Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

The Stoneridge Ladies, all 16 of us, traveled down to Lewiston this past weekend to participate in the 2010 Northern Region Golf Association Tournament South. It's a 2-day event, which we willingly turn into 3. Stoneridge Pal and team captain Debbie organized the group, making sure everyone had a ride and a room.
Last year my Stoneridge Bunch was 4 to a room, this year we all decided we needed more space so decided to just double up.
I joined Stoneridge Pals Patty, Terry & Carol for the 3 hour drive down. Patty drove, I navigated and Terry & Carol made sure both of us did our jobs properly. It was a quick trip made eventful with a stop at A&W for happy hour. Who can pass up 1/2 price root beer floats?
Within our group we had two Mother-Daughter Teams with us. Diane and Rachea with Linda and her 80 year old Mom Lucy. 
After we checked in we needed to make a stop at a local grocery store for appetizers needed for the get together with the rest of our team after volunteering Betty & Sherry's room to be party central.
By 6pm drinks have been poured and plates are piled with a variety of tasty treats. Having only a dresser and desk in the room along with 2 queen beds and being the ingenious gals we are the ironing board was set up to hold the platters. We all learned one very important fact... Howard Johnson's has very sturdy beds.

Wait! Where's Betty?

Following our little party, the few gals that arrived early to play a practice round gave the rest of us an update on the course. It seemed there was one central theme to everyone's advice: "Stay on the fairways!". The roughs were thick and very hard to get out of. There isn't a flat lie ANYWHERE! The greens all slope and are incredibly hard to read. After this update some of the gals were ready to pack up and head home, but were all good and didn't party to hard. Some left to grab a bite to eat, and we were all in our own rooms and settling in by 9pm. 

Monday was our first tournament day at Lewiston Golf Club. Tee time was 8:30am and luckily the weather couldn't have been better. It's been so rainy here at Stoneridge lately it was such a pleasure to be in the sun. All but 2 of us played in threesomes or foursomes with ladies from the 7 other clubs. The game is individual best ball with a team best ball to create comradeship within each foursome. 

 Mother/Daughter Team Lucy & Linda

 Our Captain, Debbie collecting the score cards

After my 3rd hole I understood what the gals were trying to explain to us the night before. Unfortunately my attempt to "Stay in the fairways" didn't hold up. As I hacked my way through the rough, out of bunkers, from under trees and attempting to navigate my ball into the cup I came to the realization that I would probably NOT be helping my team out in the scoring. To my surprise, it seems that the field was sharing my fate.After golf we all headed to town for an early dinner at Anthony's where we celebrated our best finish ever.

These were the winners from our group after the round in Lewiston:

Individual Winners

Rachea - Tied 2nd Place Net, 2nd Flight (75) $20.25

Kathy - 2nd Place Net, 3rd Flight (78) $23.00

Stoneridge Gal - Tied 2nd Place Gross, 4th Flight (107) $17.50

Patty - Tied 2nd Place Net, 4th Flight (79) $20.25

Carol - 2nd Place Net, 5th Flight (80) $23.00

Terry - Tied 4th Place Net, 5th Flight (84) $6.00

Team Best Ball - $15.00 Each

Kathy, Rachea, Stoneridge Gal

After the 1st day...Stoneridge's Overall

Team Standing - 4th Place!

Clarkston Country Club was the site for our 2nd day of the tournament. We died and went to heaven! It was flat. Now don't get me wrong, the course's slope/rating was higher than Lewiston. It is flat, but it was longer, tree lined and had water. Overall, the entire field improved.

Even though we wore our red, we weren't able to move up in the overall standings. We did have winners!

