A few years ago our little team at boardco.com started a most noble tradition. Seeming as the winters in Utah stay pretty much, well… frozen, a trip south became quite the necessity. In the past we'd made the flights in the middle of our storm season, sometime in mid-February. Due to to a little snowboard encounter and my newly inherited friend Mr. Bobble (see picture to understand) however, we were unable to leave til mid April.

It was a little late, but somehow it ended up working just right. Although the days prior were quite springy and warm, we woke up on the day of our departure to the beginnings of a bogus "winter" storm. April right? Well it turns out that one-day storm puked about 3 feet of snow while we were gone! (Someone needs to stop feeding acid to Mother Nature). But needless to say, we were stoked heading to the warm sun.

Typically, Miss Orlando had served as our escape destination, but one of our team riders, Drew Danielo, had been raving about the new McCormicks cable park in Tampa, so we decided to switch it up.

For those of you who haven't ventured that way, McCormicks is quite the hidden splendor. Legendary for its ski camp (everything from slalom to long jump), they just recently added the whole new cable and wake element. The clockwise cable is quite a bit larger than OWC and has a perfect set-up of rails and kickers.

A douse of highlights from the sunny days:
    •    Watching our friend Justin grind half the flat-bar with his groin (literally), keeping a perfect, straight and tall posture.
    •    Attempting the not-so-genious idea of shooting Drew on the A-frame head-on. Not gonna lie, we almost died a few times, but definitely worth the kicks.
    •    Venturing to ride everything and nothing around the cable. At one point we had the successful double combo: One guy laying on the kneeboard and a second guy standing on the strapped-in-chair above him.
    •    Witnessing Drew pull off amazing retarded wakeskate maneuvers on the kneeboard, not to mention his noble attempt of taking the chair upon the the picnic box.
    •    Gazing in complete awe as a rediculously good looking swedish gal soared a few hundred feet on the long jump.
    •    Scaring the poop out of Mitch Mann (Boardco's VP) at least a few times a day while attempting to sleep.

Hearty thanks to McCormicks www.skimccormick.com for being the author of the good times, Boardco.com for the love, and Drew at Ollies Wake-Skate-Skim and his super nice wife Nicole for taking care of the crew. Also, thank you to Slingshot and O'Neill for making us look cooler than we really are. 

Until next winter,