the elusive skate park

Punkone recently completed a month of reading 5 books a week to obtain a skateboard. I'm not usually one to use rewards, but he's been begging for a skateboard for years and I figured he should have the opportunity to work for it if he really wanted it so bad. Plus he needed the extra reading practice. He did his reading happily and diligently as we ticked off the days on the calendar. At the end of the month, Mom went out and bought him the board in addition to all the protective gear as promised.

Now he just needs a place to ride it.

photo by skatechick68

We've asked around and had a reliable lead that there was a skate park on the outskirts of town in an area complete with soccer fields, baseball diamonds, tennis courts, an ice skating rink... It's cold, I don't know where we're going, and this is the first trip outside the kids have had in three days so I decide we'll splurge on a taxi.

We arrive at the ice skating rink and my plan is to ask someone who works there where the skate park is since I didn't spot it on the way in. Problem is that we don't find anyone who works there. People everywhere, but no one in any of the booths. Probably a Sunday thing. So we start asking other people. Other people in this case are mostly punk-ass teenagers. Punk-ass teenagers who seem to think that it's hilarious that we've shown up at an ice skating rink with a skateboard. They ignore my efforts to explain by acting out the difference between ice skating and skateboarding. And laughing their punk-ass butts off.

I give up and decide to head back to the outdoor fields we passed on the way in, figuring that it's likely to be somewhere over there anyway and at least we'll distance ourselves from the skateboard vs. ice skating confusion.

We stumble upon a rugby match in progress. This peaks Punkone's interest (who had been in despair at my failing to deliver him to a skate park) and we sat and watched the game for awhile so he could figure out the finer details of the game and Punkette could get some important coloring done.

After we've figured out who's playing, where the goals are, and how the players move the ball about the field our butts are frozen and it's getting colder as the sun has dropped behind the mountains. As I call the cab to go home, Punkone makes the wise observation that at least now we know where the skate park is not.