For the record, the Niagara Falls State Park patrols will NOT yell at you if you take your shirt off at Niagara Falls in the middle of the night. File that for future reference, people...
Showing posts with label watery doom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label watery doom. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Plymouth Creek Disc Golf Course – Plymouth, MN
It was our usual Saturday morning round of disc golf. I’d been out of town or out of the country for a number of weeks, so I was sure I was in considerably rusty form. It didn’t matter. It had been raining for a few days, so everything was going to be swampy, but it looked like the weather was actually going to hold out for us. And by “us”, I mean BobaFred and I – everyone else cancelled. Since BobaFred won two weeks in a row (he’s a bit of a champion), it was his choice where to go. He emailed it in to the group – Plymouth Creek.
I’ve never been there, so I quizzed him about it in the morning when I picked him up. He said they played there maybe once a year and it wasn’t anyone’s favorite course, but it’s good to get out there and play it once in a while. Then he warned me about the smell…
I didn’t know what he meant until we got to the first hole at the course. There’s a wide creek you have to throw over to get to the basket. It smells like raw sewage being dumped into the creek underneath this little bridge you have to walk over. It’s bad. So bad, in fact, that one of the guys in the group behind us threw into that creek and refused to get it since it smelled so bad. Yeah, it is that bad.
Here’s a quick overview – there are a lot of trees on this course. A LOT. Thankfully, there is almost always a very obvious fairway to throw down. You don’t really have to choose a route. It’s laid out in front of you. However, you DO have to be able to throw the disc where you’re aiming. This key strategy seems to elude me after I’m away from the game for a while. And overseas travel and visits to Illinois haven’t been allowing much disc golf time. I found out quickly just how bad I had reverted.
I hit an incredible number of trees. Some of them twice (I’m not kidding). I also found that dirty nasty creek three times – it wraps all through the course so you keep seeing/smelling it. I managed to retrieve my disc from the disgusting water each time though. Go me – and now of course, I’ll burn my shoes and golf towel.
The course is 12 holes long, so if you want to play it twice, you’re going to take a little bit longer than a usual 18-hole round. This is something I overlooked when I told D.Rough I’d be home by 10 to make our 11am appointment. When we started the second round of 12, I commented that we’d need to make this a quick round so I could make it home in time. Then, I proceeded to fire a disc straight into the woods and lose it. We looked for about 10 or 15 minutes and never found it. So much for being on time.
I ended up playing absolutely horribly and never turned my game around. The course is challenging and actually is probably pretty fun to play. There are a lot of mosquitoes and some sweltering heat when the sun comes out and no wind moves in the dark forest, but it’s still a decent course. I enjoyed playing it as poorly as I did. There are mostly drive-able holes, but there are a few really lengthy ones that will challenge even the best golfers – since the long ones also have that creek in play their entire length. You just have to be able to avoid far more trees than I was able.
BobaFred ended up beating me by 14 strokes. Yes, I said FOURTEEN. I was a wreck. And I was about 45 minutes late. Fortunately, once D.Rough smelled the sewer smell on me, she allowed me to take a lightning fast shower before we headed to our appointment – which we still made on time!
I’ve never been there, so I quizzed him about it in the morning when I picked him up. He said they played there maybe once a year and it wasn’t anyone’s favorite course, but it’s good to get out there and play it once in a while. Then he warned me about the smell…
I didn’t know what he meant until we got to the first hole at the course. There’s a wide creek you have to throw over to get to the basket. It smells like raw sewage being dumped into the creek underneath this little bridge you have to walk over. It’s bad. So bad, in fact, that one of the guys in the group behind us threw into that creek and refused to get it since it smelled so bad. Yeah, it is that bad.
Here’s a quick overview – there are a lot of trees on this course. A LOT. Thankfully, there is almost always a very obvious fairway to throw down. You don’t really have to choose a route. It’s laid out in front of you. However, you DO have to be able to throw the disc where you’re aiming. This key strategy seems to elude me after I’m away from the game for a while. And overseas travel and visits to Illinois haven’t been allowing much disc golf time. I found out quickly just how bad I had reverted.
