Similar story in San Diego in 1996 (I had just turned 18). Except I was planning on moving to San Diego from Eugene. I thought I had it all worked out. I manage

Similar story in San Diego in 1996 (I had just turned 18). Except I was planning on moving to San Diego from Eugene. I thought I had it all worked out. I managed to sell my Performa 6214 and playstation and came up with 1200 bucks. Enough for a bus ticket and and a hotel for a night once I get there. In the morning I will find a room to rent and a job. Surely I can do that in a few hours. That didn't work.. I ended up renting a really bad pay by the week hotel where I had to sleep with the lights on because the roaches were aggressive. It took about 36 hours to realize I would quickly run out of of money and end up back in Eugene living on my sisters floor. So I just rolled with it. I would catch the bus from downtown to La Jolla and skate back downtown. I loved the long stretches of smooth path that ran along the beach. It is nice to just do flip tricks going pretty much as fast as you can without a tree root messing up a sidewalk. Like butter. But I broke a kingpin about four days into what was now my vacation. So I was at the skateshop getting a new one and ran into this kid I met a few months earlier in Sacramento when I was on my way to The Tibetan Freedom Concert in S.F. So we hung out for a few days and he showed me some lesser known spots in San Diego. He also called in a favor to get my stupid broke ass back to Eugene. I was 30 when I discovered I could no longer skateboard. Nasty handrail thing and I was just done. I could have kept going but I wanted to go out on the top like Seinfeld. So I gave my board to my sisters son who had been rolling a Razor scooter. I would no longer hurt myself daily and maybe he would get a girl to talk to him. Now I just think about what I would do with stairs and curbs when I walk down the street.