Saturday May 6, 2006
Gumball Rally: Day 6
The Grand America Hotel, Salt Lake City, Utah
1:45 AM
We left Bangkok first thing Friday morning for the airport after only two hours of sleep. We drove our cars out to the cargo planes then boarded our hired Icelandic Airlines flight from Bangkok to Salt Lake City via Sampora, Japan and Anchorage, Alaska. Something like twenty hours in transit. Yet we were flying back in time so we arrived here in Salt Lake on the same evening of the morning we left Bangkok.
Rooftop and I got to ride in the cockpit of the plane for a little while which was really cool and not something that happens anymore post 9/11… We were stoked.
When we landed in Salt Lake, Tony and I grabbed our boards and Rooftop grabbed his bike and we made our way over to the Layton Skatepark. We sessioned for a few hours and it felt good to ride. As the word got out that we were in town several hundred people made there way over to the park to check it out. Many were woken up by phone calls and pulled themselves out of bed to come down and see us. We stayed at the park until mid-night, riding and hanging with the locals.
My skating is progressing very slowly since I broke my ankle back in November but tonight was the best session I’ve had since I got hurt. I didn’t do much and I’m sure the locals were questioning my limited abilities but I felt good and it was the best skating I’ve done in six months. If anything I was encouraged by how I rode and felt out there. It’s coming along slowly, but it’s coming along.
Now we’re back in the hotel about to eat our first meal of the day before we shut her down for a 7:00AM departure for Las Vegas in our JEEP SRT-8.
— Mike V.