I hit an incredible number of trees. Some of them twice (I’m not kidding). I also found that dirty nasty creek three times – it wraps all through the course so you keep seeing/smelling it. I managed to retrieve my disc from the disgusting water each time though. Go me – and now of course, I’ll burn my shoes and golf towel. 
The course is 12 holes long, so if you want to play it twice, you’re going to take a little bit longer than a usual 18-hole round. This is something I overlooked when I told D.Rough I’d be home by 10 to make our 11am appointment. When we started the second round of 12, I commented that we’d need to make this a quick round so I could make it home in time. Then, I proceeded to fire a disc straight into the woods and lose it. We looked for about 10 or 15 minutes and never found it. So much for being on time.
I ended up playing absolutely horribly and never turned my game around. The course is challenging and actually is probably pretty fun to play. There are a lot of mosquitoes and some sweltering heat when the sun comes out and no wind moves in the dark forest, but it’s still a decent course. I enjoyed playing it as poorly as I did. There are mostly drive-able holes, but there are a few really lengthy ones that will challenge even the best golfers – since the long ones also have that creek in play their entire length. You just have to be able to avoid far more trees than I was able.
BobaFred ended up beating me by 14 strokes. Yes, I said FOURTEEN. I was a wreck. And I was about 45 minutes late. Fortunately, once D.Rough smelled the sewer smell on me, she allowed me to take a lightning fast shower before we headed to our appointment – which we still made on time!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Date DAY Road Trip – Duluth, MN and Beyond
I’ve got some vacation time saved up and what better reason to use it than to take my lady out of town with a specific intent to relax and take it easy. It started by sleeping amazingly late, which then called into question even hitting the road. We didn’t even have a destination, so we waffled a bit about driving somewhere. We had no plans the next day, so we said, “Screw it!”, and threw some clothes in the car just in case we ended up driving too far and had to stay in a hotel or something along the way.
We thought we’d head north up towards Duluth, where I’ve heard seeing the leaves change colors is absolutely beautiful. We left in the early afternoon, after a quick stop a Nina’s coffee shop – one of D.Rough’s favorites. We headed north and took our time driving. In fact, we stopped by the Black Bear Casino on the way so we could play some slot machines. Literally, like a 20 minute stop and then we left again.
We hit Duluth, knowing full well we were going to go further north than that. It was just a stop-over for a quick bite to eat and then back in the car. We wanted to go to Hell’s Kitchen, but it was strangely closed and may have had a change of ownership or a name change (I will have to investigate further). So we walked down the street to Grandma’s Saloon (touristy, but the food is decent and not terribly expensive). We thought it might be happy hour, and we were right – we have a knack for predicting things like that. We grabbed some wings and onion rings and a couple of girly drinks to tide us over until dinner. Then on the way back to the car, we just HAPPENED to stop by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a turtle caramel apple… and some chocolate dipped graham crackers…
We stopped along the way and walked down next to the water of Lake Superior. It is absolutely beautiful up this far north this time of year.
We took some photos of the lakeshore and had the perfect lighting for some awesome shots. [Side note: D.Rough’s roller derby team won the “Golden Skate” at the 2010 season championships this past year and all of the skaters have been taking it on various road trips and fun events with them. We had the Golden Skate with us on this road trip, so we took some photos with it on the shore.]
We got back in the car and headed north a bit further. There were a couple of really awesome tunnels that we drove through, so I thought that was pretty awesome. We drove past a pretty cool looking stream dumping water right out into Lake Superior, so we decided to stop and check it out. We weren’t in a rush or anything, so we hiked down to the water and checked out how cold it was.
Oddly enough, it was very cold (yes, that was sarcasm).
How often do you get to walk in a beautiful stream in the woods – not often enough, I say.
