Showing posts with label rita's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rita's. Show all posts

Day 9: 8/18 - Final Day! Sea Isle City to Cape May!

Posted by Edwin Wednesday, August 18, 2010 0 comments


I'm tired. Danny's tired. We're all tired.
But it doesn't matter because we feel great!

Today was our last day, and when I saw the rain and checked the forecast (rain all day!), I really could think of nothing but:

"Oh man, today is going to suck."

But in truth, it didn't at all.
In fact, it was probably one our funnest skates this entire trip!

So let's break it down again into the skate and the lemonade stand!

In a nutshell, today's skate was 20 miles through pouring rain and flooded streets!
And it was insanely fun!
On our ride from Sea Isle City, we would come off of each street corner into about half a foot of rainwater, as Danny would say, "It's like plunging into the abyss!"
It seriously was. Our boards would be completely submerged and still be shindeep in water. It was totally surreal. And we were soaked. The visibility was awful, but still very cool as it sort of looked like a sort of fog! Going over the bridge on the way there, the rain got especially crazy and we got to stomp through the rain since in truth, there was no way we could possibly get any wetter!

And so we arrived at the Rita's in Cape May completely soaked!

Mind you, the entire time, we were also being followed by Brad and Jay from Original Skateboards, and they met up with us at Rita's!

So when we were down, we had a couple people come down to visit us, such as a reporter from the Star and Wave and a photographer from Exit Zero magazine!

And now for the lemonade stand portion!

A lot of Danny's family and my parents came to meet us at the end, and we so we set up!
Even though it was raining, we still had plenty of interested people come in, with nearly all of them not having heard of us or what we were doing. But that's fine because so many were supportive of our cause!

We also met up with a great little girl who actually battled childhood cancer and has so far been off chemotherapy for 21 months! It was quite a moving story!

We ended up raising over $450 from the final lemonade stand! Probably most definitely one of our more successful stands!
We then had a celebratory dinner at a nearby restaurant and had some fun at the arcade across the street! Super fun! And now I'm sitting at Danny's Aunt's friend's beach house right next to the shore where we'll be enjoying the beach tomorrow morning!

So I guess Skate Cape May is over! But just the skating bit. Fundraising for the cause never really ends!

But this year's trip (hint hint, making it annual!) is over, and its odd getting back into a car know that there are so many experiences made just skating down the roads we're driving back up!
And its especially odd seeing that driving in a car back up the roads, there are so many little details that simply pass by! And I guess its the smaller details that really make longboarding as great as it is! Cruising down a highway or back country roads just leave one to be absolutely immersed in your surroundings, and I am infinitely grateful that we got to spend out last nine days skating like this!
Surely, it wasn't fun all of the time, and in truth there were many times when our skates were simply awful. But our experiences have melded into a giant pot of fun and adventure! Throughout our last week we've definitely had plenty of hilarious, exciting, and frightening experiences that we'll definitely take through with us and sharing with others for a very, very long time!

And right now I'm tired. But I'm so very, very glad!
- Edwin

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Day 7: 8/16 - Hammonton to Northfield!

Posted by Edwin Monday, August 16, 2010 0 comments

Welcome to Northfield!
Thank you, thank you very much.
Oh, you're very welcome.

I'm going to divide this post into two sections, the skate and the lemonade stand. Well, its not like I've organized it in any other way, I just never mention it specifically.
Well now I did. And now the post might even be a little bit easier to read!

Good afternoon gentlemen and gentleladies!

I personally woke up absolutely exhausted, and just trying to carry through the morning was quite a task for me. Even making waffles was quite a challenge.

Mine came out awful. They were torn all over the place.
I blame myself.

After the skate started, everything seemed to get a lot better. I was in some pain for the first time these seven days, but it eased off and I started to feel a little bit more energetic.
Meanwhile, Danny was still annoyed that he had to ride his bike and also because of the pain with pushing on longboard, but he seemed quite fine with pedaling the way. Even though it is on bike, its still good that he's pulling through with the distance with me!

Three guys (actually two and a lady, (Brad, Jay, and Lindsay)) from Original Skateboards came down to film us. Did you like that double parenthesis job I did there? Fancy.
Anyway, they got some super wicked footage (but not really) of us pushing up hills and cruising in static positions while cars struggled to pass us by. Whoopee!

After about a little more than halfway through our skate for the day, Danny's bike actually got a flat tire, so he decided to ride out for the last 10 miles on longboard, even though it hurt him quite a bit. He'll be back on his bike tomorrow though!

We then arrived in Northfield, where I took the super picture above!

[Now for the lemonade stand portion!]

We set up and hung out for a little while with the Original team, and for the most part we were messing around skating in the parking lot as the stand was generally slow, but with many people interested! As it turned out, a local paper in Northfield (The Current) actually ran a story about us in the paper the Thursday before, so we had some people come down for us! And we also got a great turnout! We had a $200 single donation, and made a total of $365 today! Which is great considering we only made slightly above $100 at the last two stops!
Thank you Northfield!

