There was another meeting in Eugene Oregon to go over some design revisions. You may recall there were three previous contenders. Apparently Dreamland took a lot of heat for the duck and dinosaur sculptures in the public commentary. Mark Scott read some them aloud, to the enjoyment of everyone attending. I can’t believe that I talk to the guy who does these renders several times a week and still I’m posting scans of printouts handed out at the meeting. – Thanks to Sarib Khalsa for the tip.

The Vancouver Sun reports that a civil suit against a guy who spray painted at a skatepark has resulted in an award of $6400 to the city.

This is a Dan Mathieu photo of Kevin Cann skating the more or less DIY fueled skatepark in Notre Dame de L’ile Perrot, a small town outside of Montreal, Quebec. Kevin is the guy who made this park happen, with the help of a host of others. Those of you who read my column in Concrete Wave know the story of this park, if not, I’ll be putting up a version of it here, soon.

This year’s Stand up For Skateparks benefit for the Tony Hawk Foundations saw skate action from Bucky Lasek, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Andy Macdonald, Lincoln Ueda, and Kevin Staab. Old man Hawk even landed a 900 himself. The event raised a total of 775,000 dollars to support the Tony Hawk Foundation, including $43,500 in pledges for a skatepark project in the Watts district of Los Angeles. There were many celebrities present, both skateboarding and mainstream, including Erik Estrada, who is a celebrity in both worlds. If you have a soft spot in your heart for Watts,you can donate $5 to the project by texting the word RIDE to 90999. Do it before the end of Tuesday, October 20 if you want the cash to specifically benefit the Watts Towers Skatepark project.

Three Dreamland design concepts have been unveiled for the newest Eugene, Oregon skatepark. One looks pretty straightforward, while the other two have unusual elements either in the park design or some strange sculptural elements. I’m not sure what’s going on there with the giant duck and the prehistoric swimming dinosaur. A dino-duck? College mascot homage? The intersting thing is that most of the square footage is covered by a bridge. You can find some background information, download some pdf’s of the layouts and take a survey on the designs at Downtown Eugene KVAL. If you just want to see the designs then stick around after the jump. I’ve also doctored up some overlays that do a better job of showing you what part is covered.

Mole men. Mo-oh-olemen. This is supposed to be a skatepark built in an old railway tunnel in Petersfield, England, but so far the only mention of of it I can find is that it was built by Nike 6.0 for some BMX contest. No, this is not the only underground tunnel skatepark in the UK.

I don’t know exactly where this park falls in the Dreamland timeline. I think it happened after the initial Lincoln City park, but before Newberg. In fact, the park isn’t listed on the Dreamland web site, (Update: It is actually. – I think wasn’t there at one time, and I was going from memory.) and the physical sign on site credits “Mark Scott Construction LLC.” I’ve heard a lot of smack talk about the Redmond park, so I was prepared for something hideous, but it really wasn’t bad. You can tell it’s early on in the evolution though.

I forgot I had taken a few photos at Madras until the one of the kids in the pics emailed me and asked for them. So here you have the Madras, Oregon skatepark, built by Dreamland. It’s a nice little park about an hour outside of Bend, Oregon. The combi bowl is fairly deep, but everything else is pretty small. There’s a nice spine and plenty of odd bits of skate terrain to screw around on. The locals are colorful and friendly. There’s also a bathroom and electrical outlet. Not a destination park per se, but if you are anywhere in the area you should definitely check it out. Don’t get too excited about the Black Bear Diner. The onion rings were really tasty, but the rest of the food was dry and bland, and the waitresses look like they subscribe to Sensible Women’s Wear Daily. I don’t know what that means, except to say that if you’ve ever seen the HBO show Big Love, think of the compound.

Up top is the Epic Snowboards shop at NW 23rd and Vaughn in PDX. It’s actually sharing a space with a scooter shop – Vespa Portland. This ramp used to be in the Grenade facility, which I believe was somehow associated with the now defunct Office. Regardless, I think this Saturday the doors are open for free durning the grand opening celebration featuring DJ’s and bands, etc.. but I can’t be sure because the flyer I got was illegible. When I get more info I’ll update this post. In the meantime, you can check out some construction pics courtesy of Mike Estes after the jump. UPDATE: Added the flyer. On the bottom is an indoor ramp at Rip City Skate, also in Portland. This one has been dormant for a while, but reportedly will be done in about a month. [Photos: MC]

I was excited to get an invitation to join Wally Inouye, Chris Strople, and Bryce Kanights on a four day trip to the Treasure State. Wally and Strople were childhood heroes of mine and I have been meaning to get up to check out the Montana skateparks for the last several years. Read the story at Antigravity Press