So we took off a couple layers of clothes we didn’t want to get dirty and hopped in the frigid water. D.Rough even saw a giant fish swim by.
And we did freak out another couple that hiked down the hillside to the stream and saw a pile of clothes… They just kept walking further downstream – hahahaha.
We got back in the car and kept going north. We drove past Betty’s Pies, which is a famous pie place in Minnesota and probably worth a stop. We thought we’d hit it on the way back, either tonight or tomorrow, depending on what happened. We had decided we were going to hit up Canada and spend the night… right before we realized we would need passports to complete this plan and neither of us had brought our passports. Sigh… Oh well. We would drive until it got dark and then head back home maybe.
We drove through the awesome town of Castle Danger at one point. We both determined it would be an awesome place to own a summer home. It’s a very quaint little town without a lot going on. Plus, when your friends asked you what you were doing that weekend, you could reply with, “I’m headed to CASTLE DANGER!” in a super creepy ominous voice of doom!!!!.... DOOOM!!!! DOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!
We saw a sign for Gooseberrry Falls, which apparently is some sort of state park on the North Shore. (Also, not at all related to Cap’n Crunch.) It was starting to get dark now, but D.Rough was convinced we could make it… We DID, in fact, make it. But seriously, it was dark at this point.
We walked through the woods down to the falls and there were people heading back up the trails with flash lights. We didn’t care – we were still going to see the falls. Once we got down to the falls, we took what photos we could with the point and click camera she brought. D.Rough tried a couple settings and ended up with a shutter speed slow enough to almost make out the falls in the picture.
Here is what it looks like without a flash - I TOLD you it was dark. I have NO idea how D.Rough's photo turned out as good as it did in the darkness.
We then took a couple photos with the flash that ended us blinding us on the super slippery rocks. Once we actually saw how slimy and slippery the rocks were in the pitch black, we started getting a little more reserved about leaping over what we first thought were small puddles or streams.
They weren’t small at all.
At one point while we were walking around in the dark, there was a pair of people (husband and wife maybe?) walking around with a flashlight. One of them went down hard into one of the streams and we sort of stuck around to make sure they didn’t need help back to the top. Thankfully they didn’t. We stuck around for another 15 or 20 minutes after they left to see if a ranger would eventually come down and check out the falls for stragglers. It never happened. On the way back, we got a little bit turned around in the dark (whoops!), but we eventually made it back to our car.
Really, it was quite a fun trip to the falls. We both now wonder what the falls look like in the daylight.
Since there wasn’t much point in heading further north, due to our lack of passports, we headed back south for home. We pulled into Betty’s Pies for a fantastic dinner RIGHT as they were kicking people out and closing down for the night. It was awful – you get your hopes up for world famous pies (well, SOME of the people in the car had their hopes up higher than others), and then those hopes are dashed on the rocks. We decided we’d eat at Fitger’s in Duluth. Fitger’s is a brew-pub in an old hotel-type building with some shops and restaurants in it. We meant to eat there earlier this year when we were in town for roller derby with ManJar, but we couldn’t get a table without waiting for 2 hours. So we thought we’d check it out since we had time to kill. I’ll post that review separately from this, but dinner was decent here.
We ended up getting home about midnight from our little adventure. It was really nice to get away and not be on a schedule and not have to answer to anybody, especially work. I have a feeling we’ll be doing this again sometime soon. Hopefully, it will involve an actual trip – with passports – to Canada so we can witness their crazy metric system first-hand!
Top 5 things about Date Day Road Trip
1. No work. No schedule. No pressure.
2. It’s beautiful countryside
3. Gooseberry Falls (even in the pitch black)
4. Super cold stream on the side of the road
5. Beautiful photos of the lake shore
Bottom 5 things
1. Betty’s Pies shot us down
2. We all know what cold water does…
3. It gets dark earlier, so we couldn’t see as many leaves as we’d have liked
4. Forgot our passports
5. Black Bear Casino would NOT let us take photos of the Golden Skate in the casino. Sadface.
We thought we’d head north up towards Duluth, where I’ve heard seeing the leaves change colors is absolutely beautiful. We left in the early afternoon, after a quick stop a Nina’s coffee shop – one of D.Rough’s favorites. We headed north and took our time driving. In fact, we stopped by the Black Bear Casino on the way so we could play some slot machines. Literally, like a 20 minute stop and then we left again.
