GOLFING ACROSS AMERICA: from smoke, fire, pandemic, social unrest, lack of justice and equality to the seat of it all….our Nations Capital. Sacramento to Washington D.C.
Wednesday, September 16th, 2020 fires ravage the West Coast. Parts of Washington State, Oregon and throughout Northern and Southern California. Smoke hangs in the air like the sign of the moapocalyptic times of COVID 19: the social unrest and the justice sought in the “Black lives Matter” movement in the United States.
28 major fires burn in California alone. The death toll for COVID 19 nears 200,000 people in the US, and the social unrest among Americans at the senseless killing of Black Americans grows. A good time to beat feet out of town and drive across this massive continent, remaining socially distant, and masked up and golf along the way.
From my smokey Northern California home….
Fire, pandemic, social injustice…..
Day 1. Sacramento to Wendover, Nevada. 8 hours
The sign read “Welcome to Wendover”. Kevin kept saying we reached “Bendover”
Above Kevin my petrol attendant. Below the hazy grey smoke and the edge of town. We didn’t stop to take pictures because everything looked so shitty.
8 hours of extreme smoke grew worse and worse as we crossed the valley from Elko across the Ruby Mountains. It lightened up slightly when we reached Wendover. As one looks down at the small valley town of Wendover, you see the Utah salt flats on the other side of town and in fact across the boarder from Nevada to Utah. A sliver of a town with three notable casinos and not many people to be seen.
Our Nugget Hotel Casino was the perfect setting for a B murder mystery film. Food at the Paradise Restaurant was anything short of paradise. Before we left our room and walked the crazy psychedelic patterned orange and grey and black carpeted hallway, we noticed there was no remote for the tv in our room. Kevin called down to the desk to ask for a remote to be sent up. When we returned from dinner, Kev found the delivered remote and tried to turn on the tv to check the weather and local news. It didn’t work. He assumed the batteries were bad and called down to say the remote was dead, and would they bring up another one. Minutes later a kind gentleman brought up another new remote. To our chagrin that remote didn’t work either. Kevin called back complaining that the second remote was faulty as well. The gal at the desk said, “Well, we can send up another remote but the cable has been out for about a week and the TVs don’t work.……WTF.???? Are we in the twilight zone? We leave Bendover early tomorrow morning.
Bye Bye Bendover, Wendover, Nevada Day 2. Wendover to Park City(golf), to Rawlins, Wyoming 6 hours driving time
Rose at 5:30 zero dark thirty to drive to Park City, Utah for a 9:03 tee time. We drove through the Bonneville Salt Flat racing area and salt flats along Salt Lake through the Wasatch Mountains. 7:10 the orange smoke soaked sun rose over the Wasatch range. The Utah side looked rocky, craggy with little to no vegetation, whereas the eastern side tree line with much greenery. Played golf at Park City Golf course, which was awesome and the two guys John and Doug who we were paired with were fantastic guys.
Following golf we drive 4 and 1/2 hours uneventful and barren wasteland territory through to Rawlins, Wyoming, which turns out to be a quaint little river town of 9,267 people at 7,000 feet elevation.
And a couple photos from Wendover City, Nevada (We had dinner at the Paradise Grill recommended by our hotel in the Montgomery Bay Resort and casino, which was horrible. Kevin was initially disappointed there were no card tables in action.
Day 3. Rawlings, Wyoming(gofled at Rochelle Ranch golf course), on to Gothenburg, Nebraska
Driving time 8 hours
Rochelle Ranch course was 5 minutes from our hotel. Another great course! Literally a green oasis with pristine greens and incredible fairways. All in the middle of the brown craggy 6 to 7,000 foot elevation dust owl desert like plateau of Wyoming. This was in fact the only green we witnessed in Wyoming. Finished in 3 hours. Very few golfers on the course, but the quaint little town of Rawlings has 9,000 inhabitants, and the entire state only has 578,000 people.