We also got onto NBC40, a local channel for Atlantic City! It was a very short spot and it didn't even include our website, what our event was even called, or even Danny, but its nice that they took the time to come out. I guess.

We packed after the hot day of great success and headed out to our hotel, which was a five mile skate away. Actually, we ended up leaving a little bit early because of the distance but also because there were some clouds approaching that didn't look too nice and forgiving.

As I end this post, I'm just going to recap that I'm still behind on the video!
And we actually have no video content as for yesterday or the day before, aside from video logs we made each night. Though when the Original Skateboards video of us comes out, I'll be sure to post a link here!

Tomorrow (August 17th), we'll be in Sea Isle City at Heritage Surf Shop at 3700 Landis Avenue, so be sure to check us out! We'll probably stay there until 7:00 because we're staying at a place right on the corner next to it!

Ta ta for now!
- Edwin


$1050

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Day 6: 8/15 - Browns Mills to Hammonton!

Posted by Edwin 0 comments

The above is a new chart I made for the stand! It shows how many miles we've skated one which legs of the journey on which days, as well as the amount of money we've raised at each stand (as well as the totals!)

Sorry that this post is late! Especially as I was sort of supposed to make it yesterday!
But in all honesty, yesterday's skate and lemonade stand left little to talk about. We raised a total of $111 over the course of the entire day, which we can pretty much accredit to the weather (since very few people actually came for Ritas).
There was also very little passing traffic unfortunately.
And to make matters worse, we were completely beat!
We made great time, arriving early to our stand by about half an hour, at around 2:30. (even though I forgot to tweet that we were actually there until about 4pm).
Even so, the day was very not interesting. Mind you, it wasn't boring, but it was simply repetitive and mellow of a skate (bike for Danny! and to remind you, he's also biking for the next two days because of some hip injury and strong pain).

There was a lot of pushing.
And I mean a lot.

The terrain has been getting flatter and flatter as we move south, which is unsurprising. But it wasn't exactly perfectly flat; rather, it was always either flat or the slightest bit uphill. And even so we found ourselves pushing significantly more than we normally do.

As for the stand, the traffic for our stand has also been getting slower and slower.

It also started raining, and because nobody was coming to our stand, we decided it best to head to the hotel, and leave the stand early.

We made a video log, but you won't get to see it for a while! Mind you, I'm still a bit behind on the videos (sorry!).

Anywho, I'll be writing our blog post for our day today (Hammonton to Northfield) in a few minutes!

Toodleoo!
- Edwin

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Day 4: 8/13 - Hillsborough to Hightstown!

Posted by Edwin Friday, August 13, 2010 0 comments


[We were in the Star Ledger and the Daily Record today! Check it out:

Today was our fourth day on our trip and I definitely have to say it was a great one! Even if it was Friday the 13th!
Though we had been expecting rain, we were graciously blessed with a perfect temperature that wasn't too hot or too cool, as well as a lot of sun and best of all, no rain!
Our day started off with some navigational problems (we missed our first turn and had to turn back!) but no matter, the rest of the day went generally smoothly! On that note, it was great to have a route that was completely paved with not dirt trails to be seen!
In fact, we were treated to Canal Street, which had to be a mile of pure pavement bliss, since it was pretty much the smoothest road we've ever been on, and as an added bonus it was next to a river/canal!

The roads were, for the most part, rather empty. They were also relatively flat or with mild uphills, so we found ourselves pushing for a great deal, but it certainly beat walking up long steep hills with a lot of traffic!

Danny was actually in a bit of pain today, as he had some problems with pushing and walking due to some sharp pains in his hip region (which resolved themselves later that day!).

On the way, we saw a lot of beautiful fields and the clouds in the sky were great! We also stopped in one neighborhood for watermelon, which we bought whole. Since there weren't any knives, Danny split the watermelon in two and we ate the watermelon like that.
And it was delicious.
We even offered it to a passing jogger who accepted some watermelon chunks we broke off! We're always charitable.


Afterwards, we were running a bit late on our schedule (at least by my standards) and arrived at the Rita's sometime after 3pm, with the stand already set up by our parents.
Our stand was actually very slow, and very few actually knew what we were doing beforehand, so I guessed the media attention hasn't reached as much further down south. But all in all, we made $225 at the stand thanks to the donations of passerbys and Rita's customers! So far though, its been our second least successful stand (the most being our preliminary stand).

Despite everything, we still carried on!

A problem that we discussed though was our actual donation count. Though we've been saying that we've raised over $7,000, we actually found out today that our total donated money was actually in the upper $5,000's. Sorry for any confusion!

Due to the slowness of the stand, we actually ended up keeping up our stand much later, up to about 7 or 7:30pm. Which meant that we were skating to our hotel, at Holiday Inn on the highway shoulder in the dark, which was a bit frightening, but still we were careful and made it out alive. Phew!

And now I'm sitting here finishing this post as it approaches 1pm, hoping that I'll be able to get some sleep tonight especially for tomorrow!

