Dateline August 25, 2019, Canadian and USGA Senior Women's Amateur Championships
Osoyoos, British Columbia. We had a pleasant drive from Will and Cathy's place on Whidbey Island, back over Deception Pass and down to the main highway, Interstate 5. There were a few ways to reach Osoyoos, and we chose the route that crosses the Canadian border at Abbotsford, about fifty miles east of Vancouver. The Trans-Canada Highway 1 took us as far as Hope, and from there Highway 3 carried us down into the Okanagan Valley and on to Osoyoos, where Janice was playing in the Canadian Senior Women's Amateur. We arrived early enough for her practice round and to check into the RV resort we had booked. The resort sat right on a lake, so Janice played golf and John read down at the beach. A good afternoon for both of us.
The Canadian Senior Amateur.
Sunday, Janice had a half-past-one tee time for her first round on the Park Meadows course. The Osoyoos Golf Club is a public club with two courses, so John drew a ten-past-one time on the Desert Course and went off to play a round of his own. He fell in with three gentlemen and had a fine time; the photo of the four of them is mostly there to prove that someone other than Janice will play with John.
John cannot resist a picture of a deer, and there were plenty of them around the course.
The vistas from up on the Desert Course were something, the lake and the mountains stacked up behind.
Tournament play. Janice was paired with Patty Moore from Pinehurst, someone she has played with a number of times in USGA and regional events. She did not play quite as well as she wanted, but she enjoyed every hole.
Monday brought her second round, and she shot a fine 79. Then came a big decision. There was a cut to the low 70 players and she made it; but the ankle she had hurt was badly swollen, and we needed to be in Cedar Rapids by Friday at the latest, a twenty-seven-hour drive away. Rather than wear herself out before the USGA event even began on Saturday, and to give the ankle a rest, she gave up her place, having earned it, to a competitor who had not made the cut. It let us leave Monday instead of Tuesday and make the long haul with a plan to arrive Wednesday evening, a far more relaxed way to come at Cedar Rapids.
Janice had entered the Canadian event figuring she would not beat the fifty-year-old kids for the title anyway, so the Chicago qualifier she had lined up surely would not collide with it. You know the old line about the best-laid plans.
The drive to Cedar Rapids.
We left Osoyoos heading east on Highway 3, and the views back over the town and its lake were stunning. About an hour on, we crossed back into the United States at the Midway, British Columbia, and Ferry, Washington, crossing, pretty country on both sides of the line. It felt like a mountain trip through Colville and then down into farmland made rich and green by irrigation, water drawn from Lake Roosevelt exactly as planned when the great dams of the Columbia were built. We spent the night back at the Northern Quest RV Resort, owned by the Kalispel, to rest up before the drive in earnest.
We hit the road around half past six and headed east through Idaho, climbing one mountain after another and watching the vistas open up as we crossed into Montana. Past Butte, where the year before we had stopped at Evel Knievel's gravesite and of course had to write about it, we climbed up toward Homestake Pass.
The Continental Divide. On August 20 we topped the Continental Divide at Homestake Pass, 6,820 feet up, on Interstate 90 just past Butte. It was twenty-five minutes past noon, and as far as we were concerned it was all downhill from there. In the mountains the roads follow the rivers, so the drive is one long run of evergreen slopes and streams; now we would follow the water down toward the Mississippi.
Lunch is worth a mention. Some years back we had stopped at the Wheat Montana Bakery and Deli, where Interstate 90 meets US 287 at Three Forks, between Bozeman and Butte. Someone had told us the cinnamon buns were fantastic, so we picked up a few along with some scones for the next morning and ordered a couple of sandwiches to go. The service is not quick, but the food is worth the wait, a good stop whichever way you are headed on 90. Three Forks is also the exit for the Lewis and Clark Caverns we wrote about.
