Day 1 stats:

• Start: Poulsbo, WA.
• Finish: Willsonville, OR.
• Miles:  208

You find out how blessed you are with friends and family when you can arrive in Portland with no real notice, give a shot out and immediately have invites for dinner and a place to stay and everyone asking how we are.

It started when the skateboard deck that boy ordered showed up one day before the big trip (yesterday) and turned out to be the wrong size. His old deck had seen better days and he’s been riding hand-me-down decks from friends for a number of week. This was the board he planed to ride on the Ouray road trip adventure and he was now SOL with no deck to ride. What this meant was we had to find an 8.5 deck along the way, a tasks that we were not sure was even possible. We were prepared to stop at every skate shop along the way and that is a truck load of skate shops.

Turns out the first shop we dropped in on, The Department of Skateboarding, had a number of 8.5s and Boy found a $lave deck he liked. You know for everything else there really is master card.

Which bring us to how great our friends are. While Boy worked on gripping his deck and transferring hardware, I gave a shot out to Brad. The next thing I know the whole Day clan is rolling up at the Department to see how we are and hoping to watch Boy try out the new deck. Now to get here the Day clan piled in the car on a 90+ degree day and drove 30 minutes through the snow, up hill both ways fighting off the bears with their spiral notebooks, just for this meet up. They even followed us into North Portland, another 20 minutes to watch Boy shred it at Pier Park.

This is a Sunday, when they could be relaxing by a pool, watching a movie or playing ball, but instead they spent it with us, watching Boy skate, chatting and slugging down Burger Ville milkshakes just because we came into town. These are the friends Jimmy Buffet songs are written about and I’m lucky enough to have several… Of course we’ll find out if they can follow through on a promise. I asked for a family photo that could be posted. Regardless, I’m very lucky to have them in my life.

If that were not enough, I even have family, that when we called with a request for a place to stay, simply asked how we wanted our burger cooked and told us to meet them at the pool, where they had cold drinks waiting for us. When we rolled up… Mary, John, Gracie and Rosie welcomed us like the prodigal son, gave us a big howdy and told us to make ourselves at home. We did… you should see the mess Boy made.

It is easy to get caught up in the destination, the rig, the hoopla of the adventure and the buzz of the press… but it is important to remember the friends and family just out side the spot light who make us feel welcome with a bed for us to rest our head on and a warm smile to make us feel everything is all right.