Drove across Wyoming leaving the course at 1 o’clock and arriving in Gothenburg, Nebraska at 9 pm. We drove past Laramie and Cheyenne from brown pancake flat plateau with little to no vegetation, a few wind turbines, to the consistently boring Wheatfields of Nebraska and into the Central time zone.
Kevin and I have shared the drive, each driving for roughly two hours before switching. We’re following Highway 80 all the way and through Wyoming and Nebraska it’s straighter than a midwestern arrow. You set the Cruise control at 75, 80 mph and one almost forgets they’re driving it’s so straight. Tomorrow golf early and then onward to Riverside Iowa.
Day 4. Gothenburg, Nebraska(Wild Horse golf course), drove 80 500 miles past Lincoln, Des Moines, to Coralville, Iowa City(the home of the University of Iowa Hawkeyes).
Wild Horse……Gothenburg, Nebraska
Wild Hawk is our third wildly magnificent golf course. Again, the fairways were spectacular and the greens definitely the fastest and best manicured I’ve played. That is not to say I played well. We were joined by Cliff and Steve, who were Nebraskans. “Go Big Red”!!!
Cliff was also a member of Wild Hawk, but lived in Omaha 3 hours away to play the course. Steve, his friend also resided in Omaha. They helped direct our play: landing areas, distances and the crazy tough greens. Nice guys and they tolerated us.
Thus far, the little towns we’ve stayed in albeit quaint were void of much. For example, when I googled best restaurants in Gothenburg, Nebraska, in the top five were McDonalds, Burger King and a donut shop. And understandably, few live in this town or the entire state for that matter. 1,934 million Nebraska. Wyoming has only 578,759. And Iowa, the big time 3,155 million, but I get it.
While Kev drives I spend time researching these new towns, cities, golf courses we will visit next. Fun facts about Nebraska: More miles of rivers than any state. Nebraska state has more underground water reserves than any other state. Original Nebraskan name came from Oto Indians meaning “flat water”. Birthplace of the Reuben sandwich. Oh, and I could go on…..
Golf involved wind blowing 20 to 30 mph the whole round. Cliff and Steve said yes predictably 20 or more daily. I almost blew over on one Teed shot. And our 500 mile drive was corn, corn, corn more corn with an occasional silo, and flat,flat,flat and extremely boringly straight. Oh, before I forget highway 80 follows the Platte River for miles and miles. And no wonder that the 4 big Trails heading west follow the Platte too: the Californian, the Mormon, the Oregon, and the Bozeman trails run on different sides of the river.
Tomorrow golf at Blue Ridge Golf course in Riverside Iowa. Good night now….
Day 5. Sunday, September 20th Blue Top Ridge at Riverside, Iowa… then thru Iowa, Illinois, skirted Chicago eastward past Indiana to Toledo, Ohio
I had a very bad day! It began with a recurring nightmare I’ve been having since my 2015 trip to Spain when I walked the way and brought 4 novels by Arturo Perez-Reverte to read along The Way. His main character, Captain Alatriste, is a swashbuckling hero who protects King and country, prince, queen and damsels in distress, serves as a spy, and this is woven around the real life history and figures of 17th century Europe.
Anyway, three or four times in Spain having walked 20 miles + during the day and undoubtedly finished the night night with a fine Spanish meal and some red wine, I would fall into a deep sleep and in dreamland fall into the misadventures and the character of Captain Alatriste and fall out of bed fighting an assassin or some villain.
And so it happened has evening. I fell into a deep sleep and somehow became the Captain and jumped straight up on my hotel bed to avoid a sword being swung at me, so I jumped off the bed to illude my nocturnal villain, and in the process landed hard with my left foot flat on the floor and my right foot smacked awkwardly against the wooden suitcase bench at the foot of the bed cutting up two toes and possibly breaking the toe next to my big toe. That wasn’t enough… In the total blackness of the room I sought the hotel door and then coming out of my nightmarish stupor I couldn’t find the bathroom door, or light switch anywhere. Kevin woke up to direct me to the bathroom door.
Hitting the light switch and looking down at my bloodied and battered foot, I realized I may have broken it. Too tired and confused, I peed and went back to bed. The night clock flashed 3:15am.
