"Chasing the Dream" has one particular connotation with a group of my friends here in Montreal but right now I kinda want to talk about another meaning it can have.  As everyone knows, sometimes it's easy to get pretty bored with your local "known" spots and it's usually fun to get off the beaten path and go exploring new areas and places that you've never hit.   Most of the time it shakes everyone out of their comfort zone and gets people hyped to come up with new tricks to do.

JS Lapierre knocks the cobwebs off this rarely hit spot with a proper Ollie.

This was our first time back at this loading dock spot this year and Charles Rivard gets things started with a Switch Inward Heelflip

Sometimes though, you get the occasional time when you go off with rough directions on how to get to  the "best spot ever" only to find out that it's not quite as amazing as everyone hyped it up to be.   The other day a group of us went out on a mission to try and find this spot that none of us had ever seen before but was supposed to be super sick.  We got "directions" on how to find it and then headed out across the city taking a metro and a bus and then skating for several blocks all the while searching for the spot. At one point we even asked a work crew who was planting trees if they "knew where an abandoned hotel was in the area?".  They didn't seem very impressed and looked at our crew like we were out of our minds and on drugs.  We continued searching and finally came across what had to be the spot. 

Walking across the field to the spot we were all pretty excited. It seem like this could be an amazing discovery.

Unfortunately,  when we got up close things were a little less appealing.  Despite even Josh Clark's best efforts at spot repair (which are pretty considerable let me tell you) we all eventually came to the conclusion that the spot was pretty much a waste of time.  So like most skaters who have just realized that they just wasted an entire nice sunny day searching out a spot we decided to spend the rest of our time goofing off.  While I wasn't able to document his makeshift bazooka canon and skit (something that I'll  have to live out the rest of my days regretting) I did manage to snap a flick of Charles Rivard praising Satan for blessing us with such a crappy day.

One thing that you can always take solace in after a failed mission is that there will almost always still be a fun session waiting for you back at the local meet up spot when you get back.  These days Parc Lafontaine has been a pretty much the meetup spot of choice for everyone in Montreal and there's usually some pretty good antics going on. The shot below is completely bizarre.  This random guy drove up and parked beside the park and then started blaring his music and dancing around while everyone was skating.  He then started spazzing around on the ground trying to get people to do tricks over him.  It pretty much had everyone in the place in stitches.

Crazy Dave BS 180's while Adam Green provides some refreshment

So while it definitely wasn't the most productive day and we were all a little bummed out that our day long mission didn't result in much skating everyone still managed to keep a pretty positive take on things.  I think Chuck said it best.... "It's been one of the best, shittiest days ever!"