Headwind sucks: Jack Smith and friends skate across America

Thrasher Magazine, March, 2004 by Josh Maready

Before we left Oregon we hit 17 miles of the gnarliest road ever--rocks embedded in tar. You could pull 'em out with your fingers. It was so gnar. You had to push going downhill. It was bad. Oh, I forgot--headwind. Headwind sucks. We battled so much headwind and there's nothing you can do but push harder and hope it stops. Sometimes the wind would almost blow you backwards if you stopped pushing.

We hit some dry desert-looking place in Idaho and got busted by the po-po for using video cameras near a nuclear reactor. (Ps: We documented the whole trip and it's going to be a National Geographic Personal Adventure on TV. Keep your eyes peeled.) For the most part, cops were amazingly cool. Some would pull us over, and boy is it funny to get blue-lighted on a skateboard. But when we told them the deal, most were super rad and even radioed the rest of the cops in that county telling them to leave us alone. We had one or two A-hole cops; one that even made us drive the few remaining miles of "his county." But overall we were stoked there were so many 5-0s willing to help us.

Wyoming was cool because of all the red and gray rocks. Oh yeah, now I know why we gave the Indians the reservations in Wyoming--'cause there's NOTHING THERE, MAN. White man lost nothing in that deal. It's completely empty, but it's rad to skate through. By Nebraska our crew had slimmed down to the four-man team. It was a lot easier that way. Sometimes people would give us money for the cause as they drove by us or when we stopped in a town. And I'd like to note: it was always the poorest towns that gave us the most. There was a town in Nebraska called Marionville, a town "too tough to die," that had only 100 people. We were treated like royalty there. They opened their hearts and emptied their humble pockets. It was a modern day "widow's mite," and I've got a soft spot for people like that.

One fun thing you can do skating across America is spook animals. Deer, foxes ... I think the raddest is to make a herd of a few hundred cattle streak across a pasture. You start laughing and, really, it makes you feel kind of powerful. One time I spooked this herd of antelope or something, and it was freaking amazing to see them shoot across the plains. My favorite, though, is the time I spooked some ducks and they flew across the road ahead of me. The lowest duck smacked the windshield of a semi that was coming towards me and shot it up 30 yards or so like a punted football, landing only a few feet away from me. Shaking my head, I kind of giggled and didn't miss a beat. Another favorite: Once, these two horses ran probably two miles with me as I skated alongside their pasture. It was sick 'cause it was super early and foggy. The horses, the fog and the green pasture made me feel as if I was in some fantasy movie. Trust me, you'da been stoked if you were there, too.

OK, let me clue you in on something: the US is not flat for any more than a rare mile here and there. Sure, in a car it might seem as flat as a pancake, but when you are pushing through it you notice every rise and fall of elevation. So stop thinking that the "flatlands" must have been easy, because there are no flatlands! There are flatter-lands. But no flatlands. Iowa and Illinois are mellower than most, but we hit some big ol' hills in Ohio and West Virginia, where the hills turned into mountains. Jack said the Appalachian Mountains were worse than the Rockies, 'cause it was up and down a bazillion times instead of straight up and straight down. But it all seemed the same to me, especially when just trying to hug the white line as close as possible so the speeding semi behind me wouldn't send me flying down the side of the mountain. I had a few close calls. All of the crew got tossed during our journey but me. I did bail one time doing about 30-or-35 mph but ran out of it. And let me tell you: that was goddamn scary, dude. Big soft wheels on bumpy roads makes your board float eight inches either way sometimes. That's something I'm not used to. And if it starts fishtailing--and you're not used to longboards like me--then you would probably abandon ship just like I did.