The Blue Top Ridge was another good lay out and tough course. It backed up to a Casino mall though, which was not as aesthetically pleasing as the other 3, but I’m spitting hairs, it was nice.
It was packed and extremely slow. We waited on virtually every hole. I was over it at the end of the first 9, when already limping around with my right foot throbbing and my hip bugging me, my left golf shoe blew out.! Hitting a 5 iron from a hill about 170 yards from the pin on my follow through the sole on my left shoe detached from the shoe, hanging on by an inch or so at the heel. I flopped around the second 9 each step Charlie Chaplin style in “The Gold Rush”.
Thankfully we shared a cart or I would have cashed it in after the 9th hole. Nonetheless, a forgettable round for me.
At 3:15 pm we were back in the car to highway 80, out of Iowa to Illinois, skirting Chicago, through Indiana and on to Toledo, Ohio.
We passed farm after farm, corn field after corn field although in Eastern Iowa the geography grew a bit hilly( ever so slightly) and speckled with a few more trees, less barren. In Illinois even more trees and more cars and trucks. It was about here when I realized I had left my ipad in our golf cart. 400 and some miles after leaving the course, so I write this on my cell phone and won’t have any pictures today. Do weird and wonderful bad and worse stuff happens in 3’s????
Fun facts:
We drove by Ronald Reagan’s birthplace in Peoria, Iowa and ….
“Holy Toledo”…the city use to be known as “the glass city” because of its large glass manufacturing.
Population- 290,000
71st largest city in US
4th largest city in Ohio behind Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Lastly, Home of the Detroit Tiger affiliate the Toledo Mud Hens.
Good night now! Hopefully my nemesis, pirate, or assassin or villain doesn’t enter my dreams tonight.
Day 6. Monday, September 21st. ( Toledo to Burlington, Vermont- via Cleveland, Lake Superior, Pennsylvania, upstate New York to Burlington, Vermont -12 hours
We drove out of “Holy” Toledo at 8:49am. No golf today, just a long day in the rent a car driving north. It is a blessing though because my foot is a mess, although it has supplanted the pain away from my hip.
“I’m like a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.” (That one’s for you Bobby, Charlie.)
I phoned Blue Top Ridge golf course and indeed they had my ipad. A supervisor, Bob, a really nice gentleman, will arrange to have it packaged and sent to Fair Oaks. On another positive note- no nocturnal phantasms visited me in my dreams last night.
Here are a few pics from the drive:
We entered and exited 5 different “turnpikes” today. I remember my father talking about driving turnpikes when we lived in New Jersey and he worked in Pennsylvania, I believe. They, turnpikes, were the brainchild of Mr. Shocknessy, a prominent attorney known for his civic endeavors and 1st Chairman of *the Ohio Turnpike Commission.” First operational in 1956, over 60 million vehicles have used the turnpikes.
Another noticeable feature of highway 80 throughout our drive from Iowa on has been the impressive rest stops: clean bathrooms, restaurants and travel information all within one large structure. Somewhat like the freeway stops in Europe.
Fun facts about Burlington, Vermont
-43,000 residents
- Ben and Jerry began ice cream empire in Burlington
- Nicknamed “the Queen City”
- 3rd largest lumber port in US
- 1st naval battle of revolutionary war, when 15 US ships were destroyed by 25 British vessels
- Canal between Lake Champlain and New York’s Hudson River
- annually celebrate the “festival of fools”, an event dedicated to the age old tradition of busking.
- 1st international hockey match featuring Canada vs US. Canada won 3 – 0.
- Feel the Burn – Bernie Sanders was mayor from 1981 – 1989
Vermont is EXTREMELY serious about the pandemic. Kevin and I were turned away from our first hotel because we were required to isolate for 14 days since we came from California.
Good night from Vermont!
Day 7. Tuesday, September 22nd Burlington, Vermont a rest day
The last day of summer and traveling from Cali, which is what locals here call our state and I find it kind of annoying. One would not guess last day of summer. The rather is 58°s with a brisk wind is blowing off Lake Champlain. It is sunny and semi bright, the smoke from the west coast has made it’s way east.
