Headwind sucks: Jack Smith and friends skate across America

SO I WAS VISITING WOODWARD this summer and when I'm there I always love to BS with the girls in the office. This one time I was talking to Erica Mischler and out of the blue she says, "Josh, do you want to skate across America?" Without hesitation I say "yeah," similar to the way you would say "duh." She had been forwarded an e-mail about this dude that was going to make the trek, so she told me that I should get in touch with him. The guy was Jack Smith. After a few e-mails and phone calls, I could tell that Jack was sketchy about letting me be part of his four-man crew. He explained to me how the cross-country trip was to honor his son, Jack Marshall Smith, who had recently passed away. And this was his way to raise money and awareness for the rare genetic disease called Lowe Syndrome that caused his son's death. Basically Jack didn't want me to be some random hesher that would dishonor the trip or his son in any way, which is totally reasonable, right? Sure it is. But, luckily for me, Jack ended up knowing Reggie Barnes, my old boss at Eastern Skateboard Supply. So Jack called Reggie, Reggie gave me a good review, and that was that. I was on. So I flew out to the West Coast to meet the crew in Newport, Oregon.

JACK SMITH IS A LEGEND. The guy is 46, built like a tank, has been skating since 1974, set world speed records while I was in diapers, and still skates almost every day. He eats fast food each day of his life (and gets frustrated if you don't order within the first eight seconds at the counter), and yet is still as healthy as a horse. He's been a huge influence on skateboarding. Do your homework, you'll see. Nick Krest is the friendliest dude you'll ever meet. He can talk to anybody about whatever whenever. Nick skated on this trip like a train and always had consistent times. At 38, Nick has his hand in the skateboarding industry, and he, too, still skates almost every day. Scott Kam is 33 and I think we are somehow related. Like Jack and Nick, he's a lifelong skateboarder, owns Rootamental skateboards, likes to laugh and joke as much as I do and shares my juvenile sense of humor and sarcasm.

Jack has made this cross-country skate twice before, once in '76 and once in '84 (consult your Guinness Book of Records, kiddies. It's in there). But this time we planned to shatter his last record by five days. The morning that we left began with Jack's ritual of touching the tails of our boards into the Pacific Ocean, then on to our exodus through the beautiful land of Oregon. To begin with there were eight in our crew. We had guest skaters, but one member of the four-man team had to be skating at all times in order to make it legit. So the van we had following us served as a pass-the-torch relay. We also had to log in the mileage and time every time we started and ended a leg. That was a pain. Each leg started out as three miles, but on the second half of the trip we trimmed them down to two miles, unless you were skating through the mountains. Then it was a mile or a half of a mile, all depending on how steep it was.

The first day we had a mileage miscalculation, forcing us to skate an extra 50 miles, to result in 200 miles getting covered that day. Dude, my right leg was rotten. I mean, we all pushed regular and switch just the same (usually I switched up every eight-to-10 pushes) but my right leg got rocked. For the next six days I had to limp on it whenever I walked. Even though it hurt when I skated, I could still push with it. The first few days also took a toll on Scott's heel. He got this gnarly blister that ended up looking like a hole someone made with a melon scooper or something. It was gross, but he never complained and never slacked up. Jack got a blister towards the end, and had to cut out the back of his shoe. Nick and me escaped the blister craze unscathed, although Nick did take a spill that drew blood, which made up for it.

Skating through Oregon is beautiful. Being all alone on a skateboard in the middle of nowhere is amazing; makes you think a lot. You start to talk to yourself. You start talking to animals, even singing. Sometimes I was so focused on the road in front of me that I had to snap myself out of the trance to realize the beauty surrounding me. When my legs would hurt really bad I would count my pushes or make up songs to try to drown the pain. I mean, pushing is one thing, but pushing up a mountain is a whole different patch of punkins. This trip was my first time stepping on a longboard, and definitely the first time I've dropped a few thousand feet in elevation off of one push. I've never skated for over six miles going 30-to-40 mph down a hill, praying that there wouldn't be any potholes I couldn't dodge.

THERE WERE LOTS OF FIRSTS FOR ME. One night we stayed in Unity, Oregon, one of the most beautiful places ever. Only a few hundred people live there. It was so small that the local sheriff was "out of town for the week." That night one of the young girls came to me in a panic while I was sitting outside of our hotel room. "My boyfriend is going to come shoot you!" She said. "He got mad that I was talking to you earlier and wants to shoot you! He's tried to shoot someone before! Please go inside and turn off your light!" So I waited, 'cause no one has ever pointed a gun at me. I thought it would make for a good story, but he never even showed.