Disc Golfing, A Dangerous Sport. Really!

Marv and I have been playing disc golf since Josh introduced us to the game when he was going to ISU- 8 or 9 years now, I guess. We decided a while ago that we would see how many different states we could play in. Part of the fun of this trip was to add some more states to our list. We had 21 so far, but no western states at all, since most of our states had been added traveling (wandering) to see Matt and Kim and Benji in Virginia and to see Josh and Beth and Ava in Wisconsin.

The first course we played on this trip was in a nice, typical, park setting in the Denver area. We played with Michelle, Joan and Noah (in a back-pack). Noah carried a disc and would put it in the basket when we got real close. It's fun to introduce new people to the game and I think Michelle and Joan will try it again. We all had a good time.

The second course was Red Lodge, Montana.

In the internet, the basket on this course were discribed as being make by "restless natives". What fun! They were some of the oddest things you've ever seen. One actually looked like a real basket so we didn't bother to take a picture of that one.

This has got to be my favorite basket of all time. It's really a work of art, constructed totally of driftwood (except for the chains, of course).

We think this is meant to be a basket. At least we couldn't find anything else.

This one was gorgeous, too. Made of big chunks of wood.

The next course was going to be Casper, Wyoming, but driving there, the weather was rainy and nasty. As we pulled up, though (once we found it) it stopped raining so we decided to play. We pulled on our boots (suggested because of cactus and snakes) and st out to have fun. We forgot our camera so no pictures of this one. It was an arid setting with lots of rabbits, cactus and rocks. I filled my bags with cool stones to bring home. The second nine holes was filled with some kind of critter holes, maybe 6" in diameter and really deep. Didn't ever see anything emerge, so we don't know what lived there.

I kind of strained my back on this course. I don't know if it was the rocks or the 5 lbs. of mud I carried on each boot. I vote for the mud.

Billings, Montana was our last course. (We wandered a lot on this trip.)
It took us a bit to find this course, too. Once we found it, there was another car in the parking area, but we never did see another person there. We're thinking that this might be a course you play, maybe, once a year. It was awesome!

I always thought rock-climbing would be fun, and it is . This whole thing was climbing one rock after another.... Teeing off on top of a boulder..... baskets on top of boulders....trails through boulders....

This is generally what the area looked like.

Me, between a couple boulders.

Here's basket #7, with #8 above it in the distance. Don't look for a path - there isn't one.

Me climbing up to #8. This isn't staged at all, it's how we had to get there!

Standing by #9 basket, looking down to where we had been.

We almost didn't play #9. From a distance, it was really formidable. Looked for sure like we would lose a disc or two, if not our lives, but we had to try it. The stairs you see there kind of floated in space. I know they didn't sit on anything at their base, so they must have been connected to the rock. There was one other hole where you were supposed to tee off from the top of a boulder, but the two ladders they had there to reach the top were both rotten, and the mattress at the foot of the boulder didn't encourage me to try to climb it.

#9 basket. Can you believe this!?

We set off to play this course with no phone (the battery was down) and only half a bottle of water (stupid). Our car is parked just beyond that hill. You can barely see it. If something had happened to us we could have yelled all day and nobody would have heard us. We survived though we only played 9 holes. They were the toughest holes, though. 10 through 18 ran along the rim of the rocks, so they would have been safe unless you threw too far right.

More boulders and rocks. These rocks were too big to carry home.

#9 basket is way up there on the right.


So now it's 24 states we've played in. Who's sending us to Hawaii for our 40th anniversary? ;-)

In case you (reader) haven't noticed, I blogged 3 times today to cover our whole vacation, so don't miss the first 2 blogs, okay? Okay.

Friday, Janet and I are leaving on our bikes for Minnesota. Hope my back is fine by then. We haven't biked hardly at all in preparation for this, but, like I told Janet yesterday, how hard can it be?

Later.