Outside The Lines

Photos: Ryan Young

Words: Travis Schirmer

Exhausted from over 40 days of zigzagging across the country seeking out shelter and skateboard spots, the crew decided to bypass Colorado and drive straight back to California. The territorial disputes over seats with access to a window for leaning on grew in viciousness and regularity, as all-night driving sessions became the norm. Every few hours a passenger would wake up and mumble, “Where are we?” It was unclear which state we were in at any given time; that we were still far from the West Coast was certain due to the surreal names of gas stations we passed (Kum & Go, Giant Eagle, Flying J, etc.) We took turns sleeping on a strip of floor between the van’s first bench and front seats that had been previously reserved for the soles of our shoes and oily particles of vending machine food.  At rest stops, some of us worked through our delusional weariness by walking in socks through rainy parking lots towards the nearest fast food restaurant, while others chain-smoked in a haze propped against the van.

Miraculously, we materialized in Los Angeles to let off our first crew member. Many half-conscious goodbyes were uttered in the weak morning sun until the trip was concretely over—its reality carried on in the form of electronic imagery and subjective interpretations based on the meaning it held for each person who went along for the ride.

Photos: Ryan Young

Words: Travis Schirmer

At the bottom of a gravel road somewhere in the grassy city of Rutland, Ohio the van pulled up to a sign enclosed by pool coping with “Skatopia” written on it. The entrance lead to an 80-acre piece of land founded on ideas concerning skateboarding and freedom by a man named Brewce Martin. We drove by a pink school bus with broken windows, a house where the walls seemed to be made of nothing other than beer boxes, a three-story barn with a roof supported by a full-pipe, and a cement skatepark built on a hill at the highest point of elevation. A few minutes after staring at our surroundings, a car being chased by a pack of barking dogs came charging up the road. Brewce Martin emerged, introduced himself, and then jumped onto his skateboard to show us the lines of the park he built himself. At night, the lights in the barn came on and we watched Brewce, Joel and Ratface have a session in the vertigo-inducing 13-foot tall wooden bowl. Noteworthy events of the evening included a skateboard dropping from the top of the full pipe onto Ryan’s face, games of pool being played for low sums of money and two “bus tours” with Brewce behind the wheel and all of us trying to find a spot to sit on the floor where there was no broken glass as we went off road. We threw our sleeping bags into the pool and slid down to the bottom, but the sound of a revving chainsaw from outside kept everyone awake.

Along with multiple houses, barns and cabins on the property, Brewce constructed a skateboard museum. He gave us a tour, showing us his collection of hundreds of different boards from the earliest era through the present. There was a board with a pair of trucks that still had a “patent pending” label attached to them, along with clay wheels. Visitors are welcome to pick up any of the boards that hang from every inch of ceiling and wall space to stand on them or spin their functioning bearings. We finished our time at Skatopia by shooting handguns, shot guns and rifles at an old computer in front of the museum.

Photos: Ryan Young

Words: Travis Schirmer

One more night was spent on a beach in North Carolina after a scouting mission for rooftop urban camping proved unsuccessful.  The empty, peaceful spot where we rolled out our sleeping bags late at night became a lane for joggers, walking families and concerned beach patrol officers at daybreak.  We met up with Levi (Youtube username eliteskater08) and his friends, a posse of a dozen skaters and some of their girlfriends, in Lexington, North Carolina.  They showed us their spots until the sun set and we continued on to Chapel Hill where we celebrated Ratface’s 21st birthday at our friend James’ house.  James kindly provided us with beer, good conversation and shelter for three days.  During that time Levi guided us to more of his spots and we ended our time together by riding our skateboards down a steep grass hill as a group of twenty.  Exodus skateshop helped us greatly, allowing us to shoot interviews in their well-stocked shop after hours.  We all appreciated the help from Levi, Exodus and James as our journey continued.   

Photos: Ryan Young

Words: Travis Schirmer

Ratface and Chris Mcnugget started walking on their hands on the densely packed sand beaches of Florida.  While we waited for the van’s cracked radiator to be replaced on our way out of Daytona, they walked on their hands into the unlit, moldy smelling corridor of a strip mall.   They did handstands on their boards and made sharp echoes with their flip trick attempts.  We got kicked out and went to go sprawl ourselves on the sidewalk.

When we arrived in Savanah later that day in sweat-stained shirts and saw the old, pocked bricks forming buildings and crosswalks, Joel decided we should smoke a cigar.  We broke into groups with some eating at a pirate-themed restaurant and the rest skating on narrow ledges above a 15-foot drop while bored tourists looked on.  Everyone reconvened under a bridge with an acoustic guitar sounding from the window of a restaurant above us, and freighter ships moving in slow lines along the river below.  Three cigars twisted into a braid made up the “Medusa” that Joel bought for us.  A few of us hacked through it until it was finished.  

That night we slept outside on South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach.  Without mentioning it to the rest of the crew, I used an unopened package of four toilet paper rolls as a pillow while Ratface woke up in the middle of the night and had to borrow a sock from Darren.  As we drove away in the morning with the van stuffed with our sleeping bags wet from dew, we spotted a guy on a long board rowing himself along with a stick.  Ten minutes after stopping to photograph him, we were taking showers and drinking coffee at our new friend Carl’s house.  Our next stop was in North Carolina where we interviewed Dan at the Stability Skateshop and park.  *Thank you to the owners of the shop and all the friendly people who have helped us along the way.