Fri 7/6/12 - Disc Golfing in Portland

The view from my napping bench.

Yesterday I spent the whole day in Portland.  My friends live in the suburb, Tigard.  It is just south of Portland.  I took the bus in the city at 9:00 am.  My plan was to disc golf and explore the city alone.

I played at a Pier Park in Portland.  Oregon reminds me a lot of Minnesota, except the trees are bigger, the hills are bigger, and there is are mountains, volcanoes, and oceans all within an hour of Portland.  It is pretty sweet. Pier Park was an awesome course.  It is big enough, and every hole had a lane to throw through.

I met a couple of guys from Lacrosse, WI.  I played with them from about half the course on to the end.  They invited me to play another course later in the day.  I agreed.

After discing, I went took the bus downtown and met up with my Great Aunt Theresa.  She took me to a little restaurant called, The Labrador Retriever.  As you can guess, it was Labrador themed.  It was like heaven to me, because I grew up with black labs,  Max is our current lab at home.  I ate a spicy chicken curry.  It was pretty good, but a bit dry.  I also had a tasty home brewed IPA.

Peacock at the disc golf course.

After lunch, I went and took a little nap on a bench in downtown Portland.  There were a bunch of people sleeping on benches and hanging out.  I rested for about 45 minutes, before deciding to take a walk.  Up the street, I saw a hunger strike protest outside of city hall.  The people were living like hermits in the boulevards.

View from the 8th hole tee box.

I leaned against a wall on the opposite side of the street and observed.  One sign said, "Job loss + foreclosure = homeless." It saddened me to see those people there.  I saw another girl, she looked like she was 18 years old.  She was wearing a dirty dress, and no shoes.  She walk across the street and bummed a cigarette from a guy.  I wondered what her situation was.  Where did she come from to be in that situation.  Or possibly, is she just in the wrong crowd, or is she just lazy.  I don't know, but it was really thought provoking.

The fellas picked me up in the park.  We went to a private course that was about 40 minutes out of Portland.  The course was really beautiful and extremely difficult.  The course was located at a little family owned resort.  The resort had a amphitheater, a stocked fishing pond, peacocks, a campground, and two disc golf courses, one easy, one difficult.

If you know how golf scoring works, I got +17 on the day.  Not only was it a difficult course, but I could feel the fatigue affecting my game.  The course went up and down massive hills.  If I made a bad shot, sometimes I would have to tip toe down 50' drop offs.  It was intensely wooded and steep, but one of the best, most beautiful courses I have ever played.



When I got home last night, I went down hard.  I am gonna hang out today and finalized my Costa Rica logistics.  Once Brad gets home, we are going to hike 4 miles in the woods and camp for the weekend.  Its gonna be ballin.

Peace and Love,
Joe