The Texas trip was the first official team trip this summer, and consisted of Tom, Jordan, Issac, Jona, and Collin. Not quite knowing what to expect was a nice change, compared to the usual Midwest or Cali spot missions. So, we flew in early in the morning, got a sick rental van, and hit the streets to start filming. Before the trip, we were all a little anxious about the dreaded Texas heat. Was it going to be possible to even ride? It was a gamble, but we lucked out with cloudy weather every day except the last day. The first thing we noticed about Texas was the amount of flat bars everywhere. It seems like every business has flat bars around their property line. We even started counting the number of bars we saw as we left a spot one day going to another, and hit well over 30 within 3 minutes. Something most people probably don’t realize about street missions is how much time you spend driving around from spot to spot. Even with Collin’s crazy driving, we spent a significant amount of time in the van. Collin seriously tried to jump the rental van as we left the electrical box spot and ended up destroying the skid plate underneath the vehicle. Sorry about that Enterprise. A lot of the spots we went to ended up being a bust, due to the spot not being there anymore which happens a lot, or because of security guards kicking us out. Like the time Issac landed a frontside 180 heel off this turned off water fountain as security came walking up and Tom had to climb down in front of him holding a HVX. But even with the busts, our spot list was fat, and so was the clip list by the end of the trip.

One of the craziest spots we went to was this flat down flat bank with rails on either side. Tom got a rad line, but Issac really shut it down. It had started sprinkling when he was trying his trick, to the point that Jona was wiping the Xtreme off every try. But, Issac was able to roll away from one of the craziest grind combos we’ve ever seen go down. Another memorable moment was Tom’s backlip down the 12 rail. We had gone there a couple days before, and Tom rolled away from a backlip, but it wasn’t quite how he wanted it. We then got kicked out by security. So, we went back later so he could do it again. This time an employee was around, telling us to leave from the beginning. Tom wasn’t having any of that, and kept trying his backlip and eating shit. The employee was threatening to call the cops, and we called his bluff. He did have his phone out, but pressed way too many buttons for it to have been 911. Tom kept eating it, the employee was trying to kick us out, and then some weird guy with a fedora was talking shit to us by the van. Finally Tom laced it perfectly, and we were able to roll out without any confrontation with the fuzz. Other highlights include a rattlesnake infestation, rollerblade obstacle’d out ditch, a fun McKinney Skatepark sesh, Issac doing the biggest drops ever with thin Vans and no socks, a trampoline in the form of a flat bar, and hiding (unsuccessfully) from Collin so he couldn’t take our picture. All in all it was a good time, and we’d love to do it again. Shoutout to @keeganmcutchen for geotagging his spots on Instagram, we couldn’t have done it without him.