“Never trust a thought that didn’t come from walking.” That’s a quote by an old madman by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche. He’s an existential pioneer and had one hell of a dark passenger throughout his life. But the man sure did drop some wisdom while he was here.

I bring this up as a bit of a postmortem from a pretty serious “walk” we’ve just returned from. A car was driven from our current location in Orange County up to an island off British Columbia. Along the way we skated, surfed, forgot, remembered, danced, drove, brooded, exclaimed, drank and moved ridiculous distances without sleep just to see what it would feel like to not know which side of consciousness we were on.

While nature bloomed and whizzed by outside the window, our brains swelled with too much alcohol and no computer screens to save us. But now we know what it feels like to skate Burnside and Orcas. Surf frozen Canada and wash it down with Lucky beer served by friendly small town granola girls.

At times we must have looked like miserable bum fights, at other times we were wetsuit clad with big stoke grins, alive and leaving frozen tracks on frozen waves we’d never knew existed. And we found all moods that exist between those two extremes along the way.

And now we’re back from the north and we’ve mopped up all the blood from our elbows, thawed our frozen toes and faces enough to remember what happened…somewhat. And just to be sure we did it right, upon return, your current scribe was stricken with two instances of sleep paralysis (which is very much a thing) on night number one in his own bed after two weeks without it, and can report with certainty that it feels not unlike a demon pulling a sheet over your face while you watch, unable to do anything about it. But stay tuned for issue 3! The creative juices flow. Kai is rolling film, Victor is rolling film, Nate is snapping stills and a variety of surprises are brewing. Let’s just say we had a good “walk.” The new magazine will be out in early February. —Travis