It's been an extremely busy day, and its been an incredible one at that!
This is going to be a particularly long post, so I apologize for that!
We started off our day waking up early to do another live radio interview at WRNJ, which went spectacularly! Afterwards, we both skated into town so Danny could get a haircut, and we actually were on the radio as we walked in! Surreal!
Afterwards, we embarked on a smallish journey from Hackettstown to Original Skateboards, located in Newton. We took County Road 517 and then to County Road 603 eventually turning into County Road 606 and then US-206N.
The first leg of the journey was incredibly painful, particularly because it was a relatively steep uphill and there was an insane amount of traffic. But along the way we visited M&M Mars to see if they'd like to help us out by making some kind of donation, but turned out they could only donate candy to us. Despite their offer, we turned it down, but the people received us great and were also supportive of what we were doing!
Airport Road (Co Road 603) was an incredible experience, and I started to see the great adventure and exploration aspect of longboarding. The road was essentially deserted save for the occasional car, making it easy to navigate indeed. I thought one of the greatest aspects of it was being able to explore this new area and see the beautiful scenery! Large open fields, huge pretty lakes and the open sky! It was an absolutely wonderful skate, and I think its one of those things that you'd have to go slowly to take in; something that you can't really capture just driving down the road quickly.
We also passed Cahill Farm, which had a wonderful quaint little self-serve farmer's market! We stopped in and bought some peaches and we were both absolutely surprised and touched at how places like this could trust in the customer with an open money box, and it was just incredible to take in this spectacularly friendly vibe of the area! We both left notes saying how much we appreciated the kind of trust and friendliness, perhaps completely normal in the area but very new for us!
And it was really at this moment that we realized that this trip is going to be a lot more fun than we had anticipated! We're both very much looking forward to the adventuring part now!
We arrived at Original Skateboards in Newton and we were met by an incredibly friendly atmosphere as we chatted with a bunch of the people who worked there! It certainly wasn't what we had expected, since we sort of thought of a typical decorated skateshop, but instead we found a very down to earth workshop and offices, which gave us this great vibe. They were very excited about our arrival and about what we were doing, and actually mentioned that Original was taking an approach towards helping out nonprofit organizations which is very cool!
Later, we were shown around the workshop and we got to see where all of the action happened! And afterwards we were also interviewed, which may be available soon once I can find out where it'll be posted. We also might be doing a sort of video collaboration with Original, since they're able to help out and get our event out to the longboarding community!
Original then generously donated two very nice completes (Apex 37s) as well as two packs of some very expensive top quality bearings (Bones Swiss Bearings!), a shirt for each of us, and posters! We honestly had not expected the immense support from the company and we're delighted to see Original so involved in our nonprofit work and the community. Though Original longboards (because of their trucks) have a fun but distinct ride, we'll have to get more accustomed to it, but we will most probably be riding their equipment during the skate!
I'll also be adding a sponsors page either tonight or tomorrow to recognize all of the businesses or companies that have donated equipment or made donations.
I've also heard back from the representative from Rita's and they said that we'll definitely be able to set up lemonade stands in front of their shops! So we have a guaranteed six stops with places to set up our lemonade stands. I'll be giving them additional details tomorrow, and afterwards I will be posting their addresses and what day we'll be there so you can follow us or come down and visit when we're there!
There are some problems however. Though we have the majority of spots for lemonade stands, we are currently unable to secure spots in three locations: Newton, Chester, and Sea Isle City. We visited the Shoprite in Newton today but we were essentially turned down as we did not have the sufficient paperwork and because it required a signature from a representative from Alex's Lemonade Stand itself. Even so, Original Skateboards said that they have contacts throughout Newton and will be helping us find a location for us to sell!
On a final note, we were also interviewed for Free Times in Cape May, and so look out for an article on us there!
Its been an exciting day! Thanks for reading this monster of a post!
- Edwin
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