We Made it to the Grand Canyon with a lot of time to spare. We looked around at the tourist infested cliffs, the visitors center, and finally the back country office where we happened to come across a cheap wilderness permit for the night of the next day. We wondered how it could be so easy, according to all the info we got about the Canyon we read “RESERVE AT LEAST 10 MONTHS IN ADVANCE”.We later read the summer months are the hottest and most dangerous time to hike to the bottom (oops!). So with the hike planned and we spend the rest of the day preparing for our massive trek.

We woke up at early at 3:50AM, that gave us just enough time to cram some food in our mouth before we had to catch the bus to our trail head. There was an amazing sunrise as we hiked down to the Colorado, we enjoyed it immensely(being the first sunrise we have been awake for in all the tour). Five hours later we finally made it to the river. The temperature was cooking so it wasn’t long after we arrived that we were already in the river swimming, skipping rocks, napping, eating, and of course.. slacklining. We spent a lazy full day like this enjoying beautiful Grand Canyon Nation Park. The only downside was the sleeping, we carried no tents with us, nor any rain gear. I spend a night on the ground paranoid about rolling over on a scorpion while Holger and Andi slept top of the picnic benches.

The hike back was considerably harder and longer. It was a nine mile long beast complete with 5000+ foot elevation gain. We made it half way and took a break at the water station only to find a ranger wearing a mask drenching anyone, with a blue water pitcher, who dared approach the water fountain. Holger immediately charged her, arms in the air, about to tackle the poor lady, got his just desert. We continued the hike and after much toil, laboring, and water breaks, we got to the top, all 5000 feet if it. We made it to the car and made it to Vegas, and here we are writing the blog tonight from our hotel.

On Thursday, we had to leave amazing San Diego . We drove for a couple of hours through the middle of nowhere and headed towards Phoenix. The drive was interesting, we encountered a great many smells during our five hour drive. We first hit the a very strong fishy smell. It was as if we just crashed twenty gallon drum of rotting fish! Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse the smell suddenly got worse. Next we were drowned in smell or stagnate raw sewage for the next joyful twenty minutes(yummy!). We even smelled a great deal of bacon on the way too.

Phoenix itself was not quite ideal. It was on average 110 degrees Not the best spot for Slacklining, at night it cooled down to about 90 degrees. We tried our best, it’s not so easy to find slackline interested people in a baking ghost town. We preferred to make some night-sessions because of the heat,we slacked in front of a hooters, we slacked in a (which we were told later) closed park and also fought against the conditions during the day.

The second day in Phoenix Holger went to hospital. He had a thick swollen finger with lots of funky yellow stuff in it. Watch the result after a five hour surgery (ok, that includes also a little waiting time). Meanwhile Andi and I went to a park one mile away from the hospital and set up some lines. We managed a painful ten minutes of slacking in the burning shade before we submitted to a heat induced zombie state curable only with a bucket of cold water over the head.

That’s it - we got on the road to Flagstaff to challenge new adventures…

After slacklining so hard the days before, we decided to take a day off to comfort our sore muscles. It turned out after, that this day would be one of the hardest, though one of the best indeed. First we split, so Andi and me went to the world famous and absolutely stunning SAN DIEGO ZOO. Amazing, nothing more to say. Mike went out for a walk, slacked a little and had a nap, while we searched the Gibbons in the zoo and discovered way more. After that, we reunited and split up again. Mike went climbing and Andi and me took Maggie out for surfing (all of us tried the first time. The surfin was even for us as balance artists not quite easy, so we now respect the surfers way more than we did before.

This tiny group then went out for some nightly downtown San Diego fountain flashslacking, which was great fun, concerning that cops were out on segways and passed us every 20 minutes. We did it and did NOT get caught. Fun day!

We woke up comfortably on the 7th in Maggie’s house and decided that a good breakfast would be in order (since we now have a kitchen at our disposal). Holger made some apple and peach pancakes and I whipped up some cream and cut some peaches. After Maggie’s house we drove to Kellogg park in La Jolla shores and set up in a horseshoe of trees. Frankie, Maggie, Heather, James and Niki all joined us along with a steady flow of surfers and beach loungers, throughout the day. Later on in the evening we decided to set up a waterline under the Pier. It was a good time for all, us, lifeguards, and surfers alike. Holger threw some back flips and the line was challenging for everyone.
After a satisfying session we retreated to Heather’s house for some fantastic rare steaks (Holger’s was still mooing, just the way he likes it). All and all a great promo day and a great fun day.

