The Journey and the People are really the reasons I love to go to Footbag tournaments...

Certainly World Footbag Championships is the father of all Footbag tournaments, and that means many of my old friends are traveling there too. This post is to summarize our Journey to Montreal. 

Starting in Oak Park, IL which is a suburb of Chicago, we began packing on Thursday, the day after my wife's moms funeral.  It was a tough week. I am traveling with my wife Valeria, my son Alex and my niece Juliana (both 14) and our dog Harley.  We each get a bin and packed it into our station wagon with a car topper that has our camping gear, chairs, xootr, etc...  

We got our usual late start and didn't get to the Windsor Canada crossing until midnight.  We had to reserve a room in Canada to prove we needed our passports expedited, but it took until 4:00am to find the hotel near Toronto. We slept until 10:30 and had to check out at 11.  

Another constant challenge is finding Internet and using it wisely. I rely heavily on iPhone maps, but without a data plan here, we have been successfully zenning our way around. We sat in the hotel parking lot and used their wifi to figure out our next moves. 

We found the Toronto lakefront, and went to this new park but $10 parking and mostly not dog friendly we backtracked to the old Toronto lakefront parks and found a $1.50 parking spot.  Here are some Toronto pictures: 

 A drive by picture

Met this kid and his sister, taught them some kicks and gave them a dragonfly Footbag from our sponsor www.footbagshop.com 

If you look carefully in the background you can see the spire in that last photo. 

The weather looked bad at this point, so camping that night was off.  We went to Gananoque CA which is billed as the 'Gateway to 1000 Islands' and found a hotel.  We watched a heavy rainstorm come thru and got up the next day to go see 1000 Islands. 

We zenned our way to the highway and headed for Montreal. We have a condo rented and we needed to dump all our stuff and get checked in for the tournament.  Here is our condo...

Pretty sweet!  About $100/night.  You see Valeria in the kitchen then the dining room and family room space, a bedroom beyond the TV and a sitting room to the right with Juliana on the barkolounger. 

We got checked in at the event site... Saw old friends like Tuan Vu and Lisa Monte-Vu, Kenny and Kendall Shults and family, and many others!  It was great!

Valeria made a great pasta dinner in our full kitchen and we felt right at home. 

On Monday, we skipped the tournament and went to Six Flags LaRonde and used our season passes to get in free.  They even let us use the parking for free!  

Julie and Alex at the site where I took 4th in the world in 1996. In the back of LaRonde.  After Worlds is over, we are going to 4 more six flags along the east coast.  Stay tuned. 

Back in 1996, a random jam happened on Isle St. Helene at this very location. Peter Irish, Tuan Vu, Eric Wullfe and I shredded epically here.  It is where I did my 2413th jam in a row and my last practice before round 1 at worlds. 

So at 12:30 today EST Worlds freestyle begins and at 1:20 my pool goes on.  So wish me luck.  It's breakfast time here.  And that is the story of how we got here!

See ya!

-Enlightener