Summer 2008! Super Crazy Awesome Part 1

SLAG Summer 2008 Tour aka the Winnipeg Tour was off the hook!

I am so stoked on girls’ skateboarding right now!

Thanks to Elysia (Rugged Riders), Jacqui Comp and her crew at the Manitoba Skateboard Coalition, all the girls that braved this trip and shredded up two countries: Erica Harris (SF), Jessie Haungs (PDX), Kristen Ebeling (SEA), Kristina Narayan (PDX), Esther Godoy (Melbourne, Australia), Chrissie Lathrop (SEA), Beth Nenniger (Vancouver, B.C.), our camerawoman/skater Moira Morel (PDX), and photographer Audrey. Thanks so much for such an awesome trip.

(All the fine ass ladies at Chicks Flip Out!)





So here’s the story. I guess let’s set-up the story for why this was awesome…
1. The fact that Jaqui emailed us (me + Elysha) out of nowhere early in the spring and was like…. you ladies must come to this or else! Like a moth to flame we got our act together and hustled to shred!

(Jessie, Elysha, me (nancy), Jacqui, Moira, and Erica)

2. We started off with a mini-van, and a handful of gals wanting to skate and get footage and it grew.

a. Did I mention that Erica Harris (randomly emailed us) decided to come help us with our Seattle skate camps (out of love for skateboarding), and before this we didn’t really know anything about her except she was a fire fighter?

If I were more paranoid I wouldn’t have invited a girl who could cut me up like a fire line (ask Kristina what it feels like to endure the wrath of Erica) to stay with me for a few weeks. Luckily for all of us I am way too trusting and was like, “yeh come up, and oh yeh, do you want to drive over 3000 miles to skate in Winnipeg?”

b. So we had a crew of gals representing Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, AND then Esther Godoy who rides for the Element team was like, “Hey, I am Esta, I want to join this skate trip!”
So we were like, “Hell yeh!” And then all of sudden this thing started snow balling.

c. Erica, who is the queen of networking met Beth Nenniger skating in Vancouver, and then the trip became an international all girl skate squad!

3. The girls drove basically non-stop from Portland to my house in Seattle and then through the night to Montana. They hit up Montana, Fargo, ND and all of sudden the SLAG gmail and myspace were filling up with love letters. Guys and girls were like: “You changed our lives, please, please, oh please come back again.” Here's some photos from our myspace.

Not hearing the story until I flew into Winnipeg (I had to go to my cousin’s wedding and couldn’t drive out with them), I was like these girls are heartbreakers!

4. Flying into Winnipeg, I thought I was going to get deported, since I didn’t have a return ticket. "Yeh, so like I am here to meet up with friends to go skateboard your country." I was a bit nervous, but the woman was nice and let me in with a Visa (I have never gotten one to go to Canada before), and I hopped in a cab to meet up with the girls.



When I got to the Plaza, there was a pretty huge crowd watching the girls skate. I got there in time for the advanced skaters. It was super hot, but the SLAG team was tearing it up. I see the girls, and they are skating so hard. I guess Kristina bumped her head hard board sliding a rail, and then got back up and slid it again. Esther, Chrissie, Kristen, and Kristina were hucking themselves and cheering on everyone, including Tamara (Vancouver) and Annie (Montreal). It was so overwhelming to feel the love.



5. I met Jacqui and Elysha! They were pretty much the reason we went to Winnipeg.

6. Most all of our gals placed! Advanced: 1st = Kristen, 3rd = Esther, 4th Kristina, and 5th Chrissie. Intermediate: 1st Jessie, and 3rd Erica.

7. Partied and hung out with awesome girl skaters and saw what amazing community organizing the Skateboard Coalition of Manitoba, local business and the local government officials could do together. They collected so much product, and $3000 in cash to deal out to the advanced skaters! They even had flowers and trophies.



8. Taught a bunch of girls to skate.

9. Drove over half of the Trans-Canadian Hwy. Not die-ing on the sketchy roads in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Seeing road signs we have never seen before and trying to interpret the meaning. Killing like a few thousand bugs on our grill and windshield. Erica is seriously the champ of cleaning off dragon fly guts!
Saw/was in the middle of a crazy thunder and lightning storm in Regina. Regina was gushing! We were in a grocery store and the power cut out, it got crazy. The Canadian Rockies are so beautiful.


10. Random skate seshes in rest areas. Girls sessioned a few rocks.

11. Cochrane park was super fun! Esther asked a pre-teen boy to switch for his mountain scooter. Kristina was flying over pylon, board sliding like it was going out of style. The girls got in the bowl and road it like a train gang. They were like the Harlem Bowl Trotters!









12. Pulling up into Vancouver at 5 am, with a few girls pulling out their sleeping bags and sleeping on the side walk like bums. Serious.











13. Hanging out at Anti-Social with Michelle and skating her ramp. Getting Nugget to skate, hangout, dance and then drive back to the states with us.


14. There’s so much more, but I am going to end with: the U.S. border customs agent was the best. He was so nice to us.

The end!

Actually more thank you's:

Bob, Cam, Mio, Inn at the Forks, Michelle @ Anti-Social, Nugget, Mark, everyone involved with the Chicks Flip Out comp!, the City of Fargo North Dakota and Dike West Skate Park, Beth’s parents, Skirtboarders, Tamara, Stephanie, and Annie. Christine, Simon and Sigma for making a million SLAG buttons! Michelle (Kristen’s mom for buying snacks), basically there’s a million other people to list.