Today we went to the Rivery before gaming at Ed’s. I didn’t think that the term “Grimming” would apply to disc golf, but the new guy, Carl, makes me think about using it. He takes at least twice as long to throw as everyone else. For every shot. Not fun. Big groups are slow in general and here is another factor to dragging it out.

At Dos Salsas in Georgetown, this statue amuses me. Yeah, I know its a Mexican woman making tortillas. But she seems so inviting…

At Cat Hollow park, I noticed this tomatoey looking plant hanging on for dear life next to hole 2. Could it be a wild tomato plant? I will keep track of it and see if any of the fruit survives…

On hole 6, I had my best approach shot so far. Close enough to putt… When you drive from the tree you have a small area with trees on either side of the tee box. You have to then angle the disc high over a clump of trees to the right. The disc should then fall back to the course (in front of a very large oak — you guessed it — tree).

Jon had a pretty far drive on hole 18. The goal is located next to the road and is protected by two lines of trees. There is a small hole for a path, but not much else. When Jon threw it, he knew it was going far. We didn’t believe how far it went until we found it on the street! Wow!

For lunch we went to Extreme Pizza. John and Adam were going to Tim’s to play games. Jon and I were going home. But then John suggested we play Tichu over at Tim’s. And that was enough to convice both Jon and myself to play!

And wow did the opposing team have problems today. Their first four Tichu and GrandTichu calls were reasonable. But we were able to set them. Then they started calling desperation Grand Tichu calls. Jon pretty much forced Adam to call it when he picks up his cards. And Adam did not have any luck in getting control cards. See my above hand when Adam called the second to the last Grand Tichu call? Easily settable…

During our game of disc golf at Old Settler’s Park, we came across a license and bank card sitting right next to the tee for hole 8. It must have dropped out of someone’s bag earlier. I picked them up and took them home. I tried looking up the address online, but was unsuccessful with Google’s maps and Mapquest. So, I tried calling, but no one was home. I ended up putting them in an envelope and mailing them. Hopefully, the post office knows where that address and they will arrive.

John tries to ignore me as he putts… He keeps making me move farther away whenever he throws the disc… I must have strong mojo…

We played at a newly built course today on Sam Bass road and Chandler road. Williamson County built a big park out here. The disc golf course was hard to find (I had to wave down a park employee). And it is a pay-per-use course ($1 a day or $40 a year). Hrm… I’m not so happy about that. I think that the rest of the park was built from our tax dollars, so why charge for disc golf? Supposedly this course will be well maintained. We shall see…

This group is starting to grow too large! Three strangers joined the mailing list and they played today. Also, Doug played again after a 6 month haitus. And we started really late. John showed up late from construction delays around Ikea. Curt showed up even later. And Steph and Nick showed up much later. We finished an hour later than usual. Sigh.

Today, I went to play disc golf at Old Settler’s park and was in for a surprise. There were trucks parked in the shade where hole 18 is! When I went over to investigate, I was told that they were getting ready for fireworks tonight. And they told me that my truck would be towed if left there (I would be leaving after 90 minutes and well before 9pm) and we couldn’t play disc golf on this side. They had also fenced off the area on this side of the lake. This meant that holes 1,2 and 3 were out of action.

We started off at hole 4. Hole 5 was missing again (it seems that they use that field for parking for the fireworks). On hole 9, I got my disc stuck high in the tree. John and I spent a while throwing rocks and bottles at it in an attempt to knock it down. It was stuck pretty well. But it finally dropped! I was determined not to loose another disc so quickly!

We aborted after finishing hole 13. It was really hot out and I wanted to stop by the Mexican ice cream store for some cold fruit water before Pilates.

Apparently, fireworks is a news-worthy event…

I went down south to see the Wu Dang Monks perform. They played at the Akins High School Performing Arts Theatre on 1st street south of Slaughter Drive. Which was right next to this course that I have not played at before.

Apparently, some a-hole stole the goal for hole 16. People are selfish, destructive, and ignorant for most of their life…

The holes here are very short. Short enough to be called “an ace rich area”. There were many holes that were less than 200 feet.

You can see hole one from the tee. There were enough trees for me not to consider throwing a straight shot. Instead, I threw high and to the right hoping that it would fall back onto the course. It barely made it to the left of the course.

Sadly, Mark threw some discs in the tree. For the first time, we finally found the disc stuck high in a tree. As a bonus, Mark found another disc. The next time, we were not so fortunate. And we were unable to locate his disc.

On hole 5, my first throw landed close to the basket. And I was able to birdie the hole!

Hole 15 is on top of a hill. The goal is in the middle of the clearing at the bottom.

On the way out, I notice an interesting sign. Hill Country Aeromodelers apparently has a section of the park for themselves.

Went out this Friday again at the usual place. When I was throwing a couple of practice shots, I notice that my Star-TL disc flew farther than my Star-Wraith. The Star-TL is a fairway driver and is the brother of the Teebird. The Teebird-L is “longer” or “less overstable” (which means it flies straighter). The Wraith is a distance driver and, therefore, should fly farther than the Teebird. Right?

Apparently not! It went past the tree on hole 1. And it went close enough to the goal on 18 to make a birdie!

On hole 6, my second shot came pretty near the goal. Too bad I missed that putt!

At the Mexican Ice cream store, John told the lady to dump in his Lime ice cream into the large Agua.

Today, we took a road trip down south. We meet up at the Starbucks at 620 at the ungodly hour of 7am. Strangely enough, Jon did not double up on caffeine. John was kind enough to pick me up on the way there and to drive down south.

It was definately brutal for the Jo(h)ns. On hole 5, we had the bright idea of throwing to the high right over the woods and hoping that the discs would naturally fade to the left back onto the course. Jon lost his disc when it faded right and out of sight. And it keep going bad. I finished that hole 4 strokes ahead of John and 3 ahead of Jon.

