My recent vacation was a big event for me, so I tried to keep a journal. Most days it was impossible to do, but I managed a few entries. This is the first:

This little story begins in Oregon, where I am treating this golf trip as my last chance to play golf on this earth. While that may not be true, it will probably feel like it when I return home to Alaska and can’t play for eight months.

I write this on the morning of the first day of golf. I played eight rounds of golf in Alaska this summer, but now on this 19th day of October, I play the first of roughly 20 rounds in as many days.

It begins on the Tom Fazio course at the Juniper Preserve in Bend, Oregon. I thought I had not played a Fazio course before, but then realized he designed Shadow Creek in Vegas, where I played years ago. I loved playing that course and I’m sure will love this course today.

Traveling is always lame as can be, by which I mean the part in which you are actually traveling. It’s worth noting that yesterday’s plane rides were smooth and uneventful. The breakfast omelet I ate on the plane was tasty and filling. Those are the good points, but there were some bad ones.

When I reached Bend I was informed rental cars were scarce and I would have to wait for the one I had reserved. Annoying as that news was, it wasn’t as bad as getting in a rental car with only a quarter tank of gas and dirty tissues sprinkled all over the floor of the passenger side of the Toyota Corolla. There were also used water bottles in the cup holders and I couldn’t help but feel I was about to inherit germs from someone who needed many tissues.

Upon waking today, there is a tickle in my throat, but I believe it to be nothing and cross my fingers I am ok. There would be nothing worse than coming all this way after waiting all this time just to get sick.

The hotel room at Juniper Preserve is nice, but not as thrilling as I expected. The internet pictures make it look better than it is. Kudos to those marketing folks. While eating a big burger with grass-fed beef in it, I overheard a couple discussing the lack of charging stations between Bandon Dunes and Bend, which they had apparently driven between that day. Interesting, because I am heading to Bandon in a few days and glad I need only to put gas in my car to get there. As I heard the woman tell the waiter she was vegetarian, I was reminded I am in a part of the country one could label progressive, liberal or some such political classification.

Since I hate politics, I will get back to the golf, which is the sole purpose of this trip. Again, I begin at Fazio. I’m not sure what to expect of the course or the game I will attempt to throw at it, but I will get to enjoy practicing for a couple hours before teeing off. I call it practicing, because to call it warming up wouldn’t do it justice.

I’m excited as a kid on Christmas morning, chiefly for three things: First, to simply devote a whole day to golf in a nearly nine-to-five fashion; secondly, to see what it is like to hit my new persimmon 3-wood; lastly, to start a three-week devotion to the game and see where it leads.

I hope to post a journal entry this evening on how it all went.

One simple note about the evenings:

I sat outside on the patio at sunset last night and heard an absolute symphony of wild things. Birds and bugs, primarily I assume. I couldn’t see any of them, but the sounds were amazing enough that I can’t end my entry without mentioning them.