(Blog today by Maggie)

The first day Frankie arrived at Mission Beach - but alas the local Park and Rec came down with an iron fist of fury and there was no joy for the slackliners! Too bad the lines were all set up. Never mind - in a heartbeat Frankie and crew had things torn down and the race was on to get to Moonlight Beach before the crowds took up all the sand. In no time at all, (all right, maybe it took a little while) seven lines were up and our new best friends the awesome and amazing, (and pretty darn handsome too) Gibbons guys were busy wowing the Fourth of July crowds with their antics. Pretty soon the lines at each slackline were loooooooong and we had new converts galore. The most fun for me was watching the looks on peoples faces when they first put a foot on the line. Wow! Too much fun. The little kids mastered the line in no time and made it look easy. Ho was doing his pirate thing in his balloon pants - good thing we had a pirate flag to fly. No one seemed to mind. Frankie cooked up his world famous (well at least we all know about them) burgers with the secret ingredient. Heather, Jasmine, The San Diego Slackline meetup group including Liz, Nathan, Justin, Brian, Megan, Nick, Bryson, (am I forgetting anyone??? - oh yeah, and yours truly) were all there to join the fun. The good food and the really healthy orange juice gave everyone the energy they needed to go until sundown. From there it was off to dinner at El Callejon (thanks guys - they kept the place open just for us). The next day we found the perfect spot at another beach at Shelter Island and thereafter went back to Moonlight Beach for a second session. Some kids came for the second time, others joined. Many could not even speak english (but spanish), but slacklining seems to solve that problem in itself. By the way: It’s amazing how easily tables of 1000 pounds or more can be moved by jumping on an attached slackline! For more pictures see www.sandiegoslacklining.com -> photos

We got out of bed early to meet some friends of Mike for a hike. We walked through the californian wilderness, ate lemons, cactus fruits and avocados directly from the trees and climbed some fences. Peacocks in the trees everywhere, “barking” all the time. We discovered smoe nice places to hang out like a little cave or a big tree over a stream. Lovely. We easily found a place to set up a line. One low one was for the friends, one high one (8ft/2,5m) was for us. Andi had his second highline experience. We’ll enhance that til the end to some serious skills. At the end we went down to the beach where we relaxed a little, did some stonestacking and I gave Mike a little staffspinning lesson. Serious slacking (without a line this time).
Now it was time to hit the road again. Let’s go downtown LA to the “Walk of Fame” on Sunset Boulevard and do some FLASHSLACKING!!!
I don’t wanna say we disguised ourselves, but we took on some real cool clothes and bought some porn style sunglasses. In a huge mall we found the perfect spot next to a fountain and two palm trees. How NOT allowed it was we did not know, but anyways. Just do it!
We tried to be as fast as we could. Perfect timing - after each of us was on the line, the security guards came, 4 at a time! They were pretty upset and did like we were total dare devils and this was unbelievably dangerous and dumb. Poor guys…
We just tore it down and went. BAM! Nice pics.
After that we had some fun on the walk of fame. Many things to see. Absolutely touristy of course. There were actors diguised like Superman, Spiderman, KISS, Jimi Hendrix, Shrek, The Simpsons, Captn Jack Sparrow, Chucky, Jason, Marilyn Monroe, Snoopy. After hugging Snoopy, he indiscretely told me to take my camera and hit the road. Hehe!

After waking up to the familiar free breakfast of dry doughnuts and sewage water coffee we quickly jumped on the road to meet Bill, a reporter for the LA Times. We got there without too many problems (other then Andi try to run down the gate on the gated community) and met him right on time. We got the lines up and everyone had fun, Bill did the interview and was trying the lines soon after with his friends. Later we all had a great meal in Jacks Dinner when it was all finished.