So the deal for tomorrow is this:
We'll be skating over to Browns Mills, NJ tomorrow, and holding our stand at the Ritas Water Ice at 21 Juliustown Road, Browns Mills, NJ, with our arrival sometime around 2 or 3pm (find out when we approach by following our twitter!)
Our stand will be up until about 7pm, so be sure to check us out!

I'm also very behind on video day montages and video logs, so I'll be hoping to post some more tomorrow night!

As for pictures, you can find our photo albums on facebook:
Today's album for Hillsborough to Hightstown can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=198212&id=520511148&l=282f8ea4a5

Yesterday's album for Chester to Hillsborough can be found here:

Our photo albums will be constantly updated since uploading our photos is a lot easier than editing for our montages! So definitely keep coming back since I'll be adding more photo albums as the days progress!
To keep posted on our video logs and montages, check out our youtube channel at http://youtube.com/SkateCapeMay!

See you all later in Browns Mills!
- Edwin

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Day 3: 8/12 - Chester to Hillsborough!

Posted by Edwin Thursday, August 12, 2010 0 comments

Today was our third day, where we skated from Chester to Hillsborough. And it was a day full of dirt and rain.

We spent the second half of the morning (about 5 miles!) on a completely dirt road with no feasible way to go around without adding a great many miles. It was a bit frustrating but we managed anyway! Pushing on a dirt and gravel road was certainly not a fun experience.
There was rain all afternoon, so we had to push through the rain for about 10 miles. It ranged from a small drizzle to a great downpour, so we donned our ponchos to skate. Our shoes and boards were completely covered and soaked with water but no matter, we skated on!
While we were skating on the road in the rain, we were actually stopped by the police. Except we were stopped because the officer actually found out what we were doing and wanted to tell us that we were doing a good job! Which was awesome!
He also made a donation and we gave him a shirt for his support!

We got to the Rita's of Hillsborough when the rain stopped, and set up our tent!
Colin Taylor (our magnificent sponsor manager!) was there, and he came to hang out and deliver a care package from Red Bull, containing a six pack of Red Bull! Very awesome!
While there, we met up with a reporter from the Star Ledger, who took video interviews of us all during our stand and took a lot of footage as well! It was great fun having her around!

Later on as the stand was coming to a close, I went to skate down to Prime Skate Shop, where I met a bunch of awesome skaters who had read about what we were doing! It was pretty awesome seeing them there, and they helped us by hooking me up with a helmet since mine was a bit old the foam was actually about to fall out.
Its a really cool shop so if you're ever in the Hillsborough area, definitely go and check them out!

I skated back to our stand and helped move the lemonade materials into the next car, and it turned out we actually raised a great amount of money!
A lot of people came specifically for us since hearing about what we were doing in the news, and many came to buy tshirts or even just lemonade! And there were many donations by those who didn't know what we were doing already!
Even so, it was raining, and the day was rather slow, which is why we were surprised that we made about $320!

Be sure to check us out as we skate out to Hightstown tomorrow! (August 13th!)
We'll be stopping at the Rita's sometime in the afternoon and staying there until about 6:30pm! You can find us at 9 Princeton Hightstown Road, Hightstown, NJ.

Be sure to check out our video logs and video montages from each day! They can be found at http://www.youtube.com/SkateCapeMay!

Have a great night!
- Edwin

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Rita's, JC's Grill House, Heritage Surf Shop, Donated TShirts!

Posted by Edwin Friday, August 6, 2010 0 comments

The first thing that I want to say is that we have confirmed lemonade stand locations in 6 of our 9 towns! Each of them at the Rita's locations in Hillsborough, Hightstown, Browns Mills, Hammonton, Northfield, and Cape May!
I'll be posting the exact addresses on "the route" page, so be sure to check it out!

JC's Grill House will also be having a fundraiser for us on Tuesday, August 10th, where 10% of your bill will be donated to our cause if you mention that you're there for Skate Cape May. For more information, see the flyer HERE.

We also might be setting up a stand at Heritage Surf Shop in Sea Isle City, but right now that's tentative and once it's confirmed I'll put up an address.

Uniserv Advertising is also donating 75 shirts to us! We'll most likely receive them around next Thursday, August 12th.

I also want to take this post to thank Colin Taylor, who has been helping us out by ways of contacting sponsors and local businesses. It was actually because of him that we got the fundraiser at JC's Grill House, Heritage Surf Shop, and the shirts from Uniserv Advertising!
If you're reading this, thank you!

We're still struggling to find places to stay, and we're going to be contacting churches in the area as well hoping they'll let us stay the night. In the worst case scenario, we may have to book rooms in towns where we have no lodging.

Until tomorrow!
- Edwin

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WRNJ, Skate to Newton, Original Skateboards, Rita's, Free Times!

Posted by Edwin Thursday, August 5, 2010 0 comments

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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Skate Cape May is a 200+ mile skateboarding journey from the top of New Jersey (High Point) to the bottom (Cape May) with the intent to raise funds for Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research. Last year, we received an award as a Top 100 Fundraiser for 2010 for ALSF!

Click Here for more detailed information!