All smiles in Gold Canyon

Whoa! we’re not used to this! The alarm woke me up this morning — seven o’clock — hurry, hurry, hurry. We’ve got dentist appointments today. Gotta be at the dentist by 8.

We cashed in on the “$39 New Patient Special” today. Dental checkup, including X-rays and cleaning. Right here in Gold Canyon. In fact, the dentist’s offices look out over the No.4 green at Mountain Brook Golf Course. So I watched the regular mens league guys (with their own private pimped-up golf carts — that’s how I knew they were regulars) putt while I waited for the bad news from the dentist. More caps, more fillings for Sue. Well, SOMEONE has to pay for all those photography, hunting, and fishing trips to Northern Manitoba that are pictured on all the walls in the office! In fact, Mr Dentist spent more time showing me maps and photos from his trip to the Northwest Territories on his big Samsung phone than he did looking at my crooked teeth.

Rudy reading his big bookAfter all the hubbub and rushing to get TO the dentist, we had a LONG morning to ourselves. Time to sit on that nice patio furniture and read a bit. And then lunch, also on the patio. More reading. Cloudy but quite warm here today. Sue kept warning that it would be too hot to walk nine holes on the golf course this afternoon. I kept reassuring her that we’d be okay.

At 3:30 we headed back to Mountain Brook. We checked in, and went to putt for a while until we were called to the tee. Kaboom! I blasted my first shot 30 yards past the 150 marker. Kaboom! Pitching wedge to within a few feet of the pin. Settled for a par. (Don’t worry, I won’t describe EVERY shot I took.)

We had to wait for the groups ahead of us for a long time at each hole — too long. So after Sue parred the second hole and the line-up at Hole 3 looked too long for a couple of golfers eager to play through, I called the pro shop. I explained to Kurt that there was no one on the eighth green and no one on the ninth hole — could we jump to number nine? “Have at ‘er,” he says. Nice.

Sue on the 16th greenWe both played well. From the ninth green we wheeled our pull carts across the road to the tenth tees. No one ahead, no one behind us. A beautiful afternoon for golf. We finally caught up with a group on the 14th hole. But we managed to finish before 6:30 — still plenty of light to see the ball — well, the way I was blasting my drives I could only guess at the last 100 yards of ball flight, but since they were all going long and straight… (Insert “Eigenlob stinkt” comment from my mom and dad here.)

How do you top something like that? Well, you barbecue hotdogs! After supper I watched the CBC National while Sue cleaned up the kitchen. Then we watched some more Netflix documentaries. First, “The Overnighters”, a long and depressing story of a Lutheran pastor who helps provide shelter to the hundreds (thousands?) of drifters who come to Williston, in western North Dakota, looking for work in the oil boom. Sue and I had driven through this area a couple of years ago on our way back from Palm Desert.

I skimmed through a couple of scenes from that Muscle Shoals movie for Sue — she’d not watched it yet. So that was at least a little uplifting. We started watching another documentary about a musician, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, but put that on pause when we couldn’t keep our eyes open anymore, around midnight. We’ll continue tomorrow.