Day 2: A Cloudy Day On The Links

5 AM rolled around awfully fast this morning. All of us friends either had bright eyes, ready for the day or heavy eyes and not fully looking forward to this 12-hour experience. Don’t worry, I promise that for the most part, the girls had a good time. We all piled in our rented van and headed south for the Monterey Peninsula. We made it down a few towns and decided that we needed to stop for breakfast. So Denny’s it was… we walked inside, sat down and ordered and Dan went back to the restrooms. He came back very promptly, saying “wow, I can not go in something like that.” The entire ensemble got a variety of foods, ranging from biscuits and gravy all the way to pancakes and bacon. Most of the time that we didn’t spend eating, was spent wondering which of these polo wearing patrons was going to spend their day at Pebble Beach as well.

We rolled out of there and just followed the cars, all the way to the public parking zone. It was a massive lot that was beside what we assumed were old military barracks. There were a slew of different vehicles and a ton of buses awaiting passengers. These buses were, of
course, the shuttles, by which we were taking to the US “Flippin” Open.  

We had a half-hour bus ride to the legendary golf course, and you could cut our excitement with a knife (that means it was tangible, figuratively speaking). We drove down “17-mile drive”, a legendary stretch of road with multiple famous golf courses and numerous multi-million dollar houses. We all were full of excitement and ready to see everything that we could get our eyes on.

We walked into the complex, about a quarter mile or so, to the first tee box. We walked into pebble beach golf links with awe in our eyes. Immediately we saw some great names in the game around for us to gawk at and be giddy about. The first group we saw had Rickie Fowler and Jason Day in it and we took pictures and just hoped they noticed us, but they never did. However, we did manage to get the attention of Justin Thomas, a joyless golfer with a snarl on his face. JT teed off from the 14^th tee box and Landon yelled, at the top of his lungs, GO JT! With the look of a thousand knives and malice in his heart, He looked directly at Dan and persisted to slay him with his mind. Sorry, Dan!

We took a bunch of pictures of golfers as well as the course itself. As we walked around, we were amazed at how accurate everyone was. Every pro golfer seemed to be so good out of the bunkers as well as the rough.   

(Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm)

(Brooks Koepka, Bubba Watson, JB Holmes)

We made our way over to the World Famous Par 3, #7. We found a spot in the massive grandstands, and it got cold fast. We were looking straight into the ocean and the wind was blowing right into our faces. This brings out one of the most unexpected situations from our whole trip. The day before when Dwylin and Landon left the airport in Oakland, the temperature was in the mid to upper 80s. Now roughly 110 miles south and we were experiencing weather in the 60s. This did not feel like California, but it seemed like we were in Seattle or something.  

(The 5th)

(The 12th)

Now, you need to know some etiquette rules for golf. When someone is putting on a green, it is proper for everyone to stay quiet so that the golfers can have maximum concentration. There was a golfer on the green on #7. He was all lined up, and he pulled back the putter, now ready to strike. Out of nowhere, a lady right behind us said a long drawn out “Wow”. Dan and I immediately started laughing at this embarrassing turn of events for this lady.

(The 7th)

When you go to a sports event, you get an opportunity to yell and be heard by a microphone. So we tried to think of something funny and yet easy to pick out. We settled on the dutch phrase… “Cum Buutz Meh!” (forgive the spelling from this unwritten language) For those of you that don’t know what this could possibly mean. It means “Come Wipe Me”, and we kept trying to say it throughout the day. Unfortunately, all this was in vain, because even with two different days of trying, we never really found a clear clip of us yelling the phrase. Although we did see Jon and Matt when they went over the 1^st green to see Justin Rose, Jordan Spieth, and Tiger Woods.

(Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods)

(Matt and Jon are circled in the corner)

We spent most of our day sitting at two different par 3s, the 5^th and 12^th. We sat there watching all the golfers that we could, and a few of them multiple times. One golfer rose to the top of our interest and we’ll never forget his bright smile. It was a Norwegian amateur golfer by the name of Viktor Hovland. Why was he considered an amateur? He was still attending Oklahoma State University, and this means that he cannot have any sponsorship money as well as not win any prize money. This did not seem to dampen his spirits in the slightest.

(Viktor Hovland)

We left the property between 5 and 6 that night, and head out on the buses back to our van. The girls were understandably worn out and had lost interest in the event by around noon. We headed from the grounds to find food because of game 6 of the NBA Finals were on TV. A game between injury-plagued and the two time defending champion Golden State Warriors versus the Toronto Raptors with their superstar Kawhi Leonard. The Raptors were up 3 games to 2 games, and if they could find a way to win tonight, they’d win the NBA Finals. The only problem for us would be finding a place to eat because technically we’re in the Bay Area. Which just happens to be where the Warriors are from. The game is also being played in Oakland across the bay from us.  

  

We found our way to another Buffalo Wild Wings. Since this is such a big event for the Bay Area, we waited a half hour to be seated and finally decided to leave. We settled for an awesome alternative called Fish & Chips in Salinas, CA. We watched it until the end of the game and enjoyed the very tasty food. The Raptors won the game and the NBA Championship as well. The food and service were so good that all of us would highly recommend it.

Needless to say, once we finally got back to the Air BnB. It didn’t take us very long at all to find our beds and sleep late into the next morning… What else could possibly be waiting for us?

