Dawn Patrol - Early Morning Sessions At Dunes Motel Pool - Vintage Skate Pics

Dunes Motel was a motel in Pico Rivera, California, the town we grew up in and scouted local pools in.

This motel was across the street from a major Ford Motor Company complex, so it was placed there strategically to attract traveling business people.

This motel and pool had seen better days but that didn't matter to us - we were there to skate the forbidden fruit of skateboarding - an empty pool.

This pool was a nice, wide, left-hand kidney, 8' deep with near-perfect transitions and perfect, bullnose coping.
(probably a Blue Haven pool, now that I know how each pool company did their pools)

We used SOFT wheels to avoid making noise and attracting unwanted attention.

We got up EARLY in the morning to skate it before anyone would be awake. (the shadows tell the story)

Although my goal was to frontside grind every pool, I don't think I ever did a grind in this one.

Definitely got some one-wheelers on the right side wall and that was a big woosh, up the vert and quick turn down.

During the session, when not skating, we took the usual pool skater position of sitting down low with our backs up against the shallow end wall, so no one could see we were there.

The postcard shows it in all it's glory, including the pool we skated.

I don't think we ever got kicked out of this pool, but we were in and out pretty quick because the Motel office was in plain sight of the pool!

This was one of the better "not-made-for-skating" pools we ever skated!