We hit Duluth, knowing full well we were going to go further north than that. It was just a stop-over for a quick bite to eat and then back in the car. We wanted to go to Hell’s Kitchen, but it was strangely closed and may have had a change of ownership or a name change (I will have to investigate further). So we walked down the street to Grandma’s Saloon (touristy, but the food is decent and not terribly expensive). We thought it might be happy hour, and we were right – we have a knack for predicting things like that. We grabbed some wings and onion rings and a couple of girly drinks to tide us over until dinner. Then on the way back to the car, we just HAPPENED to stop by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a turtle caramel apple… and some chocolate dipped graham crackers…
We stopped along the way and walked down next to the water of Lake Superior. It is absolutely beautiful up this far north this time of year.
We took some photos of the lakeshore and had the perfect lighting for some awesome shots. [Side note: D.Rough’s roller derby team won the “Golden Skate” at the 2010 season championships this past year and all of the skaters have been taking it on various road trips and fun events with them. We had the Golden Skate with us on this road trip, so we took some photos with it on the shore.]
We got back in the car and headed north a bit further. There were a couple of really awesome tunnels that we drove through, so I thought that was pretty awesome. We drove past a pretty cool looking stream dumping water right out into Lake Superior, so we decided to stop and check it out. We weren’t in a rush or anything, so we hiked down to the water and checked out how cold it was.
Oddly enough, it was very cold (yes, that was sarcasm).
How often do you get to walk in a beautiful stream in the woods – not often enough, I say.
So we took off a couple layers of clothes we didn’t want to get dirty and hopped in the frigid water. D.Rough even saw a giant fish swim by.
And we did freak out another couple that hiked down the hillside to the stream and saw a pile of clothes… They just kept walking further downstream – hahahaha.
We got back in the car and kept going north. We drove past Betty’s Pies, which is a famous pie place in Minnesota and probably worth a stop. We thought we’d hit it on the way back, either tonight or tomorrow, depending on what happened. We had decided we were going to hit up Canada and spend the night… right before we realized we would need passports to complete this plan and neither of us had brought our passports. Sigh… Oh well. We would drive until it got dark and then head back home maybe.
We drove through the awesome town of Castle Danger at one point. We both determined it would be an awesome place to own a summer home. It’s a very quaint little town without a lot going on. Plus, when your friends asked you what you were doing that weekend, you could reply with, “I’m headed to CASTLE DANGER!” in a super creepy ominous voice of doom!!!!.... DOOOM!!!! DOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!
We saw a sign for Gooseberrry Falls, which apparently is some sort of state park on the North Shore. (Also, not at all related to Cap’n Crunch.) It was starting to get dark now, but D.Rough was convinced we could make it… We DID, in fact, make it. But seriously, it was dark at this point.
We walked through the woods down to the falls and there were people heading back up the trails with flash lights. We didn’t care – we were still going to see the falls. Once we got down to the falls, we took what photos we could with the point and click camera she brought. D.Rough tried a couple settings and ended up with a shutter speed slow enough to almost make out the falls in the picture.
Here is what it looks like without a flash - I TOLD you it was dark. I have NO idea how D.Rough's photo turned out as good as it did in the darkness.
We then took a couple photos with the flash that ended us blinding us on the super slippery rocks. Once we actually saw how slimy and slippery the rocks were in the pitch black, we started getting a little more reserved about leaping over what we first thought were small puddles or streams.
They weren’t small at all.
