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- A Guys Trip
Later, i will add a post about thoughts of mine while i was on this trip with Pete Toennies, one of my best pals since we met in Hobart, Tasmania, in November 1979.
This past week, Tuesday to Tuesday, was planned to be another Toennies, Jewell couples escape. Then, Maureen, not wishing to play six days of golf, shortened our stay to five days, not seven. Nancy was recovering from a medical procedure and decided to not go. When Maureen learned Pete wanted to go for the week, she felt it would be better if these two male friends should have another adventure by themselves.
And off we went.
On Tuesday afternoon, we arrived at the Marriott Summit Watch in downtown Park City, Utah where the Toennies have a time-share condo. We played golf for five days in the six full days at wonderful golf courses
i won’t write a whole lot about our experience, but wanted share some photos and thoughts about dining in Park City.
Soldier Hollow clubhouse from the Silver Course.t e On Wednesday and Thursday, We played the two incredible links courses at Soldier’s Hollow, a bit down the mountain in Midway,: magnificent views, impeccable condition, and way out in the toolies. Man, out in the toolies. Two courses: Silver and Mountain. Just to add to the fun, the green fees were surprisingly reasonable.
The flattest fairway on the Gold course at Soldier Hollow. The Gold course is higher up in the mountains and tough. Man, is it tough. There are magnificent views and incredible altitude drops and rises on almost every hole.
This place seems almost a secret. They have a goodly amount of players, but it always seems like it’s not crowded.
Sunrise on a golf course The mornings were cool, cold for folks who live in the Southwest corner, but considered cool in the mountains. We went from golf jackets and sweaters to short sleeve shirts during the rounds. But the views of sunrise made the early morning tee times worth it.
Friday, we went to the Wasatch Mountain State Park and played the Lakes course: beautiful and we saw turkeys, lots and lots of turkey as well as quite a few deer.
A few of the Turkeys on the Wasatch Mountain Lakes course. i took photos of many deer, but none of my shots came out. On a number of greens, we would look in the brush around the green and see them everywhere. All of the courses were in incredible condition and tough, very tough.
After relaxing for a day, we hit the Wasatch Mountain “Mountain” Course. i didn’t take any pictures because i was too busy hitting and looking for a lot of golf balls. It’s a shame as the Mountain course is one of the beautiful courses i’ve ever played. Turkeys, deer, and geese were all around the eighteen holes.
Our last round was at Park City’s public golf course created by Jack Nicklaus. No photos there as we had been there before and i was photoed out. Great course. As with the others, the course conditions was almost perfect.
Since we were on a guys’ trip, we sought to dine at the best places. We did.
Shabu is a Japanese fusion restaurant. A late afternoon rain kept us from sitting on the back patio, our favorite tables on previous trips. The firecracker shrimp and the nigiri sashimi more than made up eating in an inside booth, which was okay in its own right.
We climbed the length of Main Street to another favorite, Grappa. When Maureen and i began our annual ski trip to Park City/Deer Valley, Grappa was an old Victorian house turned into an Italian restaurant. Over the years, it morphed into a high end eatery with a redo that is modern with glass walls looking out on Main Street and a small park, including outdoor dining (not used extensively in winter. The menu is extensive. My scallops on polenta, the Italian name for grits, was superb.
We also dined at River Horse and The Butcher Shop. If you are ever in Park City, i would recommend any of these, plus several others.
The Egyptian marquee My lone disappointment — crappy golf does not qualify as a disappointment: i knew that would be the case for me — was not going to listen to a band at the Egyptian Theater. The Egyptian is the home of the Sundance Film Festival. This was not the season for that. Being away from my home of Lebanon, Tennessee and being old, i tend to listen to the bluegrass from my past, catching up with new bluegrass bands only when i get back home and visit The Station Inn in Nashville. But a Nashville bluegrass band was playing at the Egyptian. As we walked by on our climb to Grappa, the marquee caught my eye. Since coming home, i have listened to the performers: good stuff. But when i saw that marquee, i wondered what “Bluegrass Soul.” was all about.
Coming home, i was in trouble. You see, a couple of years ago, we got a portable air conditioner for the several days each year the dry hot winds of a Santa Ana blows through the Southwest corner. We haven’t needed one this summer as it had been cool and comfortable all summer. When a Santa Ana was predicted while i was golfing, the forecast declared the temperatures would be about the same as they had been all summer. So, i did not retrieve our portable air conditioner as it was stored in the garage attic. Bad move.
The Santa Ana decided to let our home in the Southwest corner scorch. The highs while Pete and i were gone were over 100 degrees. As noted above, our temperatures in Utah rarely reached the 80s and if so, were in the low 80s. It began to cool off when i returned home. If she hadn’t been relieved the heat had receded, i think she might have been mad at me.
i wouldn’t have blamed her.
- Law of Probable Dispersal
Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
- Cohn’s First Law
In any bureaucracy, paperwork increases as you spend more and more time reporting on the less and less you are doing.
- Grelb’s Addition to Murphy’s Law
If it was bad, it’ll be back.
- Some random thoughts i have had…for Sam
As i have mentioned before, i still long to have known my grandfathers both of whom passed over that bridge before i was born.
Joe Blythe Prichard died of what i am pretty sure was asthma in 1932. He and his wife, Katherine Webster Prichard, lived in Lebanon all of their lives except for a brief period when he played semi-pro baseball in Arkansas and from 1929 through 1932, and when they moved to Gotha, Florida with the hopes of the climate improving his failing health. When the move did not produce improvement, they returned to their home in Lebanon he had built on the farm of his father-in-law’s property on Hunter’s Point Pike.
Hiram Culley Jewell died of tuberculosis in 1939. He and his wife, Carrie Myrtle Orrand Jewell, moved about twenty miles from near Statesville to Lebanon around 1900. He had been a farmer in Statesville, worked at Lebanon’s pencil factory, bought a steam engine tractor in 1918 and turned it into a portable sawmill. He worked the mill until he lost a large part of his hand in the sawmill. He then was the caretaker for Lebanon City Schools, McClain and Highland Heights elementary schools and Lebanon High School. He installed the gym floor in the basement of the old high school located on East High Street.
(Note: i have several photos of Culley but could not find them before leaving for a golf trip with my friend, Peter Toennies in Park City, Utah — more on that later — but i will add the photo when i return to the Southwest corner).
i have other photos of them. i have a few stories about them. i know what they did for a living. When i asked my mother and father about their fathers, i got some of those stories, but they never really talked about what the two men were like, what they thought about things, just facts and their memories.
By virtue of a divorce and distance, i have not spent enough time with my grandson Samuel James Jewell Gander, named after my father, not me. If someone asked Sam about me currently, i don’t think he would know much more about me than i know about my grandfathers.
i’ve doubled down on leaving him enough of me in writing that he should have some idea after i have passed over that bridge.
For Sam:
Practicality without logic is impractical.
Toughness without compassion is abuse.
Loving without sharing is guilt.
Religion without humanity is demagoguery.
i must confess i am curious to find out how many folks will voice disapproval.
