Entries this day: random_skating

random skating

1 March 1997

Last night I skated hard for the first time in a long time. It had been since Thanksgiving of last year, so my endurance was low. But I still had fun.

I started from my apartment, skating down the street to where it's all under construction. Watching traffic patterns carefully, calculating trajectories and the reactions of drivers, I rolled smoothly between the barrels and between the cars, then accelerated toward oncoming traffic in a blocked-off section of street. I slowed a bit to let the last of a wave of cars veer left out of my way, then shot out into the street pushing hard toward the next intersection which held back the next wave of cars. I did not quite make it to the gap in the median before they came, so I had to squeeze myself between the oncoming cars and the curb for just a *second* before I reached the opening in the median for me to cross the street. Looking behind me I noted the cars had just been let across the intersection from which I just came. I pushed harder and made my right turn at the second intersection before they reached me. Success.

I relatively leisurely skated down Dallas Street, catching my breath, and wondering if Allen Parkway would be blocked off yet for the street festival to be held there the next day. I reached Taft and turned left toward Allen Parkway.

The hill leading down to Allen Parkway on Taft is a pretty fun one to skate. Taft goes down the hill, stopping at Allen Parkway to form a T intersection. The traffic going from right to left on Allen Parkway never has to stop at this intersection, so even if you time the light correctly, there still is traffic to navigate.

This time, I start at the top of the hill, push push push push push push down down faster faster faster, watching the light for cross traffic turn yellow then red, and then green light for me (yay!) as I fly into the intersection, up onto the median for an instant before I cross the nonstop flow of traffic and see there's only one car and plenty of room so I fly off the curb, cross the street (watch the light post) up the curb, cut my turn harder to keep from tumbling over the guard rail into the ravine. Made it. Perfect.

Skated slowly up the sidewalk/trail along Allen Parkway till I reached downtown Houston.

Turned left on some street, went a ways then left on another street which I knew would take me down toward the other side of Allen Parkway. The light was holding back the cars that wanted to use my same hill, so I glanced at their headlights as if to say, "excuse me; I'll just be a second," and took off down the hill before them. There is no tricky intersection at the bottom, and the light god held the cars back for more than necessary, so I easily was off the street and headed back up the hill before the cars even got to the bottom.

Up through what we call Coyote Park, I skated to the top of the hill and lay down beneath the bronze coyote which is pictured on the front of the Houston A-L Yellow Pages phone directory (good till September 1997) and rested.

Skated twice down the hill at Jones Plaza, once with some traffic, and once without, but it wasn't nearly as good as some of my previous adrenaline trips down that hill (see Wild Skating Adventure Twenty for a brief description).

Skated around a bit, but I didn't really see any other skaters. I went up to the University of Houston Downtown campus, to skate down one of my favorite hills in Houston. At the top, I skated inside the campus building for a while, got something to drink, talked to a few students. I even found a night club/bar kinda place where there were two guys doing a stand up comedy routine. Cool!

I tried flirting with the girl selling tickets to get in free, but she resisted pretty well. The manager came up and said I would have to take my skates off to come inside anyway, so I left.

Back outside to the top of the hill, I waited for the light to turn red at the bottom. I counted 10 seconds (while some cars went by before me) and then took off toward the bottom. Push push push push avoid the groove-of-death (Wild Skating Adventure Ten), light turns green, fly through the intersection yahoooo what a rush!

Slowly skated around the block and back to UH Downtown and called Wende, my girlfriend, who I knew was working there in the bookstore. I ate M&Ms, read Beavis and Butt-Head do Hollywood, and then we went home.