I’m on award tour, with my mellow my man—going each and every place with my pen in my hand. Yeah, my version of Phife Diggy’s lyrics hold true for just about any snowboarder on the move, and no more for me than last weekend’s wild journey across the country. The plan was simple really: Fly to NYC on a Jet Blue red eye from Portland, meet up with Breck loc-turned-Brookyln Willy Berger Nate Abbott, and head up to Quebec City, Canada to check out Guillaume Brochu’s Stairmaster’s Rail Jam on Friday night before banging out a brand new Kits after the weekend. Well, Mother Nature had other plans in mind as a late season Nor’Easter pummeled the East Coast, crippling airports from Boston to Philadelphia. I has to get to Quebec…not necessarily for the contest (although I really wanted to check it out), but for the first Kits shoot of the season that I’d been planning for months.

So, I decided to roll the dice, and jumped on a new flight Friday night that was supposed to get me to Montreal, via Vegas and Philadelphia. Sure enough, Philly shut ‘er down and thousands of passengers headed to the Eastern Seaboard got stuck in Vegas. Not a bad place for an extended layover, but when you got shit to do…there’s no time for a unexpected Vegas Vacation. I was assed out one mo’ gin, and the U.S. Airways fools told me and everyone else (after waiting in line for five hours) that we’d be there until Tuesday. Not a chance; I’d come this far and I wasn’t about to give up now. Luckily, I jumped on the trusty laptop during that excruciating five hour wait in line and booked another flight on Northwest; Montreal Via Detroit. The only problem was it wasn’t until 10:40 pm Saturday night. Since it was already 5 am by the time I finally got to talk to an agent, change my cancelled ticket to a return flight to Portland and figure out where the hell my two giant bags containing all the gear for the shoot were, I decided to camp out with the rest of the stranded mob littering the airport floor rather than paying for a hotel room that I’d get to occupy for 6 hours. The scene at the airport was incredible; people literally fell where they stood—hundreds of bodies lined the terminal floor waiting for flights, news on rebookings or just passed out from exhaustion. After retrieving my enormous, overweight duffle bags full of ’08 winter wear I found a quiet corner over in the West Coast company zone, laid out a nice little bed of puffy down and leather jackets, and settled in for a short nap.

I awoke a few hours later to a once again bright, hot and noisy Las Vegas airport. Since my flight wasn’t leaving until 10:40 pm that night, I had to wait until 4:40 pm at the earliest to check in those big ol’ bags and gain some freedom. I waited out the day on my puffy coat bed watching DVDs, checkin’ email and planning the out next move. My only savior was the brand new PSP that I’d picked up a few days earlier, knowing that I would have to spend a lot of time in airports and on planes in the coming weeks. Nothing beats Grand Theft Auto, and the new Vice City Stories is even better when you can play it on the road.

Finally it was time to ditch the gear, and I was outta there! You know my spot: straight to The Hard Rock. A little blackjack put me up $250, and after a quick bite to eat at the Pink Taco, Gangster Snowboard’s Jesse Gibson showed up. We went across the street to his buddy’s bar, Paradise Cantina, and he filled me in on all the NBA All Star Weekend action I missed and we discussed next year’s SIA surprises. A few more drinks and it was time for me to head back to the airport. Another sleepless night on an overnight flight, this time to Detroit, then a last connection four hours after landing finally put me into Montreal at 11:00 am Sunday morning. I had missed the entire contest, and was wiped out from 36 hours of airport livin’…but I was there. A few Jedi Mind Tricks to the customs dickwads and I was in!

Fortunately my trusty sidekick from Whistler last season, Shaun Hughes, is now living in Montreal—soakin’ up big city livin’ for a change and studying Adobe programs. He was there to rescue me from travel hell and we headed straight for the hills. When we got to Quebec, there was feet of snow on the ground, left over from the blizzard that caused all this trouble in the first place. Nate Abbott was posted up in the hotel, a quaint little spot called Abrege du Quartier in the old historic district, and had been couped up myspacing for days waiting for our arrival. A quick lunch of poutine and other French Canadian delights, and I was ready for a long nap in a real bed. It was magical. The journey to that bed was intense, and so grueling that I didn’t pull out the camera up to that point once.

When I finally awoke around 10:00 pm, it was obviously time to party. The model crew had arrived from Montreal, a bevy of beauties provided by Empire’s Ryan Odowd. We hit the club, did it up proper and enjoyed the one night we all had together in Quebec. It lived up to its reputation, and a two level club packed with hottie frenchies danced the night away.

On Monday, it was time to get to work. An early 8 am wake up call, a rousing of the troops and we were off to the shooting location. Yeah, I’d love to tell you all about it, but Imma try to keep this one a secret as long as possible. I will say, it was incredible, and should be one of the all time best Kits ever (although I do say that every time). Seriously though…this was something special.

So we shot into dark, returned to the hotel, packed up the shit and it was off again. Shaun and I had to rally back to Montreal in order for me to catch my 6:30 am flight back to Portland, via Philly and the Phoenix. Yuck. That’s what happens when they cancel your flight due to weather—when they rebook you, you get the shit flight. We rolled into town around 2:30 am, just enough time to catch last call. Montreal is as close to New York City as it gets, and the graffiti scrawled landscape and dive bar district in Shaun’s hood felt like I was back in The Big Apple, even if it was for only an hour.

Of course, my ordeal wasn’t quite over just yet. I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, went through the ol’ customs shpeal and got on the plane…after yet another sleepless night. Well, we sat there. And sat there, while they rebooted the computers, shut down and restarted the plane, and eventually determined that there was a unfixable mechanical error with one of the engines. Great. Everyone off the plane—time for another rebooking. I was so close to getting home!

Another two hours in line with constant bitching from passengers all around and I was rerouted to an Air Canada flight to Chicago, then onto PDX. I don’t even care how you get me home, just get me there sometime today. Why is so important? Because I have another flight out tomorrow morning at 9:45 am, this one all the way to Tokyo, Japan. That right, I have about 12 hours to dump the old gear, pack up the new shit and catch a catnap in my own bed before hitting the road again. I’m going from Bon Jour to Origato. My Partner in Crime for the next mission is none other than Frank 151’s Craig Wetherby as we’re off to destroy Japan. Hopefully there are no Nor’Easters in Tokyo. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they told me my flight was cancelled because Godzilla attacked the airport. Anyway, wish me luck. And the next time you pick up a copy of SNOWBOARD, (after hearing my sob stories) maybe you’ll appreciate what went into getting each and every shot just a little bit more. As always, thanks for reading, and stay tuned for tales from the land of the rising sun.