Saturday, September 24, 2016 There's no place like home

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Oh oh... my humans are moving things around.  I guess I will have to go into the little house that moves.  I guess I will get some sleep.

Today, we head home.  We got Hannah ready, I did a short walk and on the road we went. It is 434 miles to home.  What will we find when we get there?  My nephew Crew is taking care of the place... or is he...

The boring ride was uneventful - which is a good thing.  I get home to some very dry plants - not an ounce of toilet paper in the house (good thing I noticed that before I went into the bathroom), and he was busy trying to get things together knowing we would be home.  I gave him a 2 hour notice...  He is to be living with us till January - should I allow him to live that long. 

I gave my plants a little water - I will give them a lot more tomorrow, and take inventory on some of the losses.  I see so many had bloomed while I was gone, and one of them that is blooming now has never bloomed for me before.  I guess neglect can be good...

Oh well, next year, I will have one of my orchid friends take care of things.  Now to unload, clean, and adjust to life in the house that doesn't move.

And one more thing... The Dodgers are on TV with Vinny...  YES!

Friday, September 23, 2016 And the golf prize goes to....

Friday, September 23, 2016

I think I want to lay on my paternal human.  No, let's try the maternal one.  Ok, let's go back to the paternal human.  Naw... gotta be the maternal human.  Let me rub face and mark her as my territory.

Today is our last day here.   Last night, the storm was so violent, I thought I would go outside and see what kind of damage there was.  Oh my, Rudy, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore... I see pars, and birdies, and eagles and even a hole in one...  Oh wait... do I have to wake up????

We spent the day cleaning Hannah, so that when we get home, we can just unload her and put her up.  It was a nice relaxing day.

At our banquet, we learned that we are sucky golfers!  We knew that, it was just reaffirmed.  But we did win some skins.  That just means we had a decent hole at the right time!  So be it!  We will take money any way we can.  One of the teams Spouse was on did well - my heroes!  Once again... 4 rounds of golf and not a single hole-in-one...

My left arm is sore from hitting out of the rough.   Time to give it some rest...  We come home tomorrow.

The traffic gods of Utah have a real sense of humor.  Not only do they make those stupid roundabouts so people don't have to make a left hand turn, but instead run into one another trying to get around, but at some of the major freeway intersections, they reroute the traffic.  They create an 'x' where you go on the wrong side of the road, then back all because some moron can't make a left hand turn.  It is so confusing.  California seems so... so normal!  go figure...

Thursday, September 22, 2016 Enter Entrada, and wow, what a storm

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Me-owt, me-owt!  Oh wait... it's wet out there!  I want in!!!

At 2:30 last night, I woke up to listen to the pouring rain.  Hmmm, what will our day be... It was drizzly when we got up, and foggy, but I did see glimpses of the moon and a few stars.  We got ourselves ready and headed out.  It isn't raining.  The streets are almost dry and it looks like it may be possible that the clouds are starting to break up.  By the time we got to the course, I was convinced we could play.  The skies continued to clear, we are on.

We are playing a private course - Entrada.  It is in a beautiful valley surrounded by the Utah red cliffs.  Early, the tops of the cliffs are covered in a fog, but through the day, it totally clears and becomes a picture perfect day for golf.  And the location is incredible.

This is a fabulous course.  A few of the holes are surrounded by lava fields.  There is the right amount of challenge, the greens are diabolical.  Actually, if I were to play the course again, I think I would like the greens because they are true, just fast.  I played with three other ladies, one of them was way too serious and quite bitchy.  Good thing I wasn't sharing a cart with her. I enjoyed myself nonetheless.  My evil twin did show up on occasion, especially when I got in the rough.  That stuff was like trying to hit through velcro - it would grab your club and take control.  It was not pretty for any one of us.  And Bitchy had her fair share of shots from the rough.  And if I had known the course, I would have hit some of the blind shots in different locations.  But other than that, it was my favorite of the courses we played here.

After enjoying the 19th hole, we headed back to Hannah.  What's that smell?  Is that propane?  Crap!  Somehow the oven knob got turned to 'light pilot' and Hannah was filling with propane!  We had the windows opened already, we opened them more and grabbed Rudy and went outside to let it air out.  That could have gotten ugly.

As we sat there, the winds started kicking up.  Then they REALLY started kicking up.  THEN THEY REALLY STARTED KICKING UP!  With Hannah aired out, we turned on the TV and severe weather warnings are being broadcast.  There was a tornado that touched down in Ogden - way north of here.  Then the thunder and the lightening.  Did I mention it was windy?  For about an hour, Hannah rocked while this wicked, violent storm passed through - AFTER we finished a picture perfect day of golf...  Timing.... yes!

Wednesday, September 21, 2016 Raining at the Ledges

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Sometimes, my maternal human sits at the table and looks at this box thing.  She taps on it with her paws.  She also moves this... this thing that she calls a mouse.  It is the most boring mouse I have ever seen.  It doesn't move unless she paws at it.  What fun is that?  I knock it off the table to see if it runs, but it just lays there.  I don't get why my human is so interested in it.

Today we are playing the Ledges.  It is a couple miles west of St. George.  It rained some during the night, and it is cloudy and damp.  When we got there, the staff discouraged me from walking.  Since we are playing a scramble - it is not my own game - I relented and shared a cart with Spouse.  Seven holes later, I was glad as it started raining.  It wasn't a hard rain.  It was intermittent, but I needed to put on my jacket as it really cooled down.  I was glad I was wearing closed shoes.  I still walked a lot, using the cart as a caddy, but I was able to duck in when the rain started. 

