Just an 8 hour drive from Marquette, MI and we arrived to St. Paul/Minneapolis. Caleb and Holly were kind enough to host us for the week. After settling in and unpacking, we headed over to Fran and Leslie's for dinner. We were so excited to see Lyle (Caleb and Holly's son), and Freslie's kids, Emma and the twins Calvin and Josie! Maybe it's the summer weather or the awesome neighborhoods that both Holly and Freslie live in, or just good memories from the past, but I always feel so stress-free and happy to be back in the twin cities during summer time spending time with awesome people.
Patsy and Hudson had a great reunion. While Hud is a step slower these days, Patsy has not lost a bit of energy and immediately showed how pumped she was to get to spend time with her best pal Hud.
The next morning I hopped on a flight to Denver to meet up with Kiran and Johnny Walker to play at Grand Masters Nationals. Kiran and I have been training this past spring to get back into Ultimate shape (relative to our age and opponents). What a great weekend! Kiran and I did our part to help our team achieve our goal of winning a national championship. Along the way, we lost to Chuck's Burnside (Portland) in pool play, but eeked out an ultimate point win against Natalie's Shadows (Bay Area) in the quarterfinals. Crazy to think, I wouldn't be at that tournament almost 25 years after I first started playing if it wasn't for Chuck. Seeing old friends and opponents is a fun way to turn back the hands of time and give you a surreal feeling of timelessness.
Highlights: Dar and Mitch's hospitality all weekend long and staying with the other out-of-town players.
Running and having fun with new frisbee friends!
Time with Kiran
Seeing old friends
National Champs Johnny Walker after our win in the finals against Surly GM.
Cara and the girls picked me up from the airport the next morning with Queen's "We are the Champions!" blasting from CK's speakers, a handmade gold medal (see above), and a surprise confetti shower when I sat down. I love these ladies.
From the airport, we went straight to the Como Zoo with Holly and Lyle and then to the nearby pool for the afternoon.
The next day, Fran hooked us up with some company tickets to the Twin's game. We had great seats in foul ball territory and even some money to spend on hot dogs and snacks for the girls. We lasted through the 7th inning stretch. The girls can confidently say they are not fans of baseball, but they at least have had the cultural experience now.
To say thank you for my weekend ultimate coverage, Caleb and I offered to watch all the kids while the ladies had a night out to watch the US Women's world cup match. The night went smoothly, and it was nice having time to get to know the kids better.
Let the SNIT begin! This year marks the 4th time, we've gathered a group of friends to Leslie's family cabin on Long Lake, WI for a weekend of friendly competitions, Blime (Bud Light Lime) drinking, and overall merriment. 10 adults and 10 kids this year!
One of the highlights of this year's SNIT was how well all the kids got along and played with each other.
In between competitions, we mostly played on various water crafts (SUPs, kayaks, tubes, floaties, Lily Pad, Pontoon, ski boat) and just enjoyed the perfect weather and water.
Everyone boarded the pontoon boat for the traditional bog walk and dark lake swim.
Our final morning of the SNIT was Cara's 41st birthday! She celebrated in the morning with an incredible display of athleticism by immediately popping up on water skis and taking a tour of the lake at 30 mph.
I also took a turn with water skis and actually got up this time, but bailed out after ~7 seconds feeling like I was going WAY TOO FAST!
Team Fran! You know what they say, "history is written by the victors." In this case, I'm hoping this picture will muddy everyone's collective memory about the outcome of this year's SNIT.
Team Fran was trounced, only winning one event. Here is Team Leslie taking their celebratory shotski of Blime. The overall record now stands as a tie with 2 wins for Team Fran and 2 wins for Team Leslie. Guess we'll have to come back again!
Road Warriors! After lunch, we hit the road with the plan of getting as far as we could and possibly driving through the night and making it home in one final push. With school looming on the horizon and feeling surprisingly good after a weekend of celebrating with friends we decided to push on.
It was thankfully an uneventful night, except for a brief scare when Cara was looking for a gas station in the middle of the night after a huge thunderstorm had blown through in front of us. With the warning light on in CK, the gas station we pulled up to was dark and had no electricity so we were forced to push on to the next station about 25 miles away in the middle of nowhere Kansas. It was a tense few minutes there, but we made it before running out of gas and swapped drivers.
The photo above is our crew the next morning having a breakfast at Starbucks just south of Dallas. Just 2 more hours and we'd be home! ~1,200 miles and 22 hours later and we arrived just before noon and started unpacking. The girls slept through the whole night and made the most of our park stops along the way. We can only hope they will continue to be this flexible and tough during future travels.
This was an incredible month exploring new places, living the camper trailer life, and escaping the heat. Let another school year begin!