Individual Winners
Sherry - 1st Place Gross, 1st Flight (92) $35.00

Rachea - 1st Place Net, 2nd Flight (69) $35.00

Kathy - 2nd Place Net, 2nd Flight (70) $23.00

Patty - Tied 2nd Place Gross, 4th Flight (104) $20.25

Carol - 1st Place Net, 4th Flight (71) $35.00

Betty - 2nd Place Net, 4th Flight (74) $23.00

Julie - 3rd Place Net, 4th Flight (75) $17.50

Kathy - Tied 4th Place Net, 4th Flight (76) $2.50

Team Best Ball - $15 each

Kathy, Rachea

We all had a great time,  the Stoneridge team did great and I can't wait to see what happens when the NRGA moves up to our neck of the woods.

Ice Queens!

Saturday, April 10th was the date of the 1st tournament of the season here at StoneRidge. StoneRidge Guy and I decided to play. Our partners were friends and neighbors Dennis & Carol. After a week of crazy weather, we had everything rain, hail and snow, Saturday was supposed to be the turning point. The temperature was supposed to be in the lower 50's, much improved from the 40's, and the wind and rain was supposed to have moved on.

We arrived at the course at around 9:30am with the sun shining a blue sky and the best part... no wind! That didn't last long. By quarter to 10 the wind started up again and brought with it C*O*L*D!!!

There were 24 teams for the men and a whopping 2 teams for the ladies. I think the weather scared everyone off because the field was definitely less that last year. After a 30 minute frost delay the teams set off to their respective holes to begin.

Yes, it was cold. Yes, it was windy. But playing with the 3 ladies in my foursome made it all bearable and we all had a great time.

Enjoy the following short slide show. (don't forget to pause the "MyTunes" on the sidebar).

A list of the winners is at the end of this post.

 

Ladies Winners:

1st Mary Bradford & Carol Sadeckas   9.2   87/77.9

2nd Dorothy Tompkins & Terry Richter   8.1   87/78.9

As you can see we were closely matched.

Men's Low Gross:

1st Mac Ray & Bam Cousins   3.6   63/59.4

2nd Don Kari & Jared Blair   1.3   67/65.7 

3rd tom Shanholtzer & Jim Martin   2.3   69/66.7

4th Ron Cluster & Don Martindale   2.7   70/67.3

Men's Low Net: 

1st Dick Penland & Steve Johnson   4.1   67/62.9

2nd Aaron Sexton & Shawn Stanford   4.0   70/66

3rd Steve Bradford & Dennis Saylor   4.4   71/66.6

4th Dan Blomgren & Boyd Bentley   3.2   71/67.8

KP's:

#2 Dorothy Tompkins

#8 Shawn Stanford

#13 Gabe Richter

#15 Jared Blair

#17 Jim Sattleen

Longest Drive Men: J. Blair

Longest Drive Ladies: Carol Sadeckas

   

In Memoriam

The video you are about to see has been 18 months in the making. Not so much because of any difficulty, but it just kept getting put on the back burner. I figured I'd get to it later. Then as I worked on the project it kept morphing into what it is today.

I first heard about our topic at one of our Mammas on a Mission meetings. I happened to look out the back door at Stoneridge neighbor Gail's home, where the meeting was being held. What I thought were statues turned out to be live geese. She hooked me by telling me that her husband taught the female to fly. I decided right then that I would come back to get the whole story.

Gail kindly told me about Goosey Goose and Mr. Fella and supplied me with most of the photos. I wanted Gail and her husband Bob to see the final product and give it their blessing. Unfortunately over the course of these 18 months Bob had been diagnosed with cancer and has since succumbed to it's treatment. Learning of his passing motivated me to finally finish it.

(please excuse my raspy voice and a few stumbles,
and make sure to pause the "My tunes" on the sidebar.)

As told to me by Gail, I give you "Goosey Goose and Man who Taught Her To Fly"

'Til Next Time...

Spring Has Sprung!

Today was a picture perfect here at StoneRidge. It was warm enough for short sleeve shirts and shorts. The sun was bright and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. There couldn't have been a better way to usher in the Spring.
Can you name 10 things that comes to mind?

Spring Cleaning

Spring Board

Spring Training

Spring flowers

Spring Fling!