When I go into a new golf course, I judge it before I ever go out to play.  I check out the bathrooms. It seems that the nicer the bathrooms, the nicer the course.  And these bathrooms were top notch... but the course???  Well, I guess it is nice, but there was lots of damage around the fairways on several holes.  And the greens were just ok.  And they did have an outhouse to use when out on the course.  It was so disgusting, I almost threw up when I went inside.  I held out till we made the turn at the clubhouse.  I would have gone in the chaparral before I would have gone back in that outhouse.  It seemed disgraceful to have that out there.

But our banquet will be here Friday night, in the nice bathroom area!

We had a decent team out there and had fun.  But in the bar afterward, Utah law says if you order a mixed drink, you must order food.  Really?  It was cool, I wanted a keoke coffee... guess we will have some nachos. Whatever...

For dinner, we went to a Gun Barrell Steakhouse for one of the gang's birthday.  I really don't like going into a restaurant with 50 people as it is impossible, but we made the best of it.  We purposely sat near people we don't normally hang with so that we could mix things up and it was fun.

The weather on TV says major thunderstorms tomorrow...  will our last game be rained out?  When we got back to Hannah, the rains came big time...  But weather.com says we will golf...  we shall see...

Tuesday, September 20, 2016 Off to Kolob Canyon

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

My maternal human is using her litter box.  I am pawing under the door at her feet.  She threw a toy down for me.  This is fun!  Let me get both paws under there!  FUN!

Today is an 'off' day - no golf.  Spouse and I did a walk, then went to the Holiday Inn Express to meet up with Karl and Kurt and enjoy one of their crappy - I mean delicious... breakfasts.  So, what do you do in this neck of the woods when you don't want to consume your whole day but wanna do something?

Over the years when we have driven I15, I saw Kolob Canyon, Zion National Park.  Now, I know Zion - at least the heart of Zion is 20 or 30 miles east of I15, so what is this Kolob Canyon?  It is about 25 miles north of us, so with Karl, we head that way.  It actually is part of Zion.  There is a 5 mile scenic drive, but it doesn't connect by paved road to the main Zion.  There are quite a few hiking trails, and there are the buttes... the scenic rocks.  The reds... the beauty.  We drove to the top, which is about 6000 feet.  There is a mile roundtrip hike out to an overlook where you can see for a gazillion miles.  The clouds are threatening rain, and we were warned to stay off dirt roads.  I think Jack is glad about that - Spouse washed him and he is clean.  The thought of getting muddy does not interest him... or Spouse.  Thus, we kept it easy.

Tonite, dinner at the Painted Pony.  Supposedly a real treat.  We shall see...

I have no internet in Hannah, so I am forced to go to the clubhouse to post.  I like where we are except for that.

Monday, September 19, 2016 Sand Hollow with no evil twin!

Monday, September 19, 2016

My humans are getting ready to leave me again.  Will they be gone long?  Will they let me-owt?

Today we are playing Sand Hollow golf course.  It is a type of scramble format.  I am playing with Bruce.  As the only twosome, we have to tee off twice on each hole.  We then take the best drive, then play individually.  Bruce can drive the ball, but I am definitely the better golfer.  However, the drive is what we need so it worked pretty well.  We probably used about 10 of his drives, 8 of mine..

It is a beautiful course, run much better than yesterday at Coral Canyon.  It was a tad slow, but not bad.  I was hitting the ball a whole lot better.  There were some stunning holes on cliffs overlooking a valley with the Virgin River.

Spouse is playing with two guys that are known to hit some wild shots.  But when they are on, they can really win because their handicaps suck.  And with Spouse's handicap, they tore it up!  YAY!

A nice Thai/Japanese dinner...  mmmmmm....

 

Sunday, September 18, 2016 My evil twin... darn her...

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Oh no... my humans are getting ready to leave me.  Will they be gone long?  I want to go outside!  Where are they?  Me-owt...  I guess I will just lay around...  I want out... where are my humans?

Today we are playing golf at Coral Canyon, just a couple of miles from here.  I am allowed to walk the course, although the staff thinks I am crazy.  It is a shotgun start, which means people all start at the same time but on different holes.  We are starting on 17, which means I have to walk two holes back... on a course I know nothing about.  I was told to take 10 to 11, then the 17th tee is near the 11th green.  So off I go... I climb.  I am pushing my clubs.  I climb, I push... I climb and push... I finally get to the top.  I go down... I pull back my clubs, I go down... and so it goes.  Lots of desert chaparral but nice fairways and greens.  We are playing with Paula, the coordinator of this trip.  She is a pretty good golfer.  Not so for us.  My evil twin was there for most of the day.  The day was EXTREMELY slow.  The foursome in front of us was part of our group, but the foursome in front of them was not, and they were slow.  A round of golf should take about 4 1/2 hours.  This took 6 hours.  For me, it is impossible to get any momentum when you are waiting and waiting... Did I mention that it took SIX hours for this round????  And most of the ball cleaners had no water in them, which is really tacky when there are tournaments out there.  Spouse did pretty good getting over some of the hazards on his drives.  Yay Spouse!

And it was warm... I was surprised to see alcohol being served in the bar on Sunday.  An ICE COLD beer with an ICE COLD glass please....

When we got back, we stopped at our friend's trailer, Brian and Kathy Boals.  They are playing in this neck of the woods so we thought we would connect.  After a shower, we decided to go out for Italian food.  One problem... all the Italian restaurants are closed today (except for Dominoes Pizza and the Olive Garden).  When life deals you a lemon, you make lemonade...  We got some pasta and sauce from Hannah, they had some tomato based beanie/weanie stew, some fresh creamed spinach and fresh parmesan!  Voila, we had our Italian meal.  And don't forget the meatballs...

After a great visit, back to Hannah.  Rudy wants some out time...