After my whirlwind trip to Klamath Falls (Oregon), it was time to drive back home to Coos Bay, get a good night’s sleep, then head to the airport (OTH, a great way to come and visit the Southern Oregon Coast) to head to Minnesota for the first time in a couple of years. My niece (Allison) is getting married, and we’ve had the invitation on our refrigerator for over a year now. Excited to wish her all the best, but also an excuse to say hi to a lot of family we haven’t seen in a while. And of course, a chance for me to FINALLY be in a land where there are a lot of new courses I haven’t yet played.
I LOVE living in Coos Bay and along the southern Oregon Coast! Wouldn’t trade it for much of anything. My daughters seem happy attending college in Eugene and Portland. I love being able to head to the beaches, forests or dunes after work or on the weekend. And I L-O-V-E not shoveling snow anymore! 😀 But living in a place where everything to the northwest, west and southwest of me, for thousands of miles, is “O.B. wet?” Well, let’s just say that it really makes it hard to get new courses played. But that’s okay. I knew that would be the case when I moved here. And the siren song of the Pacific Ocean, since I was a teenager living in Minnesota, lured me to an area that is better than being just about anywhere else.
Our flying to Minneapolis (MSP) was the opposite of easy last night, however. We couldn’t get out of OTH due to construction at the San Francisco airport (SFO). Since we were a smaller regional plane flying out of North Bend, Oregon, priority at SFO was being given to larger flights competing for landing times. We ended up not getting a landing time in SFO until about two hours after we were supposed to, which would make us miss our connecting flight to Minneapolis. So we were rebooked into an overnight flight to Chicago, then an early morning flight back to Minneapolis. Arriving about 10-11 hours late, with two extra hours in the air.
When we finally did make it to SFO, we checked the flight departures board, “just in case.” And we saw that our original flight to Minneapolis was also two hours late, and was still in the process of boarding. A sprint across two concourses, and a quick conversation with Mark, the nicest man working our gate from United Airlines, and we were on our original flight to Minneapolis (closing the doors to the gate behind us). And after a late-night arrival to Minneapolis, a trip to the rental car counter, and a short drive to Becky’s sister’s house? We got some sleep before waking up and driving to Wisconsin to say hi to two of my sets of aunts and uncles, then driving over to St. Cloud, Minnesota to check into our hotel with nothing to do for 3-4 hours before the sun went down.
Nothing to do before the sun goes down, you say?! 🙂
I suggested my being able to play at least one nine hole course in the area, and Becky thought that would be fine. And the best option I could find in UDisc was Palmer Township Park in Clearwater, Minnesota. It was exactly the type of course I thought I would find in this area of the state! It’s hard to describe, but when you live in a place for more than five decades? You really get to know the terrain. And the course didn’t disappoint, other than the uneven tee surfaces, using a combination of brick, concrete blocks, garden edgers and dimensional lumber.
I managed to shoot a quick -4 (26), which was good enough for an estimated round rating of 965. I think it was more like a round in the 930s-940s, but whatever. I had fun, and it was another +1 to my Courses Played Collection. But I was disappointed later in the day, as after I had shared on Facebook that I was back in Minnesota and played the course? One of my favorite pro players, Ben Kroll, said that he plays there a lot! Ben and I have yet to share a fairway, and we always talked about playing together sometime (before I moved to Oregon). Had I known that the course was one of his “home courses?” I could have tried to message him to see if he wanted to FINALLY play a round together. 🙁
Tomorrow afternoon is all-about Allison’s wedding. Will I have time to disc golf in the morning ahead of time?! Tune in…
Magic Number = -81 (2,081 Courses Played)
Derek Tonn is a member of the DGA’s Ambassador Team. His company, Mapformation, LLC, has been DGA’s partner in the development of disc golf tee signage since 2012. The longer our two companies have worked together, and the more Derek has gotten to know all the great folks at DGA, the more he has wanted to formally sing the company’s praises. The more he has realized that “Steady” Ed’s (the father of disc golf and the modern-day Frisbee) vision for the sport and his company perfectly describes his own interests and priorities related to disc golf, and the more Derek has recently been encouraged to share his story.