Jul 31, 2010

We apparently took the high speed tunnel from I, Robot to places farther south in PA. After packing up the tent and getting breakfast at Wawa we went down near Allentown for our next set of courses.

This picture may look somewhat familiar because it's at Jordan Creek which, again, I have played in the snow. Much easier without the snow but I still remembered much of the course.

This uphill shot was not so treacherous this time and I just missed a birdie.

Last time we quit around hole 14 because it was getting dark and hard to find things, but this time we made it to the end. Hole 18 shoots straight down and across water, turning right immediately. My first shot wasn't great, but on the mulligan I nailed the turn.

Before getting to the basket you have to cross another stream. This time I wasn't as lucky and my disc landed right off the bank so I got to putt from the water.

Off to new courses! Next up was South Mountain, a little bit north of Allentown. It lived up to the mountain in its name. The first several holes were steep and rocky yet still fun.

It had a lot of well-constructed holes and the course was kept up nicely. While we were there, people from the local club were putting in new concrete tee pads to replace old ones I assume. They even helped us find a disc that we were ready to give up on. Very friendly people there.

The course was challenging and had a good number of shots that were just fun so I would have to give it a good rating and come back one day.

Our final course was a little hard to find because there is more than one park called Unami Creek Park it seems. We did find it on our second attempt, however, and it was fun right away. Some of the holes are quite long and most of them shoot through the woods or down large hills. Every hole was a little challenging in its own way. They were all great and I wish there were more.

There were flyers in the bathroom about the "dangers of disc golf" because they plan to open the course up to an 18-hole since it's only 9 at the moment. It lists things such as "danger of being struck by a disc," "destroying nature," and "disturbing hikers and park goers." First, the holes run through parts of the woods in which there are no trails except the fairways so no danger of getting hit or disturbing hikers. Second, most disc golfers are very eco-friendly and strive to keep the course looking nice without harming nature in any way. So, another 9 holes, please!

The end of the disc golf weekend had come and we went back to Joanna's to eat. I grilled up some black bean burgers and chomped them while watching Mythbusters. We attempted to take some sunset photos but couldn't find anywhere to shoot. I was so tired at this point I needed a nap so I slept for a couple hours.

When I got up it was too late to do anything but I was refreshed so I went out and took some photos of the prison in Rahway because I think it looks awesome and a little scary at night. I want to take better photos but I'll have to be more prepared next time.

I hopped on the Turnpike after shooting and headed home. It was a nice drive back, though there was more traffic than I expected. I guess it was a Saturday night. When I got home, I could not fall asleep so I ended up watching Man vs. Wild for a few hours until dawn when I finally started to drift off.

Dec 5, 2009

In the morning, Joanna and I headed up the Turnpike to her house in Avenel. We were going to go into New York but it was raining and didn't seem to be getting any better so we looked for something else to do.

We drove west, where the rain turned into snow, to Allentown, eventually finding Jordan Creek disc golf course after stopping at a church craft show to use the bathroom and ended up buying a little thing of pumpkin spice jam. It was really good.

The course looked pretty nice in the snow. The snow makes everything look better. It was actually pretty muddy so it's a good thing the scenery made up for it.

There were some good holes; Joanna was doing really well throwing with her gloves on.

I had no gloves and our new disc golf towel was only doing so much to make the discs less slippery in my hand. I lost one disc to the creek. Shouldn't have taken that mulligan...

The layout of the course was really nice, there are bridges all over to get over the creek. It looked nice but it would definitely be nice on a dry day.

For some reason, I had to try this hole, which would definitely be really fun on a day I can actually get a grip on my disc but maybe not so much on a day like this. I tried it anyway and, as you probably guessed, I threw my disc right into the water. Well.. not right in, but it definitely didn't get very close to the other side. That's two.

The best was yet to come as there was a really great uphill hole shortly after. The snow was getting heavier and it was getting pretty dark by hole 14 though so we called it a day. I ended by missing an easy putt and Joanna ended by nailing one from a considerable distance.

It was so cold after the game. We were soaked and the car takes forever to warm up. We went to an Applebee's that wasn't too far away and changed our clothes. It felt much better. We ordered veggie burgers. They messed mine up twice, once adding bacon and the next time giving me a different burger altogether. The second one was good though, especially since it was free.

We drove back to Jersey from there, as the snow slowly turned back to rain by the time we were in Philly. We dried our shoes and socks on the ride home and followed through with our earlier plan to go bowling. We bowled three games and I did much better on the first than I expected to.

I only won one of the games, which is more than I expected to win so I'm cool with that. I was pretty happy with my scores since it was fairly consistent.

We hung out for a while after the game, watching Adult Swim and got brownies from Rowan After Hours. The usual. Healthy midnight snacks and educational tv.