By this point in the week we are all really sleep deprived so we decided where better to go then the beach for some rest and relaxation. We get there and things were going great as planned, the sun was shining, the water was deep blue, and the beach was open! that is right until the family of Asian tourists and their always unhappy three year old tear bag son arrived and decided their perfect beach location was one foot away from us. Oh well, we were about to leave anyway, so we set our sights for he Hollywood sign.

The sign turned out great (even though Holger was not able to let up a line in between the H and the O through the high tech barbed wire barrier)!We got there just before sunset right when all the pictures turn out the best… enjoy

Santa Barbara was a blast! After meeting the locals, we knew exactly where to set up our lines. We went to the pier and set up our lines on a green between a dozen of palm trees, right next to the beach. The locals came back again and joined us on the lines. The resonance was really good. One guy said, he had contacts to the local TV sender, and many people asked us to come back again. So we decided to come back to this place. We slept at Paul’s place, one of the locals. He had at least 3 dozens of different critters in his house, including tarantulas, snakes, geckos, cats, and so on. I had so much fun taking all the animals in my hand. The white snake with the down syndrome felt really funny, and the big tarantula even made me a little nervous. On the second day we had a longline action (60m/180ft) on the campus of Santa Barbara, a huge university. After that, we quickly went back to our perfect spot at the pier. Media did not show up, but a lot of superfriendlzy people having a blast trying our slacklines. We even set up our first sandline on the beach with the anchors. Minimum depth in sand should be 2 feet / 60cm. At the end of the day an officer informed us, that it’s not allowed and he really friendly asked us to break down the lines. He himself really liked what we were doing, but…

GREAT DAY!!!

On Monday Holger wanted to go back home   (the most time Holger stayed at one place in the US was at the airport, that’s why he considers the airport his new home )   to check if his suitcases are already there… Yes! We got one… No!!! The one with Holgers clothes is still missing and they don’t even know where it is

We decided to go to Santa Barbara, bought some clothes for Holger and had a nice slackline session with some locals. They recommended some good spots for the next day. So today we are going to check it out…

My travel from Esslingen over Stuttgart, Paris, New York to Los Angeles can be easily described with one single word: Disaster!
Short description: Airport Stuttgart stopped all flights because of strong thunderstorms with lightnings. After some waiting I finally flew to Paris, where I only got my next flight, cause it was delayed as well. My suitcases had different plans, what I would discover later. In New York I easily got through the customs though. No big deal, if you don`t have any suitcases to check…
Nobody knew where they were, but at least I knew they were NOT in New York. Thank you for that information, Delta. I ran to get my next plane to LA, but it was delayed when I arrived. They boarded another flight to London right before us, but shortly before it was boarded, they discovered a technical problem and all the people had to get back out of their plane. Poor guys, I thought. Still waited. Then we got boarded. We flew off. I tried to find the silhouette of New York, but the pilot seemed to just fly in a big circle, so I could not see anything. I discovered, that one flap did not close. As I looked on the screen, I realized, that we indeed were flying in a circle. The announcement told us, that one of the hydraulic systems fell out, but it would not be dangerous and we would fly back to NY. I wasn`t too trusting in that announcement, since we landed in company of 15 firetrucks with flashing lights and sirens. Nothing better than an adrenaline rush after 20hrs of traveling - AWAKE NOW! They couldn`t repair the first plane, so we got another one. We took off with another 5hrs delay. I tried to call Andi and Mike, but they did not take the call, so I left a message on the mailbox they should pick me up at the airport at 3am. The message didn`t make it to them, neither did the other 6 messages I left in the next hours til 7 o`clock, when I still stood in LA at the airport, without baggage and without a working mobile - a little desperate, to be honest. I decided to leave another message and go to the next beach by taxi and wait for them. There, Andi found me finally and I can say I was really happy to see him. 32 hrs of traveling.

After saying hello to my new teammates and having some more sleep (this time in a real bed), we went out for Manhattan Beach Pier. This seemed a perfect place to setup slacklines and attract people. It worked out well. We quickly attracted a bunch of surfers, that were really motivated to learn walking and even do some tricks right from the very start. Throughout the day we introduced Mike into proper german. What a “day”. Guy-leh shy-zah!