Day 1: Three ways to San Jose

Dwylin & Landon

The evening of June 11^th brought forth many emotions. Anticipation, worry, sweat, laughter, panic, and air pressure, but enough about Dwylin’s car. The appointed time for packing was quickly coming to an abrupt end. Its 4 o'clock on Tuesday night and Dwylin’s car, the one we are taking to the airport in the morning, needs air in one of the back tires. It also appears that a couple of starlings have set their sights on the back windshield of Dwylin's car. At least six of them left some departing gifts in my rearview mirror all covered in white.

From dealing with this situation, Landon picked up Dwylin to go play in a church league softball game (Woodlawn vs Fairhaven). They played two games and both teams won a game. We then headed back to Landon’s house and spent a bit of time trying to figure out how to hit our max of 40 lbs in our shared checked bag. It didn’t take long for sleep to come to either of them, because they had an early start and a long day ahead of them.

The alarms were going off that morning at 3:45 AM precisely. Landon made some coffee and we were off. Middlebury, IN at 4 in the morning is comparable to the movie, Mad Max: Fury Road! RV workers can be a reckless and aggressive group of individuals. We did end up getting through town, without a scratch. A few more hours and we’ll be in Chicago, but the restroom came a calling.

We pulled off the highway in Portage hoping to help ourselves out, in more ways than one… if you know what I mean… but McDonald’s wasn’t feeling the same way. We got out of the car for a stretch and headed inside. BANG! Was the sound of the door as Dwylin, unsuccessfully, tried to open a simple door. It was locked, and we had forgotten about the time change. The restrooms in this establishment was very much closed. Our salvation was found across the street in the restroom of the gas station.

We eventually made it to Chicago and found our airline and made our flight. It was off to Las Vegas, and a 3-hour flight to come. We landed in Vegas with one good hour plus to burn in the airport with oodles and oodles of slot machines. After one gate change and many tempting looks at devices claiming a $25,000.00 prize if you play pull a lever. We found our salvation, from our temptation, with a little help from the spirit in the sky, which just so happened to be our airline for the trip as well. For an hour and seventeen minutes we sat in the airplane anticipating our arrival in Oakland and the official start of our quote “VACATION”.

We arrived a little after 1:15 PST and we found our checked bag and started looking for our ride. We could not find a vehicle with familiar faces, anywhere...

Matt & Linda

The long drive began on Thursday, June 6^th to Plains, MT. Matt and Linda were heading west from Missouri because they’re helping one of Dan’s brothers. That, however, is another story for another time, and back to this trip. They headed west and the first stop was Mount Rushmore. They loved the experience and had a blast seeing the four Presidents in the rock.

They pulled into Plains in the afternoon of the following day. They greeted some old friends and had a burger or two at “The Butchers Nook” restaurant. All in all, they were in Montana from Friday till Tuesday morning. They were off, in their car, driving down to meet everyone for our weekend in San Jose.

They drove all day and ended up at Multnomah Falls in Oregon. The same Multnomah Falls we visited on our Alaska trip four years ago. From the falls they headed west to Corvallis, OR to walk on the football field of the Oregon State Beavers. Their day of travel ended on the coast of Oregon, off Highway 1, and watched a sunset. Awaiting the coming day in California, and all the adventures to follow.

Matt and Linda had a 7ish hour drive into California to Oakland, so that they could pick up Dwylin and Landon from the airport. First, they went to pick up our rented vehicle, from “Turo”, basically an “Air BnB” for cars. Since they went to pick up this van first, and we flew in around 1 o’clock, the traffic wasn’t great so they pulled up about 20 minutes late, only to see the bright-eyed face and big smile of Landon Miller. Landon was so excited that he forgot how to work a van trunk door for a minute, but Dwylin explained that it may be the year 2019, but it is also only the year 2019. Dwylin then preceded to open the van trunk like its always been done for the past 40 some odd years.

Then immediately we were off again, and south we went, down to San Jose Airport. We dropped Linda off with their own car and she headed for the rental property, and the guys headed to the airport. We pulled up on time for Jon, Heidi, and Dan’s arrival, but there was no one around to be seen...

Jon, Heidi & Dan

“The Big Three” left Plains, Montana Wednesday morning with sights of California in their eyes. The warm environment and the welcome adventure of time off was enticing, but first, breakfast at the new Butchers Nook. They just opened for business one week before taking off for a vacation. They all ate breakfast and headed out for Spokane, WA.

They headed out of Spokane at 10:30 a.m. and were on there way to Salt Lake City, Utah. They landed around 1:30 pm, and just sat around, in the land of Mormons, waiting for their flight to San Jose. Their flight left about a half-hour late, but in all reality, they could do nothing about this. Their flight landed about a half-hour late because of this and then they met up with the rest of the crew.

Many Happy Meeting

Now all the people were back together again and headed to San Jose, our temporary home. Now since we are in the Pacific time zone, this meant that it was 8 o’clock EST. Which wouldn’t normally be an issue but we had our eyes set on going to Buffalo Wild Wings and watching game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. A match between the favored Boston Bruins and the underdog St. Louis Blues. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great game. The Blues won their first title in team history 4-1 on Wednesday night. From Bdubs we headed home and went to bed with anticipation in our heads because we were headed to Pebble Beach for the US Open the very next morning. However, not before at least a couple games of ping pong.