Aunt Marti and Johnny before the hike!

Saturday morning Aunt Marti picked us up and took us to the Muir Wood National Forest to see the big Redwoods. I was pretty excited, I visited the Redwoods a long time ago but the boys had no idea what was in store for them. Jason and Laura were going to meet us for lunch at a restaurant somewhere near the woods — a place called the The Mountain View Inn.

We left the congestion of cars, buildings and people of San Francisco behind. As the boys spotted the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, their mood quickly changed from ‘field trip’ to “OH MAN! THIS IS SO AWESOME! THIS IS THE COOLEST PLACE EVER!” — and we really hadn’t even left the city yet. Joey said that he couldn’t wait to thank Pops for the ticket and tell him what a great time he was having. I pulled out my phone but as soon as we connected with my dad we were already deep in the mountains and lost service — it was a very quick trip over!

Today I went by Walgreen’s to pick up my photos and they told me that the roll was ‘blank’ — I think it was probably someone’s first day in the photo department…. With that said, I pulled these photos from the Muir Woods and Mountain View Inn websites.

We get to the Woods and it is BREATH TAKING. Beauty like we’ve never seen before — the boys were in awe, they couldn’t get over just how massive the trees are.

After looking at the map, we decide to take the ’short trail’ so we would have enough time to meet Jason and Laura for lunch. I noticed on one of the maps that we could walk to the restaurant — come on! It’s just a short trial — 1.7 miles, straight up hill — we can do it!

This trail looks harmless enough… it’s so inviting…

Everyone agreed that it didn’t look too bad on the map and we were all up for the challenge. We can do it in 30-45 minutes, right team! WOO HOO! YEAH! WOO HOO! THIS PLACE IS BEAUTIFUL! THIS WON’t be too bad… pant, pant, woo hoo. is this a trail? huh, didn’t look this far on the map. who has the map? are we going in the right direction?

Okay, if this were a ski resort, it would have been black diamonds all the way up. No one complained because it was so unbelievably beautiful and we were having a great time, but a little heads up from a park ranger would have helped. The wet trails that sheered off to our left went straight down. I mean, there was plenty of trees and underbrush to catch a kid or at least slow them down as they slid to the bottom of the mountain, but that would mean I was going next…

Johnny wasn’t lacking in the energy department. He danced his way up the mountain. If he wasn’t dancing, he was skipping, moon-walking or hopping his way up –the whole 1.7 miles. He was actually trying to catch up to Joey. Yeah, you read that right — catch up to Joey. Joey was WAY up front — so far sometimes that I would periodically check the side of the mountain to see if he had slid down and was caught on a branch or something. He even told us to hurry up! What was really bothering him was that he had to use the ‘loo’. Oh yeah. And not the easy # either. Poor kid. But when nature calls… finally about 3/4 of the way up he decided to ‘lighten his load’ — right on the walking trail. In a National Forest. Oh yeah.

Luckily Aunt Marti is a seasoned professional when it comes to 11 year old boys. She taught middle school for 20+ years and understands that boys love to pander to the lowest common denomenator — bathroom humor. It didn’t phase her much that the rest of the 1/4 mile hike was spent listening to, in graphic detail, Joey’s story of how, when, and where he ‘lightened his load’. Of course Johnny had to check out Joey’s spot and continued to ask detailed questions throughout lunch. Aunt Marti’s only comment was “Not everyone can say they’ve done that Joey.” The woman has nerves of steel.

We made it to the top of the mountain! It was SO WORTH IT! Lunch was awesome — the Inn was beautiful — a place I would love to take Mike to — sans the kids!

The red square shows where the Inn is located. Can’t see the bottom of the mountain? Either could we…

A few of us decided that we wanted to tackle the mountain on the way down, Marti and the kids would meet us at the car when we got there. I couldn’t wait to see the view on the way down, but unfortunately I noticed the time and I had to be back in SFO for dinner with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society (oh yeah, those guys!) and I promised the kids they could spend the night at Jim’s house. I had to catch the BART (Bay Area Transit — like a tram) to get the kids to Jim’s house, so we had to hustle people!

Jason and Laura kept asking me who Jim was and why the boys were going there. I told them he was a good friend and the guy who made Johnny is skateboard. I think they heard the word “skater” and probably thought “thug” and probably questioned my judgment as well as my parenting skills (they had to listen to Joey’s ‘trail’ story during lunch). I assured them the boys would be in good hands, Jim has a son that is 8 years old, they are a good family, don’t worry, they’re just like us…

We left for the airport without a camera, the photos are from actual scanned photographs (very retro!).

