The butt-crack of dawn came and went. Aaron’s dad had charts and graphs logging the specifics of our travels to Lost Creek Lake where we wakeboarded and filmed in the morning.  I forgot to write them down. I do know the drive took us about an hour and we got milkshakes – a departure from my diet of Red Bull, but just as satisfying.

The Armada adventure continued up I-5 towards Portland to pick up some of the video dudes for Pull from the airport.  We were late because of traffic and a little stop at the much-anticipated Gap. Check out the pictures, it’s huge. Too huge. We even called Walton to chat about it. He’d already seen it driving up I-5, pulled over to scout it, and deemed it a little too agro.

Driving a full-size SUV with a boat is hard enough, taking it through an airport during rush hour traffic is just silly. We managed to find space for Keith and Staker in the rig and made our way to the Hippodrome. Before getting to the site, though, we had to wander around a Target for a while to make sure we had all of the supplies necessary for camping at a wakeskate event in the woods. While inside we came across quite the conundrum: did we need the mini gas grill Staker found in the store or would there be a place to BBQ the meat at the lake? We thought about it and came to the conclusion that every campsite we had ever been to had a grill.  However, just to be sure, Garrett used his better judgment and called Jeff McKee, who was already there, to get the grill status. Garrett said that Jeff said that someone said that there was a grill there. We did not buy the grill. We hit the road with the necessities and finally got to the site. There were no grills. Fortunatley, Silas took care of us with complimentary food and drink for the whole Alliance Staff for the entire weekend – hooray for perks.

Upon our arrival to the second annual Hippodrome Wakeskate Extravaganza Kyle Watlon greeted us in a vintage early ‘90s neon single piece snow skiing suit.  As soon as we pulled up he ran towards the rig screaming something about “the media arriving,” but quickly changed his demeanor to make fun of the giant boat we had with us at the little wakeskate event.  Camp Alliance was set up away from where the debauchery had already begun (a.k.a. the Distortion van). I assembled my tent and Staker decided we would be sharing – Club Matt. He tried to steal my pillow by calling rank on me. I had none of that.

The Hippo was insane – a fun event with fun people. Let’s just say Dan-O was the MC for the weekend – enough said. Check out all of the action on Fuel TV and in coming issues of Alliance. We are off to Lake Billy Chinook in eastern Oregon to film with Aaron Aubrey, Jeff McKee, and Mike Ennen. Stay tuned.