We carried on through Montana, waving out the window at John and Nancy Bohlinger as we passed Billings; they must have missed the wave. After Billings we were routed onto US 212, a shorter line to Rapid City than staying on 90. Good thing we had filled the tank, because we did not see a gas station until we were a few miles out of Rapid City a couple of hours later. We had a quiet night in the Cabela's lot, which, like a lot of the Bass Pro and Cabela's stores, gives travelers a place to park and even a dumping station.
On Interstate 90 you have to look hard for something to see. About sixty miles out of Rapid City is Wall, South Dakota, home of Wall Drug. Talk about a one-company town; it is a quick drive down a main street of shops that are either part of Wall Drug or there because of it. Wall Drug got its start in 1931 by luring travelers in with free ice water, and it still does, drawing more than two million visitors a year just passing through. It reminds us of South of the Border, the one you pass crossing from North Carolina into South Carolina on Interstate 95, except that Wall is humming and South of the Border is running on fumes. No fresh burritos there.
After that it was a few fields of sunflowers, a great deal of roadside hay, and then Iowa corn. We rolled into Cedar Rapids about half past six. Two and a half days on the road; hence "THE DRIVE."
The USGA Senior Women's Amateur, Cedar Rapids.
Janice had a practice round the next afternoon with her Florida friends Lin Culver and Patsy Ehraet. John took the RV over to Iowa City to chase down a warning light, an SRS message that had to do with the airbags. The good news was that it came down to a switch in a seatbelt; while he was at it, with the engine batteries at least four years old, he had them replaced.
The next morning Janice had another practice round, so John drove over to the Gardner Golf Course to pick up a game; it sits in the same Squaw Creek Park where we had the RV parked for the week. We both had a good day on the course, then ran the usual errands, laundry, a battery to be tested, and, more to the point, a bottle of rum. The story of those house batteries is a long one, but worth telling, and it comes a little further down.
Off to the player dinner at Cedar Rapids Country Club. It was a fine evening, and the speaker, last year's champion, could not have been better.
Day one of the championship, Janice's tee time was a quarter past one, with John on the bag. The first nine holes were a struggle, then her game came together, until the putter decided to quit on her. It added up to a high number for the day, which made the second day about enjoying the experience, since making the cut was unlikely. She still meant to give it her best.
The second day she teed off at half past eight and played better than the day before, though not enough to reach the cut of 64. Next year she will try to qualify again.
In USGA stroke play you keep the same group for both days, and John was lucky enough to walk along with Sherry Wright and her caddie Elizabeth, out from California. Sherry played the best round we have seen in a senior amateur, a 69, three under par; holy cow. We talked a good while afterward, and it turns out she is fifty-two and only took up golf nine years ago, a Cinderella story if ever there was one. She led after the first round; the second day was tougher, sleep being hard to come by with all the excitement, but her 83 was plenty to carry her into match play on Monday.
The house batteries. We promised a long story about our house batteries, and here it is, because it says something good about people. The house batteries are one of the most important things on an RV. When you are not plugged into shore power they run very nearly everything, the fan, the lights, all the small comforts that keep a rig from turning into a very expensive tent. Ours had stopped holding a charge.
We had bought them the summer before from Dennis Dillon RV in Boise. Getting service on the road is hard; most shops are booked a month out, all over the country. But plenty of dealers will go out of their way for travelers passing through, knowing the kindness tends to come back around. Bob Canady in the Dillon parts department had already pulled us out of more than one jam, the batteries and a new refrigerator among them. So when we had the electrical system checked in Osoyoos and learned the new batteries were the trouble, our first call was to Dillon. Bob got hold of Crown Battery and put us onto Matt Ingram, their regional man for Iowa. Matt took it from there, rounded up two new batteries in the Cedar Rapids area, met us at the county park where we were staying, and swapped out the faulty ones himself. They worked perfectly, and we were back on the road. Two companies, a long way from home, working their tails off for a couple of travelers; we will not forget it.
With both championships behind us and the batteries finally holding, we pointed the RV east again. There was more road still to come, and more of the country to see, before we turned for home.
