Over the weekend I made a somewhat short notice trip to Erie Pennsylvania to meet up with the players there as well as Ryan Thomas who drove up from Virginia. I made the trip up alone for a few reasons. My motivation for the trip was personal as well as footbag driven. Considering everyone bailed on me for the PA net champs I didn’t think anyone would make it on such short notice. Not to mention the fact that this wasn’t actually an event and the scene in Erie is mostly net players. Sorry FAT!
I left around 4pm Friday hoping to make the whole trip in one go. Didn’t quite happen but it was sort of nice not to have to go out of my way to pick anyone up. I also appreciated the time alone to think and listen to music without being obligated to make conversation. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE travelling with footbag people! But it was a nice change to travel alone.
Rush hour traffic was brutal but I was expecting it so I didn’t let it get to me. I was a little nervous to cross the border alone for the first time but that went smoothly. I was super careful about my speed this time. Luckily I was able to borrow a GPS that shows the speed limit and goes red if you’re going more than about 5km over the limit.
It was strange being in the states without any other Canadians. I had no one to make fun of the weird stuff with
After I crossed the border I did a lot of radio station scanning because my cd player wasn’t working. There is TONS of Jesus and country on the radio there. I really had to lower my music standards haha. PA has some seriously EPIC cemeteries. They are massive. As I entered Erie there was this warehouse with the most ridiculous massive mural of a US flag, a bald eagle, and the statue of liberty. Such patriotism. Wow. I’m pretty sure I saw more American flags this weekend than I have seen Canadian flags in my life.
I arrived at the home of Dan Greer shortly after 9 pm, greeted by Ryan who had arrived a few minutes before me. Good timing! I said hi to Dan and met his fiancé, Emily. Jim Hogan, Tony and Jack came over! I wasn’t expecting to see everyone so that was cool! We hung out and ate and talked and it was a really nice night. Everyone was pretty tired and retired fairly early.
Saturday morning Dan had to work but Ryan and I got together for a freestyle session with Jim and Jack. Jim drove us to a really nice location on a pier at a bay off of lake Erie. It was chilly at first but the sun came out and we ended up having a really great shred.
Dada Curve BSOS
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We played for a good two hours and I tired myself out pretty good. Afterwards Jim, Ryan and I went to a bakery and grabbed some lunch before meeting up with others at a different location for some net.
I met some other local net players. ‘Dan the man’ and Rob who are both super nice awesome people! Dan came out and there were some struggles with the net which took about four tries to get up successfully. I wondered to myself if this was a common net player problem.
Ryan and I did some more doubles juggling which I really like. I don’t have motivation to juggle alone but it’s a lot of fun with another person. We made some good improvement since the PA net champs.
I didn’t play any net but I enjoyed watching a couple matches. I know it’s something I will get into eventually but I’m not in a rush at this point. It’s really cool to meet more of the net community though. I’m not sure why there is such a divide in our sport.
The Erie scene is primarily net players. I was pretty impressed by the overall level of freestyle considering net is the main focus there. It’s cool that they are down for both. Jim made a lot of progress this weekend and seems really motivated to freestyle. He was still shredding it up at the net location when I was totally beat. He has solid consistency and nice style. Hopefully he will embrace the magic hop sooner or later
After a quick shower and some relaxation we met up at Little Caesars. Tony works there so we freestyled outside a bit as a sort of ‘demo’ and had some pizza.
That evening the crew went out to watch Emily’s roller derby bout. This was my first exposure to the sport and it looks like a lot of fun! I didn’t fully understand it but it’s a pretty intense contact sport.
That evening I spent some time with Ryan and we had some really good conversations. I really enjoyed that. We met up with others at the bar nearby for the after party. Overall it was a really great night with awesome people.
Sunday morning we were up pretty early. Ryan and I went on a Starbucks mission. We happened to run into Tony who was on his way to work so that was cool.
We were supposed to meet up somewhere on the peninsula for shred that morning. We ended up taking some random detours looking for the light house. We found it but there didn’t end up being a place to play. Luckily we ran into Dan because there wasn’t any reception where we were. The Sunday session was with Ryan, Dan, Jim, and Jack. We got kicked out of the first gazebo we tried to play under by this really rude lady. We ended up walking a bit and finding a decent piece of concrete to play near another clubhouse thing. The people there were super nice by contrast, and actually gave us some cake.
I didn’t play super hard but it was still a fun session. It was my first proper (not half-assed) freestyle shred with Dan so that was cool. Net players are so much better at circle kicking than most freestylers haha.
New shuffle record: 10 with Pixie, Fairy, Stepping bs
After the session we said our goodbyes to Jim, Jack and Dan. They were super awesome this weekend! It’s fun to visit footbag places and meet the local scene even if there’s no event going on. Thanks guys!
Ryan and I spent a little time relaxing in the grass before we said goodbye. Sucks that he lives sooo far.
The ride home was fairly uneventful. The border wait was a lot longer but the guard actually showed a genuine interest in footbag which was cool. Lots of traffic again back in Canada but no big deal.
Overall this was a really special weekend and I’m glad it happened. The Erie crew is super cool and it was nice of them to put up with my freestyleness. For people who don’t school freestyle they have some skills for real. I think we motivated Jim a bit because he freestyled more than anyone this weekend and posted that he hit Osis x5 last night. That was awesome to hear because I was giving him shit about flip Osis this weekend.
Leaving for Portland in 11 days!!!!
<3
