You know how when you’re a kid and you will try about any rideable you can get your hands on? Whether it be a tricycle, big wheel, scooter, or rollerblades, you just go for it. Then as you get older, you travel mostly by vehicle or by foot. Why is that? What happens to our sense of adventure with transportation as we get older?

These are the questions I asked myself the other day as I was shopping with my wife over the Fourth of July weekend. We were in this store when something caught my eye, a beautiful blacked out skateboard, a Penny Nickel board to be exact. I just knew I had to have it. Sure I hadn’t ridden a skateboard in 15 plus years but who cares? Think of the fun I could have on this thing! I also thought of the injuries I could have and my awesome wife bought me a helmet.

And you know what, it is super fun! I was absolutely terrible at it at first, I mean horrible, but I am getting better slowly but surely. You can’t help but smile when you find some nice smooth concrete and you just zip around without a care in the world. I still have a long ways to go before I will be super comfortable riding my board but it is one of the best things I have bought in recent memory. So thanks, random store in Austin, for giving me that sense of wonder again as you’re about to try something new, you’re pumped and nervous at the same time, not sure if you’re going to be a natural or a failure. What a feeling!

And hey, it beats walking that’s for sure.