Category: Golf

To tell you the truth, I don’t have a whole lot of interesting things to add to my previous post on this family trip/reunion. But since I started with “part 1,” I figure I ought to have a “part 2.” So here’s what happened:

• Hung out Friday morning at the hotel, mostly recovering from the drive. The Stevens Point La Quinta Inn was pretty so-so. Their web site claims “La Quinta” is Spanish for high-speed Internet. Ha. More like “Spanish for spotty Internet,” or “Spanish for ‘next to Denny’s'” (that’s my sister Jill’s line) or “Spanish for ‘just kinda crappy hotel.'” But it was conveniently located, right next to the country club, even if people at the hotel didn’t know where the country club is.
• Went to the Stevens Point Country Club on that Friday afternoon, which was where many of the events were. I played golf that afternoon with my cousin/our host Scott, and my Uncle Paul, and my gimpy father rode along. Anyway, while we played on the course, Will played by the pool and Annette, still gimpy herself of course, sat and read. A good time seemed to have been had.
• The course was great– very well-kept, challenging but not crazy-hard, etc. I played like shit, hitting it into the woods on just about every hole, but, because the trees were all pine and they kept it pretty clean underneath those trees, I didn’t lose a ball all day. And I got good at the punch-out shot. I also bought a cool hat. Along with my Point beer, I now have two official SP memories. Sadly, no snow globes were available.
• Got up first thing Saturday morning, basically before anyone else, and decided to take a bit of a brief driving tour of Stevens Point. Now I understand why there aren’t a lot of other SP souvenirs. I did find out they have a Starbucks, and even one with a drive-thru.
• I actually spent a fair amount of time on Saturday morning grading, which helped me get a bit caught up from this week of events.
• I tried to play golf on Saturday afternoon with my uncle Paul again and some other far-flung relatives, but we ended up behind the slowest foursome in the history of the universe and then we got poured on about the 6th hole. Oh well… Anyway, while I was trying to golf, Annette and Will were once again by the pool.
• I’d write more about the various family events, but, well, those are probably even less interesting to anyone who wasn’t there than what I’ve written already. It was a good time, but it was fairly typical reunion stuff– talk, food, drink, etc. I like all of these folks, but of course, even though my cousins are technically my “family,” I don’t really know them that well. By the way, what’s the spouse of a cousin to me? What about my cousins’ kids– are those second cousins? And what’s the relationship between my kid and my cousins’ kids? It’s all very confusing.
• Annette and I high-tailed it out of there at 6 am Sunday morning, leaving Will with the grandparents. This week is “Krause kid camp,” where my Ps take their grandkids (the ones out of diapers, at least) for a few days. I’m sure I’ll have a post or so on that next week.
• And now the “and then some” part: We were home for all of 30 minutes when we went out to pick up Laura (who Annette has known for like 20 years now) from (of all things!) a Scrabble tournament in Hazel Park, MI. The whole Scrabble thing is its own long and (to me, at least) strange story I won’t tell now, but basically, she was here from Viriginia for it, and we had a pleasant, less than 24 hour visit with her: hanging about, dinner last night, and breakfast this morning. Here’s the picture of these two I threatened at breakfast to put on my blog:
  

Greetings from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, where we’re at right now for a smallish family reunion type event– on my mom’s side. Why Stevens Point, you ask? Because this was one of my cousin’s ideas in the first place, he lives in Stevens Point, he’s the manager of a country club (the site of many of the events), and it’s a good location for most of the family, most of whom are from Wisconsin.

We had the trip from hell yesterday getting her in the first place. A late start, getting stuck for an hour before we even left town, rush hour traffic in Chicago, construction, accidents, etc., etc., turned an 8 hour trip into an 11 hour one. Given that Annette rode in the back of a rented mini-van with her leg propped up the whole way, you can imagine how thrilled she is with it all.

The hotel is fine, though my wireless access is sketchy. Got up this morning for a little grocery and wine/beer shopping, and I was struck by two things. First, even out here, in the relative middle of nowhere, you can pretty much get anything you want in terms of food items, decent coffee, decent wine, etc. You might be saying “well, duh,” but I can remember a time in Iowa and Wisconsin where that wasn’t the case.

Second, I was reminded of the local beverage, Point Beer. It’s good but nothing remarkable– kind of like Leinenkugel, but I’ve never seen it for sale anywhere outside of Wisconsin. I remember when a friend of mine way way back when collected beer cans, the Point “blue bullet” was a sought-after item. Point appears to have gone a bit more up-scale. Pictured above are examples from the “sampler pack” of beer I bought, along with one of the root beers I bought.

Anyway, things with this reunion (as is the case with all things with this side of the family) are pretty casual. Played golf with my cousin and one of my uncles while my injured father rode along and my injured wife sat by the pool watching Will as he played in the water for about three hours. So far, so good.

Now it’s time to enjoy a Point!