DTRA with a Double Slope
It didn't look like we were going to skate at all. Preliminary indications hinted that everybody was off sucking eggnog and watching football instead of skating like they should be. Nonetheless we dutifully made our way to the meetup and waited around to see if anyone else showed to brave the bitter arctic conditions (53º @ 8pm).
TheNightSkate bylaws require 3 skaters for a quorum, anything less and we just go drinking and skip the skating part, but we achieved quorum. After changing from drinkin' shoes to skates, we headed out of the lot for an old-school DownTown Roll Around.
There was the obligatory stop into St. Vinny's. There was the LA Public Library, but she was closed. We toured the Bonaventure à patinera, made a sneak attack on the World Trade Center and snuck through to the whirly-stairs on Bunker Hill Towers bridge. There we contributed to the delinquency of several youths. (Actually they were being delinquent all on their own, we just encouraged them.)
We took the mid-slope start and bombed Flower (got stopped at 8th) then took Olympic over to the Church of Money and the skating rink. A fast loop of the Conference Center led to Olympic and Broadway. At Pershing Square we hung out at the skating rink also, noting before we left that in neither skatin' location did the security guards tell us we couldn't skate there.
Our campaign of relentlessly not causing trouble and/or destroying property, fearlessly skating in public places without defacing them, and not terrorizing the average citizen while they stroll the public right of ways of our fine city shall continue unabated, until we are universally ignored by security personnel. Skating is not a crime.
We flew the Flight to the Water Park and looped the Disney Hall, then we blazed down the black slope to mid-slope again. The second run was a right to 3rd to Fig, then the 2nd St. tunnel, back to where we began... it was the usual mid-block run back to the meetup.
Apres skate was Würstküche again, who nearly earned the dreaded Black Skate for running out of french fries, but redeemed themselves at the last second by locating five more orders. It's a good thing too. Do you know what was in that space before Würstküche? No. Nobody else does either. Know why? Ran out of PBR, got a Black Skate, that's why.
So anyway, we got our fries, some giant beers and sat outside. Good for us. Too bad for everybody else though....
Deets: 9.1 miles, 1 hr. 40 mins, about 200ft. of vertical.
Shawn
Ryan
Jenni