Today was day 1 of our annual golf trip to Carroll Valley, a resort near historic Gettysburg. It’s always a fun weekend, not just because of the golf, the poker and the comraderie with the seniors we play with, but because it’s always a fun change of pace to spend time here in the south, you know yee haw and all that stuff. Tom joined us for the trip this year, his first time here at CV. We made him go into the liquor store to buy the whiskey we wanted, joking that it was probably safer for him to go since he was the only white dude in our car. We kid about that stuff, but the truth is everyone down here seems pretty friendly. But yeah, it’s pretty hard to find a minority anywhere in these parts.

We played the CV sister course, Mountain View, this afternoon. Very flat boring front nine, reminiscent to me of Emerson in NJ. But just as we were lulled into a false sense of security, the back nine showed us this course had teeth. Narrow driving holes, tee boxes purposefully angled to make shot alignment tricky, and more trees and bunkers everywhere. It turned out to be a pretty fun warm up round.

Afterwards, we hit our usual place, the 4 Seasons restaurant (no, not that Four Seasons) for some dinner and drinks. The wings and onion rings were solid, but the entrees weren’t as good as previous years. My steak was a strange pale beige-grey color, almost resembling pork. However, I must say it tasted better than it looked. Not gourmet by any stretch, but a flavor that made me nostalgic. It was seasoned exactly the way I used to cook cheaper cuts of meat back when I was in college- heavily seasoned with salt, pepper and a heavy dose of garlic and onion powder. I had skipped lunch, so I was pretty hungry and actually quite enjoyed my pale steak.

Comfortably stuffed, we went to check in at our hotel. The very southern front desk attendant with missing teeth and a skin condition was super friendly and helpful. Despite the fact that the hotel was booked to capacity for the weekend, he checked Twoin and Jones into one room and as he produced my room key, he said “ok, I was able to put you in the room next to these trouble makers”. We thanked him and made our way to our rooms. As soon as we got to our room, Tom asked “Did that guy just say what I thought he said? Was that a southern expression?” Puzzled, I said “he just said he’d put us in the room next to those troublemakers. What did you think he said?” Tom replied “Ohhhh… I thought he said I’ll put you in the room next to these troll niggers!” Hahahahaha… Absolutely hysterical.

Gar showed up a little later and we went to a little roadhouse bar called Ott House. We played some Keno (Jones won), and Gar and I held court on the pool table. In between, we were treated to a bizarro mix of music being selected by their in-house DJ. To give you an idea of how strange it was, the first song of the night was the theme to The Dukes of Hazzard. Then a newlywed couple shared their first dance to a Tim McGraw song. And just when you thought you knew the good ol boy vibe the dj was going for, he switched it up and played an Usher song. Amazingly, Twoin was able to name many of the songs in this dj’s wacky parade of tunes just by hearing the first few notes of each. The wackiest song of all? The theme to The Fall Guy!(?) Man, is it stranger that a dj would play that song, or that Twoin would be able to name it in 4 notes? 🙂