I spent a good deal of time doing my Tim McCarthy hip exercises before showering. I then drove to a Dick’s Sporting Goods store to replace my floppy broken golf shoes. I’m hoping to play tomorrow.
Kevin and I then traveled to Church Street”, the trendy bohemian part of the cool hipster part of Burlington. It boarders the University of Vermont, which I found out is not really U. of V. The University of Vermont really is suppose to be Universitas Viridas Monties, translated means The University of the Green Mountain. Who knew, and who really cared?
The quaint little town encompasses the University and you see students everywhere in the coffee houses, reading and writing. The campus is “mostly open” and many classes are held in normal fashion while others remotely. I mentioned yesterday that Vermont takes the pandemic Extremely Seriously and we got bumped from one hotel for not isolating for 14 days prior.
Kevin went for a run and checked out Burlington while I iced my toe and foot and read. I picked up a book by a local writer Howard Frank Mosher, who wrote a fictional novel about the far reaches of Vermont, that is the farthest part north east. It’s entitled “God’s Kingdom” and that is what this far off area is referred to.
Here are a few pictures of Burlington:
lake Champlain
Kru coffee house
Harbor area
Day 8. Wednesday,. September 23rd Burlington, Vermont( golf at a mountain course Killington) , and then on to Hartford, Connecticut
The Killington Mountain course was gorgeous and equally difficult. The greens had angles and undulations I’ve never seen before. To roll off a green was common place and to stop a putt nearly impossible. We joined two 30 year old local guys, Eamon and Trent. Both good guys and comparable golfers to us. We had fun. The leaves in the trees are beginning to change colors. As barren as were Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa, UpState NY, Vermont and the corner of Massachusetts, and Connecticut are treed up to the max. Full forests everywhere. Tomorrow we head to Washington, DC for the final round of golf, meet Kev’s brother, Paul and arrange train travel back to California. I must say I’m tired of driving. Here are some pics of Killington Mountain course and our drive from Vermont, thru Massachusetts to Connecticut.
Day 9. Thursday, September 24th. Hartford, Connecticut to Washington, DC( the last drive)
Our last drive, a 5 hour drive by way of Connecticut, Massachusetts, NY, Delaware, Maryland and finally Washington, DC. No golf, no nothing. Just bringing the horse to the barn. Checked into a hotel and went to Kevin’s brother’s home for a nice crab cake dinner. We’ll play one final round of golf tomorrow with Paul, Kevin’s brother, book passage on an amtrak for California, and hope to catch it Saturday morning. No pics.
Good night now.
Day 9. Friday, September 25th. Washington, DC.
Last night we dined with Kev’s brother, Paul, who I’ve know almost as long as Kevin, and his lovely family: His wife Debra and two of his three daughters plus a fiancee, Eamon. An extremely nice group as one would imagine of the Reilly clan. Kev’s the only orney one in their family. lol
Just as I write this Kev, who has a sleeper upstairs, came down to my room like the ill-fated hazmat team and sprayed disinfectant all over my 5′ x 6′ sleeper room. That has been one of the funniest aspects of travelling with K. We enter a hotel room and he sprays volumes of disinfectant everywhere. When I try to pick up the hotel phone or the tv remote, it’s like a slippery bar of wet soap. Puddles of disinfectant remain even the next day when we check out.
We caught the 4:05 out of Union Station Washington, DC, and are due to arrive in Sacramento 3:30 Monday. I asked the train waiter,(sleeper guy) if the train normally arrives in on time, and he replied:”It has once or twice before.” Where’s Mussolini when you need him.lol
A few pics of DC and an Irish pub that Paul met Kevin and I at across from Union Station. The Dubliner.
Yesterday we left DC at 4:05 and arrived in Chicago at 8:37 the next morning. The Zephyr, our train westward, didn’t depart until 2:00 pm, so Kev and I did a walk about the Windy City. Here are a few pics:
Chicago 
ljm22 
That sounds good. Be safe
LikeLiked by 1 person