Spring Break

A warm sunny day on the course

Hikes with the dog

Friends Returning Home

Dinners at the Grill

There is only one thing that could have made this day any better...
If you all could be here to enjoy it with me.

What You Don't Know About G.O.L.F.

Now Let's Get This Straight!

In my quest to come up with a clever name for our Ladies Golf Tournament I came upon a few websites dedicated to the etymology of golf terms. The one fact most surprising was where golf got it's name. It's not what you think...read and learn. (an excerpt from The Etymology of Golf Terms)


"Golf: First off, let's get one misconception out of the way from the very start. Golf does not, and has never been an acronym for 'Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden' even though some golf committees would like it that way!One theory is that the term golf is derived from the medieval Dutch word "kolve" meaning "club". From there, we have Scottish dialect to thank for its transformation into "golve". Another theory is that the origins of the word golf are derived from the Scottish "goulf" - a verb which meant "to strike or cuff", given the game involves a lot of striking the ball.
Either way, by the 1500s, the term "golf" had developed from these routes.

Par: Contrary to popular belief, the term "par" did not originate on the golf course. It entered golf terminology in the 19th Century, and meant exactly the same thing that it did (and does) outside of golf: average, standard, ordinary.
Bogey: Perhaps one of the most bizarre terms in the golfing lexicon, this is a word that actually evolved right here in England. It relates to the Bogey Man who in the 19th Century song said "I'm the Bogey Man, catch me if you can". According to the USGA, golfers at the time pursued the Bogey Man on the golf course - as in they were trying to 'catch' the perfect score. This led to the term 'bogey score' meaning the perfect game.
But now the term bogey denotes one over par, rather than the perfect score, so how did that happen? It came about with the split between professional and amateur golf - from both words being initially interchangeable, par went on to become the term for an average professional score, while bogey became the term for a total that amateur golfers could be pleased with.
Birdies and Eagles: The term 'birdie' is quite easy to explain - if you have knowledge of 19th Century American slang words! In that era, the word "bird" was a way of describing something particularly good - much in the way 'cool' was (and is) used more recently. Simply, a shot under par was 'bird', and this eventually transformed into 'birdie', which was in worldwide use by 1910.
From there, "Eagle" was to follow, simply sticking to the ornithological theme. "Albatross" was a later addition to the golfing vernacular.
Mulligan: Unfortunately, there's no straight answer to how the term Mulligan became a golfing term for retaking a shot. A number of theories have emerged:
The first is simply that it was named after someone called Mulligan who took a 'correction shot', and had the do-over named after him.
A more interesting theory is that the term is actually an ethnic slur against Irish-Americans (Mulligan being a common Irish name) trying to join top class golf clubs, as they were often regarded as poor golfers.
A final suggestion is that the term is derived from old saloons who would keep a free bottle of drink at the bar for customers to take shots from. Allegedly this bottle was called a 'mulligan', and it's possible that this term took on a similar meaning as a 'freebie' in golf.
Fore: The only thing that can be said with any certainty about the origin of this golf word is that it does derive from the fact that 'fore' means 'ahead' (like a ship's fore and aft) - and it remains to this day a warning to those ahead of you on the course.
There are two popular theories as to the specifics of the term's usage on the golf course: The first is that the term has military routes. At the time golf was properly taking off in Britain, infantry troops would advance in formation while artillery was fired from behind. When the artillery fired, there would be a shout of "beware before", which would tell infantrymen to drop to the floor to avoid the shells above. It's entirely possible that this advice applied to the golf course - with shells being replaced by the less dangerous golf ball!
The second is that it came from the term "forecaddie" - a person who accompanied groups around golf courses. The idea behind this is that an errant ball would be accompanied by shouting out "forecaddie" which would later be abbreviated to 'fore', just like the other half has been shortened to 'caddie'."

What was the world's first golf book?

It took about 200 years from the first recorded playing of golf in the late 1440s until the first book on golf was published.

Originally written as diary entries by medical student, Thomas Kincaid, on the subject of how golf clubs were made the world's first golf book was published in 1687 title 'Thoughts on Golve'.