At one point while we were walking around in the dark, there was a pair of people (husband and wife maybe?) walking around with a flashlight. One of them went down hard into one of the streams and we sort of stuck around to make sure they didn’t need help back to the top. Thankfully they didn’t. We stuck around for another 15 or 20 minutes after they left to see if a ranger would eventually come down and check out the falls for stragglers. It never happened. On the way back, we got a little bit turned around in the dark (whoops!), but we eventually made it back to our car.
Really, it was quite a fun trip to the falls. We both now wonder what the falls look like in the daylight.Since there wasn’t much point in heading further north, due to our lack of passports, we headed back south for home. We pulled into Betty’s Pies for a fantastic dinner RIGHT as they were kicking people out and closing down for the night. It was awful – you get your hopes up for world famous pies (well, SOME of the people in the car had their hopes up higher than others), and then those hopes are dashed on the rocks. We decided we’d eat at Fitger’s in Duluth. Fitger’s is a brew-pub in an old hotel-type building with some shops and restaurants in it. We meant to eat there earlier this year when we were in town for roller derby with ManJar, but we couldn’t get a table without waiting for 2 hours. So we thought we’d check it out since we had time to kill. I’ll post that review separately from this, but dinner was decent here.
We ended up getting home about midnight from our little adventure. It was really nice to get away and not be on a schedule and not have to answer to anybody, especially work. I have a feeling we’ll be doing this again sometime soon. Hopefully, it will involve an actual trip – with passports – to Canada so we can witness their crazy metric system first-hand!
Top 5 things about Date Day Road Trip
1. No work. No schedule. No pressure.
2. It’s beautiful countryside
3. Gooseberry Falls (even in the pitch black)
4. Super cold stream on the side of the road
5. Beautiful photos of the lake shore
Bottom 5 things
1. Betty’s Pies shot us down
2. We all know what cold water does…
3. It gets dark earlier, so we couldn’t see as many leaves as we’d have liked
4. Forgot our passports
5. Black Bear Casino would NOT let us take photos of the Golden Skate in the casino. Sadface.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
2010 Annual Canoe Trip – Mequoketa, IA
Every year, a group of Quad Citians and I have gone on an awesome canoe trip. Each year, it is awesome, no mater what the weather or who comes along for the ride. This year was no different. In fact, I even tricked a couple of people into coming down from Minnesota with me for the weekend. They loved every second of it.
I can’t even begin to go into details about everything that happened on this trip, but I CAN give you some highlights.
Yes, we ARE putting EZ Cheese on beef sticks and eating them. Delicious idea, Kanoo.
We aren’t sure if Coach is praying for continued good weather, or trying to catch some food-related object.
Minnesota’s own B.Sweet demonstrates the proper veloceraptor claw style of kung-fu. Yes, folks – those sideburns are for real.
This photo makes it look like we’re doing considerable paddling. It’s a total farce. I think I paddled exactly 13 times.
ImposterChao wins the boobie prize. Oh wait, he actually BROUGHT the boobie prize!
Chao partakes in some high-octane beverages… from time to time…
Yes, that is alcohol-infused whipped cream being consumed straight from the tap. Brilliant idea!
Someone didn’t have a sunscreen buddy, did they?
Stop for a quick lunch break.
Coach wants a piece of the dirty boobie prize.
Mr. Burns loves the boobie prize, too!
Don’t mess with D.Rough.
…Or her minions…
Man overboard!!!!
Random stragglers. Cute random stragglers:)
“Train don’t run outta Witchita. Less’n you’re a cattle, or a hog. People train runs outta Stubbville.”
People get upset when you take their photo right after they’ve tipped their canoe and lost various items… Who would have known?!
This year was a super fun trip and we all had a blast. Look at all the smiles in the photos – that ways it all. Only two canoe tips this year! Wait, One canoe, but it tipped TWICE, didn’t it, SecretMeat?....
I can’t even begin to go into details about everything that happened on this trip, but I CAN give you some highlights.
Yes, we ARE putting EZ Cheese on beef sticks and eating them. Delicious idea, Kanoo.
