For the past month The Run Around crew has been on the road. After judging the final stop of The Dew Tour, I hung out in Salt Lake until the boys came back up from Crested Butte. Their departure cued up Two Plank to produce the second webisode of The Run Around, which consisted of Corey and Topher in Colorado.

After camping out in the trailer with Corey and Toph for an additional week or so, it was time to head far West to Kirkwood, California for a Freeskiing World Tour stop. We played an incredibly pathetic game of hoops in the trailer park and said good-bye to our most exclusive photographer, Mike Schirf. We will be setting up a donations page to help Schirf buy himself a sled, quit his jobs, dump his girlfriends and travel around with us all next season. Please contribute……

Heading due west, we did not make it more than 70 miles before breaking down for the first time. My exhaust almost fell out of my truck and some wires that read temperatures snapped. After wrestling the 80lb toolbox out of the trailer I got to work in the dirt under the rig. We were back on the road making gas guzzling progress in no time.

Soon enough it was time to refuel. We exited the freeway and circled around a tire shop to line up for the diesel pump adjacent to the building. One of the mechanics noticed a lot of noise coming from my axel area under the trailer. He stopped me and asked if I had a minute or two to check out where it was coming from. We pulled the trailer around front and his crew went to work. They pulled the tires off and one thing lead to another resulting in a lot of 4 letter words and those guys telling us how lucky we were to still be on the road and not in a ditch. I bought the trailer used and it turned out that all of the shackles holding the axels to the leaf springs were shot. The leaf springs were flat and all the bolts holding everything together had worn the factory holes to nearly twice the size.

I had them go ahead and fix everything that was about to decay so we posted up at a nice restaurant which also happens to have a sister building with some very high class, respectable woman to observe. The place was called Bella’s and sadly enough the club was not located off that particular exit.

After dumping out my wallet to the fellah’s in the middle of nowhere, we were on the road again. Depressed, I let Toph drive while I figured out how to save more money next summer. We arrived in Cali that night and parked in a beautiful casino parking lot on the state line for some much needed sleep.

We spent the first half of the trip bouncing around from “snow park” to “snow park.” It was a treat to wake up, make some food, step outside and go. No driving or loading and unloading of sleds. We were already where we needed to be.

I did very minimal skiing while in Kirkwood. They received around 10 feet of snow while we were there. It was very tough just keep my sled moving without it getting stuck. THERE WAS SO MUCH SNOW!!!!!!!! I did some of the best sledding of my life there.

Soon after necking right out my circus of a house on wheels, it was time for Corey and Toph to go get their heads on strait and prepare for the comp. We set up shop right in the Kirkwood parking lot for duration of the trip. The Tour used up both of their allotted weather days because it was snowing and blowing so hard. I saw the light of day for 3 hours in 2 days during this storm.

I had a blast watching the boys do their thing. It was the first big mountain comp I had ever seen and was very entertaining. They skied well but was not their day. R.I.P goes out to Ryan Hawks. It really hurts to see another brother down. I think about that aspect a lot because it has come way to close to our crew. They need to make competitions safer for the athletes.

The trip ended here in Jackson with everyone safe and stoked to be home. Sooooooo……… yah… sorry to leave on a sad note but our sport we love is not as safe bowling. I’m hungry and need to get some dinner going. Stay up to date with more articles, stories, clips and interviews on therunaroundblog.com and do not put diesel in your sled. They do not like it.

Taylor

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 at 8:28 pm and is filed under TwoPlank Blog & News Archive, Blogroll.