Martinez the Skate Park and Day Two in Alamo

I did not sleep well last night. It was  a series of falling a sleep, waking up and falling a sleep again until 4am in the morning, when finally my phone rang at 8am sharp. It was my boss asking where I was, that I was suppose to be helping a coworker with a class at that minute. "I will be there in five minutes", was my only response as I lay in bed. I had not known I was scheduled to be in this class  for they  had changed the schedule around when I was out of town on business for them last week. Anyway I got dressed, took a spit bath lathered in lotion and derangement, cleaned teeth and arrived seven minutes after my phone conversation with my boss. The day went fine, the class was 8 am til 4 pm, no worries. I even ate lunch with my boss and his boss with no mention of my blunder. There was a email to me late last week stating the change, my bad!! Nobody asked me why I had not taken a shower or smelled weird, thank ja.

After I got free of the entanglement of classroom study I headed back to my room and changed into my freshest skate outfit. T-shirt, shorts, trucker hat I bought yesterday, my backpack full of pads and camera.  I was headed to Martinez skate park that I talked about yesterday. The park is 3.3 miles south of the hotel. It took around 45 minutes to get there through downtown San Antonio and then through South Trinity Neighborhood where I found Martinez park. And yes, I rode my skate board the whole way, helz yeahs.

The park was adjacent a soccer field that was dirt and rocks, then there were a few park benches for siting and basketball court. Then once you made it through that maze I found the skate area. It was just like Thrasher.com said, it had some steep steep hubba ledges and some steep banks that all collected in a general slope. At the top was a half bowl with an extended inner bowl you can see from the pictures. The concrete surface was butter smooth, fast and kind of slippery. There were a group of kids skating with their dad, Adam, who intermittently talked to and told my story of why I was there.  Adam kind of shed the light of scary for me. Then out of no where these older guys showed up and started ripping the bowl. The main guy, Norman, who I talked briefly with was riding a very nice and new Flip Lance Mountain board. This guy could rip it, he was fluid and fast. After about an hour of skating doing nothing special and feeling sketchy as hell on my long board I took off back toward the hotel. Adam said there was a crap load of people about to show up, there were drug dealers in the park over there (watch if a cop shows up he said, they will run off) and I was the only white guy among the all the people there. It was when Adam joked about jumping the guy selling ice cream and water because he had no money that made me feel uneasy. I was in a Hispanic nieghborhood and I had to skate out, so I opted out early.  I skated the 45 minutes back and here I sit after my first shower of the day writing to you.

I made a friend today in class and we are suppose to go to Waxy Oconnors and watch Joe Walmsey sing Irish ballads, he is from Liverpool by the way. Wonder if he follows football or is a Everton fan?? Who knows, I meet Brits in the States that hate football because the English are such crazy super fans.  Facebook Photos Here.  (anyone not on facebook should be able to view these). Cheers mate.