We arrived Thursday night and all I wanted to do is go to the hotel and get a good night sleep. I checked the hotel on the Internet before we left and it looked pretty nice, but you never know. When we arrived, I knew I was in trouble — this place was WAY to nice for us. As I walked to the front desk to check in, the boys were busy running from antique love seat to antique love seat with comments like: “Awwww, Joey look at this!…”, “Johnny over here! Look how nice this is…” and yelling to me this was the nicest hotel they have ever been to. Of course they said this really loudly — in the lobby — which by the way has excellent acoustics, just in case you were wondering. Every person checking in knew at that moment, why this was the first time my boys have ever been near a nice hotel.

We get to the room and the boys ransacked the place, checking every nook and cranny to see what they could find, stuffing their pockets full of whatever would fit — hand cream, sewing kits, you name it. I tried to ignore them but then Joey comes out of the closet with just his underwear on wearing a tan and black zebra striped robe saying “Hey look what someone left behind! Slippers too. Eleven dollars for a pair of socks? Who pays eleven dollars for socks? They look soft though, can I wear them tomorrow? AWESOME! FOOD too! hey, and a fridge — this place is awesome!”

Crap, it’s gonna be a long weekend….

The hotel is old, really old. How it survived all of the big earthquakes I’ll never know. As we were trying to get to sleep I made the comment, “I wonder if this place is haunted?” (Halloween was less than a week away) — Johnny’s eyes darted over to me and as his voice cracked, asked “Why would you say that?” I told him I was just kidding but he didn’t believe me. Either did Joey. The rest of the trip was spent very cozily, the three of us crammed in a queen size bed even though the roll away bed they brought us was nicer than any other hotel bed I’ve slept on.

Our hotel also had a door man that used a whistle to hail a cab for you and dressed like an escapee from the local Renaissance Festival — the boys thought that was the coolest thing ever. They made great friends with the doormen, every morning giving them the high five, head nod or knuckle bump. Johnny said he could live like this all the time.

All day Friday was spent at Deluxe, with Jim giving us the grand tour. To say that we had fun was an understatement. This is what Johnny has wanted to do the past 2 1/2 years — hangout with the guys who given him so much hope and strength to Roll. We met the behind the scenes people who made Johnny’s board a reality, from the folks who design boards to the ones who market and sell them to shops. It was really something to see how genuinely excited people were to meet Johnny.

Signing boards with Jim

Johnny and Mic-E

Johnny talking to a shop about his boards

The boys with Shannen, whose tireless efforts got Johnny’s boards out there!

Jim also took us to Thrasher Magazine where we met Jake Phelps (the Editor) — who by the way is a T R I P gave us a quick tour of the building then told us to get the hell out. Next stop was the Thrasher warehouse where the boys pretty much gutted the place. I’m not kidding. T-shirts, hoodies, belts, wallets, books, — if it had a Thrasher label on it, they grabbed it. We arrived in SFO with ONE carry on and ONE checked bag, and left with SIX checked bags. It was insane — took me DAYS to put everything away.

Gutting the Thrasher warehouse:

The carnage continues…

NOTE: Joey is wearing a completely different outfit from when we left the hotel that morning.

Back at the Deluxe warehouse the boys carried on with the looting, Jim let them take whatever they wanted. BOXES of decks, wheels, stickers, trucks, limited edition/hard to find stuff too — I felt like Augustus from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the kid who ate so much he was going to explode). Joey loved it, he kept telling me this was the best day of his life — ever.

There was also a secret door next too the warehouse that led us to another room “where all the magic happens” — we saw how Spitfire wheels and Thunder Trucks are made. This was the boy’s favorite part of the tour, even more than the Glutton Fest they just finished, okay maybe not that much… But it’s still one of the first things they tell people about when people ask what they did at Deluxe.

A fond farewell from Deluxe

The ever popular skaters salute! Joey couldn’t get enough of these things…

It was only 1pm and I was wiped out. We headed back to the hotel to have dinner with Aunt Marti and Jason. Transportation was fun in SFO, at times life-threatening, but mostly fun and always an adventure. The cab rides and the shuttle ride from the airport to the hotel were NUTS. Not to mention that their vehicles were in desperate need of shocks too. As we got out of the cab on our way back from Deluxe Joey said, “I think we caught air on that last hill”, he was right too. We needed Dramamine anytime we utilized public transportation — with all of the hills and stop and go traffic, I would look over at the boys and their faces would turn from an ashen gray to green color and I would mouth to them “close your eyes and crack the window.”

For dinner, Jason and Laura took us to their favorite pizza place that was close to the hotel. It was SO YUMMY! We haven’t seen Jason in almost 3 years and never met his girlfriend, so it made for a great reunion. It felt good to sit down and rest. We ate pizza and caught up on each others lives and talked about our plans for Saturday morning. Aunt Marti and Jason wanted to take us to the Muir Woods National Forest, just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, to see the giant Redwoods.

It was getting late, we had another big day ahead of us and the boys were starting to get their second wind (aka: going crazy) so we decided to wrap things up for the night and meet up in the morning.