Date: 4/27/04
Author: Josh Cantor

Related Items:
TAA Captain's Log #1 Photo Gallery
TAA Captain's Log Index
Trip Across America Video (Quicktime, 2.4 mb)
Trip Across America 4 Schedule

The Crew - Aaron Grace, Cody Hall and Josh Cantor

With exactly zero miles of RV driving experience, I was hired to captain Liquid Force's Trip Across America. For the next six months I will be cruising across the U.S. and Canada giving demos, clinics and going to Pro Tour stops. Liquid Force team riders including Shawn Watson, Shane Bonifay, Collin Harrington, Cody Hall, Melissa Marquardt, Emily Copeland and Phillip Soven will join me along the way. We will meet up with cinematographers, photographers and other distinguished guests.

Throughout the next six months, I will regularly be posting the highlights of the trip with pictures right here on WakeWorld. You can see when we will be in an area near you by going to LiquidForce.com. In some cases, the names involved with some of these stories may be changed in order to protect the innocent. A lot of what happens on the rig stays on the rig, but whatever I can clear through the powers that be, I will share with you.

April 12, 2004
With an estimated departure time of noon, Colin Harrington, Aaron Grace and I actually got on the road at 4:00 and, after a 15-minute display of backing genius on my part, I finally got my 38-foot RV (from now on referred to as Tabitha)

Cody Hall gets comfortable

and my 2004 Team Edition Nautique on the road. It took all of four minutes once we hit Interstate 5 out of San Diego for the first beverage to be spilled. Luckily, for everyone, the TAA Coordinator, Aaron Grace, spilled it.

Once we cleaned up the spill, we stopped off to pick up Cody Hall. Of course, he was an hour and a half late, which actually gave me time to perfect my backing of the rig in an empty lot. After about 30 laps backwards around a tree in the center of the lot, my driving skills were polished. There was no stopping us now, it was Vegas or bust.

April 13, 2004
With Aaron more excited than a 15-year-old on the last day of school, we pulled into "Sin City" around 12:30am. Anyone in their right mind would have probably kept it mellow when they needed to be up in seven hours, but it was the first night of an incredible trek, so we lit it up. After parking at The Palms, we hit the casino. There was some craps and a little blackjack before we piled ourselves back into "Taby" around 4:30 for three hours of sleep before heading to our first demo.

The first demo was on Lake Mead with MasterCraft of Las Vegas. We had some minor technical problems, but for the most part everything went well. After we left the water, Jay and the crew there got some autographs back at Jay's new shop. Following that we were back on the road to Arizona. Actually, we stopped at one last casino for a buffet and a little more gaming, but after that was out of our system, it was off to Phoenix.

April 13-15, 2004
About 11:00 we rolled up to the Bartlett Reservoir. We would have been there at 9:00, but because of some shady directions we ended up doing a big circle around a mountain that took about an hour to complete. The worst part about it was that when we took the original wrong left instead of right, we were only seven miles from the lake. Luckily for us, we were headed down the road in the wrong direction when some guy in a truck honks at us admiring "Taby." At the next light we asked him where the lake was and he pulled over and came up to us wearing a Liquid Force hat! It was awesome. We styled him with some new gear after he steered us straight. Once we did get there, we gave demos the rest of the day with Cody and Colin Harrington doing some riding for the AZ crew. Aaron even got out on the water for one of the first times since he put his arm through the handle last year.

Cody Hall gets jiggy

That night we camped right on the lake and had our first night of fun on "Taby." Our disco ball was hung, the microphones on the karaoke machine were checked and we proceeded to pollute the air of Phoenix with our horrible renditions of all the favorites into the early morning. The people camping next to us probably are not big fans of Liquid Force, but everyone who joined the party had a great time. "The whole town knows we had a great time!" (Old School)

The next day was filled with more riding and even a little filming for the new Liquid Force team video, Relentless. After all the demos were completed, we broke down camp and headed to Tucson, where we parked in a parking lot at the University of Arizona. It was a pretty mellow night with the exception of random sorority chicks coming in to check out "Taby." It turned out that the parking lot we parked in was right in front of all the sorority houses. When you're good, you're good!

April 16, 2004
Today we cruised to Peter Glen's board shop, hung out in the shop and signed some autographs. The shop there is really nice and we were able to pick up some pink grip tape for Cody's skateboard. He's punk rock like that. After Colin finished up at the shop, he headed back home to Florida.

So now, it was just Cody and me. While the boys were signing autographs, I took off to go get "Taby" checked out at La Mesa RV before we took off to Oklahoma. Let us just say there was not very much good news. It seemed as if the steering box was shot and the part would not be in until at least Monday. So instead of getting on the road, we were now stuck in Tucson for the weekend. There was a very nice RV resort across the street that we stayed at and, luckily for us, local team rider, Ty Udell, let Cody and I borrow his truck so we could see all of Tucson and her glory.

April 17-21, 2004
Stuck in Tucson, Cody and I tried to make the best of the situation, so we partied one of the nights in some frat house at the University of Arizona. It could have been worse. I'll give those frat guys one thing, they do produce the ladies. One of the days we strolled down to Tombstone to see if we could catch up with Val Kilmer and the rest of the gang. That place sucks - no Kilmer and no outlaw crime at all. We felt like we were at a cheap Disneyland show, so it was back to the RV park for us.

Finally, after way too long in Tucson, we were able to get everything dialed on "Taby" and with Grace back with us we set out for a 17-hour-straight drive to Stillwater, Oklahoma to the Kicker factory where our boys there took care of us. They put a full system in our new Team Edition Nautique as well as "Taby." I would go so far as to say they "pimped our rides."

While they were putting subs, woofers, tweeters and amps everywhere, Cody, Aaron and I had to go do some work (i.e. golf). We were only able to get nine holes in when it started to pour rain. They were blowing horns at the clubhouse, so we figured we should call a day. Apparently there was a tornado and those pansies don't let you play in the rain, hail and funnel clouds. Aaron kept reciting Caddyshack. It was probably a good thing that our round got cut short because Aaron was well on his way to losing our little side wager and he doesn't take losing very well.

That night we hit the happening Stillwater night life. I can sum up the experience in one sentence. Sandals with jeans, a cut off shirt and a dirty John Deere hat is not cool. We were betting on whether guys were wearing sandals or shoes - it was even odds. I have never seen a more off-style in all my life, but to each his own I guess.

The next day with our new system in both "Taby" and our boat, which is yet to be named, we set off on a 21-hour-straight drive to Orlando where we had a demo Saturday morning. We were not on the road for more than three minutes when a couple ladies pulled up next to us and did a little flirting. We invited them to join us for the trek, but they said they had class. Whatever, we had each other and the new PS2, so we started a Tiger Woods Tournament and continued on.

This is where this installment of the Trip Across America Captain's Log will stop for now. I will pick it up in a week or so and keep you updated of all the adventures we face along the way, as well as all the cool places we ride and the people we meet. Look for us in your area. To check our schedule, go to LiquidForce.com. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be all over Florida and will start getting into more of the Dirty South.

Don't forget to check out the Trip Across America promo video (Quicktime, 2.4 mb) and photo gallery from Josh's first few weeks on the road.

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