Editor's Note: Net access isn't always readily available to the Winnicrew, and this Update wasn't able to reach DiscLife HQ until July 21st. Life is hard, whatareyagonna do?

We only had a four hour drive from the Majestic Majestic to the Spamtown Open, so we spent a few days at Cam Rauenhorsts' home in St. Cloud. St. Cloud is also known as Granite City, and the remaining quarry sites have since filled with water and become excellent swimming areas with cliffs to jump off and large flat rocks to sun one's self on. We spent an afternoon at the quarry park and everyone jumped from the tall rocks at least once. We spent a few evenings checking out the town and sampling the local brewery/restaurants.

Friday morning we headed down to Austin, Minnesota for the Spamtown Open. It was a Saturday-only event (B tier). I played well the first round and ended up on the lead card. Al had a rough first round. Dave chewed up all his discs the day before trying to throw over a parking lot and had to make himself a fresh bag of untested drivers and midrange discs. He spent the tournament trying to figure out how the new discs fly.

In the second round Al played better and my luck went out the window. We ended up tied for 5th. Dave never got it together and finished in the bottom half.

Sue and Leslie Herndon were the only two Women players, with Lesli coming out on top but didn't earn enough prize money to even cover her entry fee. What's up with that?

There was a final nine for the top four Open players, but we decided to take off early since none of us were in it and we had an event the next day in Sterling, Illinois. Cameron Todd ended up winning at the Spamtown. Mike (Worm) Young and James Smith tied for 2nd, John Drummond was 4th.

The drive to Sinnissippi was six hours on Winnibago time. I missed an exit along the way and we had to take a side road to get back to the highway. Along the detour I came to a low bridge that was 10' 0" according to the sign. Last year when I hit the bank we had a clearance of 8'10". The air conditioner seemed to add about a foot to our height. Apparently the A/C is taller than I figured… about one inch taller (again). The rear end of the A/C snagged and bent the radiator back a bit, causing some minor cosmetic damage but nothing to get in a twist about. Later I bent a few things back into shape, freeing up some room for the fan to spin. It's still working fine (thankfully) and cooling a sleeping Dave as I type.

We pulled into Sinnissippi at 2:30 am, caught a few hours sleep and went over to see the course. I hadn't played here before. The bug count and humidity were off the scale! The course played well and money had been added by local sponsors, helping to make it a B-tier that we'll happily return to. Two rounds of 24 holes later Al had picked up another victory by one stroke over Cameron Todd. I finished 5th again after a comeback second round. Dave's woes continued and he found himself out of the cash. There were four women at this event but Sue could only manage 3rd as Juliana won and Leslie came in second.

We all found a local campground after the tournament and stayed the night, sharing our space with John Drummond and his truck… or what was left of it. John hit a deer on the way back to the campsite. His truck survived with a shattered but working right front headlight , and a bent fender. We spotted the remains of the deer the next morning…eyyah. This wasn't the first Tour test John has faced, as he'd already been pulled over by a trooper on the trip from Spamtown to Sterling and suffered through a roadside sobriety test and breathalyzer. He hadn't been drinking so it was no problem. America sure is lucky to have such a diligent police force looking out for it.

Next morning we all headed up to Madison for the Mad City Open. We played Highstand on Tuesday, and the Cali-boys pulled in on Wednesday while we were at Elver. Steve Rico and Roger Cansler drove all the way up in Roger's Thunderbird! They followed us all back to Babcock park and we swapped stories of events since the last time we had seen them. Steve had just tied for first at the Ft. Steilacoom Open outside Seattle the previous weekend. Roger was 5th. Barry Schultz was 4th. Geoff Lissaman won the tournament in a playoff.

Right now everyone is drinking coffee and waking up.

I'll see if I can get some guest commentary…

-Todd

 
Roger Cansler writes:

We saw some goofs playing hack at the gazebo by the course, it turned out to be Todd, Al, Dave and Worm. So we went up on the course together and threw many shots. We had an offer to stay at a house but we decided to hang at the campground with the Winnicrew for entertainment value and heaps of rumors.

Kinda sweaty out here yesterday, but not so bad when you're driving at high speeds. Stevie and I are excited to play a new course today. He's still sleeping, getting his beauty rest ya know. Todd learned some new slang yesterday: "Locs" sunglasses.

Later, Jah Chupa

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