More sites to check out:

Origin and Meaning of Golf Words and Terms
About.com
Wikipedia
A History of Golf since 1497 part I
Chapter II: The Origin of Golf

See you on the links!

Wish You Were Here!

This is my new alarm clock. It was a pleasure waking to this view compared to the morning fog we've had the past few days.

We had a small group last week at coffee without a lot of new business but with some updates of neighbors. Bob Weaver is back home. Unfortunately, he'll need to start rehab again as he is unable to walk. The good news is that his feeding tube has been removed. Gail is busy taking him to doctor appointments and caring for him at home. So if you're on your way to the market, remember to give her a call to see if you can pick something up and save her a trip to the store.

A recent Facebook status from Ginger: "We are home!!!! Jim finished his chemo yesterday and is doing good, tired but hanging in there."

For those of you still here, the Facebook class has been rescheduled for March 3, 2pm and the Grill. Don't worry, I'll make sure to have another one for those of you who can't be here for this one.

The monthly forum meeting, usually on the 3rd Thursday of the month, will be held next week for March only. So make sure to mark your calendars March 11th, 10am at the Grill during our coffee social.

All of you should have received the StoneRidge Newsletter, so I'll let you read the rest of it there since I don't have any pictures. If you are seeing this and did NOT receive the email make sure to let me know so I can get you on the list.

As you can see we are in for a great week of weather.






The carts are out and there were quite a few golfers out there yesterday.


I drove around the compound to see if there was anything new cropping up.

There's still ice on most of Sans Souci

Until you get to the walking bridge. From there it's at least 200 yards til you hit ice.

So I took advantage of it. Maggie loves to swim and fetch sticks. An I love it because it tires her out!

No new construction going on right now. However, there are more people around. Mostly golfers here taking advantage of the discounted rates. I too will take advantage of this great weather and hit the links today. What are your plans?

'Til next time...

Wishful Thinking

There are trees in my laundry room.

The weather has been so warm lately, we can't help but think that spring has sprung. Yet, I hesitate to say it out loud in fear that I may jinx it. We came home from a Costco run with 2 dwarf fruit trees and Stoneridge Guy was anxious to get them planted. After letting them acclimate for a couple of days outside he started digging. Unfortunately, the ground is still too frozen to dig deep enough for planting. Even though our highs are in the upper 40's, this morning it was only 16*.

StoneRidge Guy has finished getting our condo in the Fairway Meadows ready to rent. With that chore completed, he has started the trim upstairs. When that's done it will be time to carpet.

Now that I have taken over the temporary duties of the StoneRidge Newsletter, I thought that I would post a corresponding story on same day. That way those of you that have high speed internet can see pictures. So here goes...

The course is open!

Troy is back as assistant pro and will be joined by Josh Gold who starts on March 15th. Josh is from Montana and also worked at the Villa de Paz Golf Course in Phoenix. The pro shop is hoping they can play a larger role in the Men and Ladies leagues, helping any way they can. Troy sent out the preliminary tournament schedule and if you didn't get the email you can see it on the StoneRidge website. Click on the blue "StoneRidge" and it will direct you there. Make sure to check out the "Member" area and specifically the directory to be sure that all of the information is up to date.

The course is open to the public even though it's walking only, but only until March 1st. The carts will come out and so will more golfers. StoneRidge Guy, Mac and Bam play almost daily. I join them about twice a week. That will increase as the weather warms up. As it is, by 3pm you have to start stripping off jackets because it feels so warm in the sun.

The Grill

We have a new Grill manager. Ray Dilcox was introduced to everyone last Thursday. He was the owner of the Priest River Inn. Many of you will remember the Italian restaurant on Main St. in Priest River. He explained his decision to close the Inn and how fortunate he feels that this opportunity was available. He is scheduled to be working full time as of March 1st with the Grill scheduled to open with a limited menu and hours on April 1st. His first act was to tear up the old menu. He plans to add more variety and quality along with some of his "best sellers" from past restaurants and weekly specials.

