McMinnville, Oregon Skatepark: Posted 8-15-05
McMinnville has a new park built by Dreamland. It’s small park that is mostly street oriented. The street course has transitions on opposing sides and steel coping. On one side there is a channel and extension with pool coping. Nothing fancy, but still it looks fun. Fun enough to get some of the vert dogs interested. You’ll get almost no photos from me, because I was having too much fun in the small bowl in the back of the park. It’s basically a Mickey Mouse shaped bowl, except the head is slightly stretched out like a capsule and the back wall is almost entirely covered by a giant drainage hole. I’ve heard multiple reasons as to why, most having to do something with the park being located in a flood plain. While I’m sure they could have made a much smaller and more managable hole, the folks at dreamland chose to force the locals (and visitors) to push themselves to adapt. The result also makes the bowl more memorable. In a state like Oregon where there are so many good parks, you might be more tempted to go a little bit more out of your way for the sake of uniqueness. There is a little bit of sacrifice in usabiity for a lot of kids, but if they stick with it they will likely end up learning how to navigate it. The actual skill level required is not out of the ordinary, it’s purely a mental game. If you want pictures that show a better overview of the park, check out skateoregon.com.
Thanks to MC for the first two pics.
Update 2008: I can’t be sure, but I think this might be Drew Ottley, after whom the McMinnville skatepark was renamed. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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