode like a mile into them with no lights. You could hear the rats running. It was so fun.

Van: We had a lot of foodies on the trip. There was a group effort with Garrett, Dolecki and Stew, and they’d make these amazing gourmet meals at Jason's house every night; I was practically vegan by default that week. Which didn’t bother me, because the food was amazing, but towards the end Enns and I had to sneak away to Babe’s for some beers and real pizza. We were the lamest crew; we were in bed by like 9PM. Garrett: This is my most favorite thing. I like to eat more than anything else, and I like to cook. It was really cool to be on a trip where we cooked meals every night together, and hang out and talk.

Van: There were a couple of good mountain hikes. This thing was steep. A few climbs we did I got nervous at some point- I tried not to look back, where if I fell backwards, I would have been full-blown tumbling like a ski crash. Jason: there was a thirty or forty foot-drop at that point. You could walk right up the driveway, but the locals said don’t use the driveway because that’s what neighbors trip out on. It’s been there for almost ten years, and you don’t want to be the one that breaks the camel’s back. Garrett: This hill was almost the end of me. A few times I stood straight up and almost fell down backwards with my bike. I knew I couldn’t because Rob (Dolecki) was behind me, and it made me feel like a pussy because he had and extra forty pounds of camera gear on his back.

Van: The pool was kind of mediocre, but this place is amazing. The location is unreal; it’s elevated above the town. Jason: The guy who built this house also started the whole city. He watched it develop from his house, and now it has the best view of Walmart in the world. Garrett: This is what I had in mind when I took off work. Hands behind my head, relaxing, taking it in.

Jason: The gap Garrett did at this pool is never going to translate. I don’t want to say I didn’t think it was possible, or Garrett couldn’t do it, but me and Van both walked away. I stood at an angle where I was low enough where I could see him go in, but if anything went wrong I wouldn’t see it firsthand. You don’t see much of Garrett anymore. But his skill level is equal if not more than when I saw him last; he hasn’t even skipped a beat. Garrett: I think cleaning the pool is as fun as riding it, because when you’re cleaning it, you’re thinking about actually how to ride it, and check out the transitions more. Because when you just roll up to a clean one, you’re just like, "Oh, shit, here we go."

Van: Garrett was on fire. The motivation was coming from a really pure place. There was no reason for him other than just enjoying it. Whatever he was doing on the trip was purely for him. Garrett: My favorite thing to do in a pool is just carve around in circles, especially in kidneys ot any kind of round one that is pretty tight. Your bike whips around and your head stays in the same spot. You get a really cool feeling, it’s like you’re in a merry-go-round or something.

Jason: This was about two and a half hours worth of work, and it was worth every second to see Garrett do his thing. Van: This one was really deep, and really tight; a double black-diamond. Enns and I carved the light, that was about it. Garrett was just ripping it. Garrett: This pool we put some work into. It was definitely worth it. It was one of the bigger ones. This was actually jack-hammered out so it’s something that a skater would never think of skating, but we can ride as much as we want.

Van: This pool claimed some victims- Keith Mulligan’s arm and poison ivy, and Rooftop’s knee. (Garrett was fine) Jason: This one was pretty new; a lot of people hadn’t been there yet. I got a tip on it from a skater friend and it panned out. It was really cool, the location of it. It was a really unique shape, and you were up there. It was one of those situations where you feel it was sketchy, but by the end of it, you’re like, “Turn some music on.” We were up there for hours. Garrett: Sometimes you go down and get hurt, and other times you go down and laugh. This was one of those times where it’s actually more fun than not.

Van: Sometimes you got to put in a little work for the fun. Sometimes you gotta bring the right tools. Sometimes you’re lucky and doesn’t take much or anything to get a pool going, and sometimes you're bailing water and sludge for five hours. Garrett: I’m a mule. We’re carrying buckets, brooms. Even though Jason is perfect with taking us to most pools that were already perfectly clean.

Van: This was one of the days I couldn’t ride. I had been to this one once already and I had other ideas for things I wanted to do. I was bummed we got kicked out right after we showed up, but I was also kind of happy because it would have drove me insane because I couldn’t ride. Jason: It’s just a weird one because I’d never heard of anyone getting kicked out of this pool before, or since then. One of those random days. Garrett: I like shooting photos as much as I like riding sometimes. It’s nice to have the memories locked away. I still try to shoot as much film as possible, and make prints, so my son can see them and see what my passions are in life.

Jason: I originally found this pool when the house was still there. I found it and the flat bottom had been jack-hammered. Rooftop, a skater and I went and rode it, and we went back the next day it was burned down, it was still smoldering.

Van: We pulled off the highway in Hesperia. Two girls were having a picnic in the parking lot. Of course they didn’t say anything. We must have been dressed nice that day. We came back out and there was a note on the van left by those girls. Stew pointed out, that’s how you know it’s an old man trip- no one was trying to get with them. Garrett: It kind of makes you skeptical when people leave notes on big vans with no windows.

Jason: After you guys rode that pool, I felt like I underestimated it. This was the last day; we rode every single day. For me, riding that many days in a row was pretty exhausting. I was so fucked by then. I ended up getting super sick after the trip. Van: There’s so many good ones out there, we’d start taking them for granted. You'd skip ones that would be a piece of gold if it was in New Jersey. Garrett: This is probably my favorite way to relax, casket-style. Especially on a trip after riding six or seven days non-stop. You couldn’t get the smile off my face; it’s as good as it gets.

Van: The funnest part is you don’t know what’s behind the fence. Jason: This whole area used to have way more pools. It was called Dairyland. It was in the process of being bought out. It’s kind of sad in a way- You look at these houses and properties and could see it thriving and being someone’s little paradise, and now it’s going to be bulldozed for a 2000 square-foot lot with an eight-bedroom house. Garrett: I actually have my haz-mat training, so I can enter secure areas with hazardous waste. This is part of it. You have to get into places that you’re not supposed to be if you really want to ride something out of the ordinary. Sometimes you get a ticket or arrested, but it’s always worth it.