A NEW SPIN TO OUR TRAVEL LIFE

Trying new things is one of the fun aspects of RV travel. Often, when we stop near a town to camp, we don't have any agenda except to wander and get the feel of the place. Adding disc golf into our repertoire of activities, opens another window into a town's psyche.

Lynn putting

Disc golf is a game where you throw a disc (fancy Frisbee) on a rustic version of a golf course and try and sink your disc into an elevated steel basket. There are rules and specialized techniques, but we're not ready to care about them yet. We're still trying to get the hang of getting the disc anywhere close to the target--worry enough for now. Just like in real golf, each hole has a suggested par, the number of tosses it should take to get from the tee to the basket; suggested is the key term.

Kristy using her mid range disc

Here's how we got started. First we bought a three pack of cheap discs at a local sporting goods store. Included in the three pack is a driver, a midrange disc, and a putter. Choosing bright colors to make it easier to locate discs gone wild is a good idea.

In Aberdeen, our online search leads us to a sweet 9-hole course in an old part of town. We park, grab our colorful discs, and head for the first tee. Finding the first tee proves challenging, but after wandering around most of the park and asking two kids, a person eating lunch on a bench, and a dog-walker if they've seen tee #1, we follow vague directions to the far corner of the park and find the tee off pad. Already we can see that disc golf is a great way to meet people.

Annette, Lynn and Kristy stand on tee pad #1 and look 352 feet out and spot the metal basket--this one has a bright yellow rim that makes it seem deceptively close. How hard can this be? Annette steps up and flings the disc. It drives itself hard into the ground and rolls listlessly into a bush. Kristy sends hers flying up, and up, deep into the branches of the only tree on the fairway. Undaunted, Lynn steps up and flips her disc hard and low, smack into the back of Kristy's head. It (the disc, not Kristy's head) bounces, rolls, and lands 10 feet in front of the tee pad. We scatter to retrieve our discs and proceed down the course.

Somewhere around tee 4, Shug, who's on leash and has been yawning and rolling her eyes, makes a break for it and races to retrieve Annette's driver which is rolling toward a god-forsaken, thorny bush on the edge of the course. Zig-zagging while we chase her screaming nnooooooo!!!, she swoops up the disc in her grinning white teeth and tears off across the field. Eventually, after romping through half the park, Shug gives up the disc which now bears her distinctive piercings.

Occasionally, we throw a disc straight and there's glib talk about how we're getting the hang of the game. But, for the most part, we throw left or we throw right, and end up searching through brush or digging our discs out of trees and bushes. On one noteworthy throw, Annette sends the disc spinning high into the air where it catches a gust of wind and arcs back behind the tee pad for a loss of 2 feet. We've become overly familiar with the phrase, "I've been robbed, " as a putter clangs into the basket chains and bounces guiltily onto the ground. Most holes are a par 3, we usually make it in about 6, and officially stop counting at 8.

Disc golf offers us a chance to get out and explore local parks while getting a little exercise and a lot of laughs.