We aren’t sure if Coach is praying for continued good weather, or trying to catch some food-related object.
Minnesota’s own B.Sweet demonstrates the proper veloceraptor claw style of kung-fu. Yes, folks – those sideburns are for real.
This photo makes it look like we’re doing considerable paddling. It’s a total farce. I think I paddled exactly 13 times.
ImposterChao wins the boobie prize. Oh wait, he actually BROUGHT the boobie prize!
Chao partakes in some high-octane beverages… from time to time…
Yes, that is alcohol-infused whipped cream being consumed straight from the tap. Brilliant idea!
Someone didn’t have a sunscreen buddy, did they?
Stop for a quick lunch break.
Coach wants a piece of the dirty boobie prize.
Mr. Burns loves the boobie prize, too!
Don’t mess with D.Rough.
…Or her minions…
Man overboard!!!!
Random stragglers. Cute random stragglers:)
“Train don’t run outta Witchita. Less’n you’re a cattle, or a hog. People train runs outta Stubbville.”
People get upset when you take their photo right after they’ve tipped their canoe and lost various items… Who would have known?!
This year was a super fun trip and we all had a blast. Look at all the smiles in the photos – that ways it all. Only two canoe tips this year! Wait, One canoe, but it tipped TWICE, didn’t it, SecretMeat?....
Monday, July 26, 2010
Bryn Mawr .10K Triathlon – Minneapolis, MN
TheDoctor has had an idea steeping in his head for a few years now and finally put it into action. It’s a .10K Triathalon. Now go back and read what I just wrote there. POINT TEN KAY. …As in one-tenth of a kilometer. …As in 100 meters. …As in 328 feet. As you can see, the people I hang out with are absolute geniuses on cerebral levels you won’t ever attain. This is... TheDoctor:
Here’s how it breaks down:
First section of the event – a half a block sprint with a 90 degree turn immediately after a challenging downhill elevation change. Half-grass, half-cement (which we were too lazy to sweep before starting the event). Stop at the hydration station before the next section.
Second section of the event – a quarter-block grueling uphill ride on a children’s bike without pedals (called a Strider). Both tires must be on the ground and some portion of the participant’s body must be touching the seat. Maximum weight capacity for this vehicle: 50 lbs.
Final section of the event – 50 ft sprint through the grass to the custom Slip N Slide (also known as a blue tarp covered in liquid dish soap and hosed down with a garden hose). The clock is stopped when the participant reaches the far end of the Slip N Slide.
This is how it looks when done by expert Triathalete, Josh Dibley:
This is how it looks when Chao does it:
The event was an absolute blast and made more fun by the enjoyment of more Skittle-infused vodka!
The second annual Bryn Mawr .10K Triathalon will happen in the summer of 2011, so be on the lookout for registration information. Thanks for hosting such an amazing event, Doctor. Next year, we’ll make sure there’s a first aid kit:)
Here’s how it breaks down:
First section of the event – a half a block sprint with a 90 degree turn immediately after a challenging downhill elevation change. Half-grass, half-cement (which we were too lazy to sweep before starting the event). Stop at the hydration station before the next section.
Second section of the event – a quarter-block grueling uphill ride on a children’s bike without pedals (called a Strider). Both tires must be on the ground and some portion of the participant’s body must be touching the seat. Maximum weight capacity for this vehicle: 50 lbs.
Final section of the event – 50 ft sprint through the grass to the custom Slip N Slide (also known as a blue tarp covered in liquid dish soap and hosed down with a garden hose). The clock is stopped when the participant reaches the far end of the Slip N Slide.
This is how it looks when done by expert Triathalete, Josh Dibley:
This is how it looks when Chao does it:
The event was an absolute blast and made more fun by the enjoyment of more Skittle-infused vodka!
The second annual Bryn Mawr .10K Triathalon will happen in the summer of 2011, so be on the lookout for registration information. Thanks for hosting such an amazing event, Doctor. Next year, we’ll make sure there’s a first aid kit:)
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