He gave me a sneak peak at the new menu lunch and dinner menu. All I have to say is that I'm ready to try all of them. From my short conversation with him I feel he understands our needs and is working hard to make The Grill a place where we want to frequent.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

The view from our deck

Lake San Souci has been serenading all of us that live on her shores. Her moans, groans and burps are so loud they can be heard inside the house. I tried to take a movie so you could hear it for yourself. Of course, she was quiet when as I went down to take it. I'll keep trying

The ice is still thick enough to walk on once you get past the 12-60" of thin ice along the edge of the lake. I threw a branch out and Maggie went out and brought it back. What can I say, she's obsessed.

The 16th Fairway

The Motor Coach's dog park got some trees.

Someone's going to get a big storage shed.

From the sounds of it, all of you that headed south for the winter got all of our weather. Rain in the desert and plenty of snow in the mid west and the east coast. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all of those ground hogs that didn't see their shadows on Feb. 2nd were right and we won't have 6 more weeks of winter.

'Til next time...

Want some Cheese with that Whine?

It appears that our dear Stoneridge Pal Billy has gotten his nose tweaked. He feels he wasn't given as much attention as our other friends. "They all got pictures on the blog..." He didn't. Boo Hoo, Wahh, wahh, wahh!

Consider this my apology.
Don't forget to pause the "Mytunes" on the sidebar.

A funny town called Quartzsite

The day after the golf tournament in Phoenix, StoneRidge Pals and our hosts Patty & Jim were moving back to Quartzsite, AZ. If you aren't into RV'ing you probably have never heard of it.

"Quartzsite is west of Phoenix at the junction of Interstate 10 and US 95, near the Colorado River. The community has a Sonoran Desert setting. The nearby Kofa, New Water and Plomosa Mountains provide topographic relief while the Colorado River lies only 17 miles to the west. Quartzsite was established in 1867 on the site of old Fort Tyson, a privately built structure constructed in 1856 by Charles Tyson for protection against Indian raids. Named Quartzsite because quartz was occasionally found in the area, the name evolved to Quartzsite through an error in spelling. The Town is currently is 130 sq. miles."

Most of the time this small town is just that...small. But come here in January and February and it's a sea of RV's, trailers and campers as far as you can see. All here to see the largest swap meet in the world. Several StoneRidge motor coach residents stay here in the winter, this is where we came to spend 2 more days.

They are renting the lot from Sandi and Gordon which is in a neighborhood called Rainbow Acres. Once we got set up here they gave us a tour of the town. There isn't much left to see since most of the vendors have moved on along with the RV's. A rainstorm was moving through town, so we decided to just head back and play cards.

The next day brought sunny skies so we headed out to the desert and Kofa's Palm Canyon Trail. Jim had always wanted to hike so off we went. 18 miles south of Quartzsite is the road that takes you to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and the Palm Canyon Trail.

Here you see us at the base of the trail. It's a short hike up to find the elusive palms. To be specific, the trees are California Fan Palms. They are not fruit bearing and are thought to be descendents of palms growing in this region during the last periods of North American glaciation.





The palms are able to survive in the narrow side canyons where direct sunshine is limited but some moisture is available.
We managed to time our arrival perfectly as the suns rays crossed into the canyon where we could see the palms.
Then it was back to Quartzite where we stopped to see some of the vendors and to wet our whistles at Beer Bellys.



Back at the coach we passed the rest of the day playing a twist on horse shoes.

The next morning we left our friends for home. After 2 days of driving, we arrived back at StoneRidge. We went from 80 degrees to 40, but not a lick of snow on the ground. While we were gone the warm temps at home melted what little snow remained on the ground. Even the snow belt between Spirit Lake and Rathdrum is clear of snow.

The course is now officially open and Stoneridge Guy and golf Pal Mac play every chance they get. We all wonder, will this mild weather hold through until spring has sprung or will winter surprise us with a fresh blanket of snow?