Here John thumbs his disc (throws it like a baseball) out of the woods after loosing his disc when we lost track of where his thumb went.

Of course, we got discs stuck in the trees. That is nothing new for us.

Unfortunetly, Jon got his disc stuck in the top of a very tall oak tree. He was unable to make it to the main trunk to continue climbing up the tree and rescue it. So we called it a loss (Jon’s second for the day).

It briefly rained twice, which was not fun…

Next, we stopped by the new Disc Nation store. It is situated between the Circle C disc course and the Mary Moore Searight disc course on Slaughter boulevard. They clam to have 10,000 discs in stock or 350 models to choose from. It was certinally the largest store that I have seen. And we definately bought some discs to stock back up on what was lost.

After that, we headed out for lunch at the Salt Lick. I notice that the fields next to the Salt Lick had grape vines growing. It seems that Texas wines is the hot thing now…

Mmmmmm, this way to great bar-b-que!

Next stop was to head off down south to Kyle. Which was relatively close… well a Texas-sized close of 20 miles. We had a hard time finding the disc golf course. We missed the turn off, but on the second time around we found it. It lead straight into the Steeplechase subdivision on Bluestem Road. After we found that road, we took Goldenrod Street straight to the park.

And boy is that city A.R. about warnings and signage. Yeah, these pebbly trapezoidal tee boxes are a real hazard… wink, wink, nudge, nudge….

They did spend some money on some great looking aluminum signs… using full color and professional graphics. A little confusing though. While they did have two tees for most holes, there was only one goal. Maybe they switch them around at times? I didn’t know if the “A” or the “B” goals were in use. That golf course looking fairway was the artist’s imagination though…

This sign is definately scary! Gah! I am definately alergic to poison ivy… But that didn’t stop me from playing and trudging along. The other bad thing about this course was the thick and tall grass at places. You could easily loose discs in that.

The course tracked back and forth over the small stream. And they used an interesting bridge consisting of concrete tubes. Although at most spots, there was a lot of erosion from earlier heavier rains.

Back in May, we had wanted to play a tournament here in Kyle. But due to heavy rains, we were told that the course was under water. And I can see why. Most of the course is three or four feet above the level of the river that runs through this park. It certinally cannot withstand heavy rains like Old Settlers Park can.

Here is some poison ivy with some strange growth on the leaves. A plant virus?

And this explains all of the warning signs around here. One partially finished tee box. We used the other tee box. But I have to wonder, surely it would be cheaper to buy another couple bags of cement and some more of that pebbly aggregate and finish this tee box off, than to go around and install signs after the fact?

The creek was small but we did manage to dump a few discs into the water. The water was stagnant and murky. But we were able to find and rescue the discs.

What was strange here was all of the extra discs that were laying around. The person in front of us told us that he had left a couple of discs that he found. I think that there were six extra discs around the course. We each picked one one and left the rest for others.

After we were through, we drove back north to Austin. We did stop off at Cabelas. The mondo 185,000 square foot travel destination. Two levels, aquarium, shooting arcade, fake mountain with trophy animals, restaurant.

John apparently wanted to set up some light-gaming church function rather than playing disc golf… Oh well. Old Settlers park was almost back to normal. The fencing was taken down. Although there were muddy tracks everywhere… which dried to a concrete-like consistency. We’ll see if the buffalo grass recovers from that.

Hole 5 was back in place thankfully. (They should have oriented the number facing the tee). Today, I felt like I was throwing longer than average. Certinally, I would have been in competition with Gravitt had he played.

On hole 10, my first throw landed close to the basket. Sadly, my second shot just hit the basket. So close…

On hole 11b, I encountered another group of players who were going along a different route. When I talked to them, they said that they were playing the “winter course”. Supposedly, you only play on one side of the lake and you play the holes backward. I guess, for example, from the somewhere near the goal of hole 12 to basket of hole 11b.

And of course they watched me throw. Thankfully, I threw my best throw eva there. It went over the trees and landed close to the goal. Close enough to birdie it!

On hole 12, my first throw landed 20 feet past the goal. Which was unexpected. I spent 10 minutes looking for it. On hole 13, my 80′ approach shot hit the goal. On hole 15, it was even worse. My first throw miraculously threw through the big tree and missed hitting it (there are no trees, there are no trees, …). Which was nice. However, I must have spent another 10 minutes trying to find a bright red disc in the middle of a light green bowl. I walked around for a while trying to figure out where in the hell it could have gone. Thankfully, I found it much farther to the left than I thought likely. After that, I skipped holes 16 and 17 and finshing with a par for 18.

Jon was away for the past week in Florida, so when he came back he was raring to go. Of course, John and I went as well. Unfortunately, the neighborhood was celebrating the holiday at the park next to the disc golf. So the road was blocked off.

A fire truck was here. John told me that his kid, Clint, correctly wondered why they call it a fire truck since it doesn’t squirt out fire but water. John replied that it should be called an un-fire truck because its job is to un-fire fires… The English language is just weird at times. Accept it.

Here, the fire truck tests out its hose by watering a tree at the tee off of hole one. Previously it was placed over the park and the firemen were throwing candies at kids. Our tax dollars at work…

And now it un-fires kids. Who gleefuly run under it. If I was up there, I would focus the stream, turn the pressure on full, and push those kids all over the place…

Apparently, yesterday’s activities were too much for someone. He was sleeping it off on a bench.

After we finished the course, we headed over to Bone Daddy’s. It is a Bar-B-Que joint over on Research Blvd. I noticed that there must be a Ford Lightning club meeting or something. Three Lightning trucks parked in a row. Cool!

Their selection of draft beer was not the best. But they did have 32oz mugs which were quite large…