March Madness

What a month it has been…

As I mentioned in my last post for me to fully embrace my dream I needed to say Fuck It and go all in. This past month has been full of growth in many ways. These include disc golf, emotional growth, physical growth, establishing routines, and having a great time every single day.

This post contains a lot of miles and almost as many stories as we have traveled over 3,000 miles in 3 weeks from Arizona to New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and then back to Kansas. So let’s take a stroll down the many winding roads of March as I try to piece together random stories of what has happened.

So, where to begin…. I suppose this leg of the journey starts while we were driving through the high country side of Eastern Arizona. As we began our drive through the canyons, the flowers and blooms became more dense as we moved further North. This culminated in a glorious view of a river far below with patches of orange on flanking hillsides. At this point my confidence in my life finally didn’t feel like an internal battle, I was comfortable and happy but I was also peeing off of a cliff by the time I realized I was standing in an ant nest. The universe has a twisted sense of humor.

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The roads through South East Arizona and West New Mexico meandered through gorgeous terrain. The cacti were starting to bloom as we wove through mountainscapes until we found ourselves looking at the serrated teeth of Sandia Peak piercing the sky high above the lights of Albuquerque below.

Albuquerque was a great pit stop on our way through the Southwest. Even though we only spent 1 day there, we biked down the Rio Grande River trail to downtown and get a great beer at Marble Brewery.

The next stop was a few hours down the road, and boy was it a doozy… Roswell New Mexico, with the slogan: “The Aliens Aren’t the Only Reason to Visit”. I’m inclined to agree with the slogan, but barely… I had some good coffee, met some nice folks, played disc golf and, of course, checked out the UFO Museum and Research Center.

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It was well worth the $5 admission fee.

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Immediately upon leaving New Mexico we drove through what seemed to be a ‘Mad Max Dystopia’. People were everywhere in the early night. There were parks, stadiums, and events but looking upon the town from the highway there were bright lights everywhere on the surrounding horizon. Not thinking much of it, we carried on until we passed 100 feet away from one of these brights lights. Every single one of the 30ish lights surrounding us was the exhaust of an oil drill which results in a 15-20ft pyre of flame called a Flare Stack.

Welcome to Texas…

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Ho boy… Everything sure is bigger in Texas… Some examples:

• Desolate drives through nothing
• Big gulps
• High school football stadiums
• Disc golf courses
• Trucks : Our truck was the largest everywhere we had been previously, but Texas threw its head back and laughed at our feeble attempt to prove our manhood
• This blog post

We continued West for the next two days until we made it to one of the most wild cities I could ever imagine. Austin Texas knows how to party…

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6th Street is a zoo of people having a great time. Take the most packed college bar you have been to, copy-paste said bar 45 times along 10 blocks, sprinkle in some incredible street musicians, and add a guy carrying around a boa constrictor and you have a small krafts sample of one gourmet helping of Mac-n-cheese.

This place is a zoo.

Unbarlievable (2/10 name), is on Rainey St and from what I could piece together used to be an old residential home in Austin. Now, this house has been purchased and cleared out to just the bones of the original structure. The house is the main bar, and the backyard contains a second outdoor bar. With the influx of money and people into the city, Unbarlievable is in between 2 skyscrapers. One is in the process of being built and is upwards of 150 stories. It is pretty crazy to take a one story slide from the inside of the bar to a grassy area out back, stand up and look to stars only to have 2 sentinels standing 50 feet on either side of you. (10/10 bar)

Texas disc golf matches the intensity and fun of Austin. We played 2 courses just outside of the city, Circle C and Roy G. Both require hitting lines and distance. My favorite course of these 2 was Roy G. Set in a huge park full of green grass, green trees and views of the river and downtown Austin in the distance, this course quickly became one of my favorites that I have played on this trip and otherwise.

Austin is a place that I tried hard to unintentionally forget, but the memories will stay with me for a long time. I also got to see one of my favorite humans this side, and that side of the Mississippi.

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The next stop in this country sized state was Waco. This is the home of the former Branch Davidians, Baylor University, and the Waco Annual Charity Open disc golf tournament. We arrived at the park 3 days before the tournament began and were able to camp in the parking lot in the park for the entirety of the time that we were there. This was the first time that we stayed in a single place with the trailer for more than 3 days, and it was wonderful.

The Brazos Park nestles parallel to the Brazos river which runs through downtown Waco. The town has great cheap coffee at Pinewood Coffee Bar, a fun bar scene, and trails throughout the town and along the river.

The feeling of being settled in this place allowed for more routines to be established. We cooked, practiced disc golf, wrote, drew, and finally relaxed for the first time in a month.

The inclement weather not only wreaked havoc on a lot of the disc golfers during the tournament, myself included, but also on the unsuspecting trailer campers in the parking lot. With wind gusts upwards of 40 mph, sideways reign, and lightning and thunder, not a lot of sleep was had for the first few nights.

Aside from the tournament, there were many other highlights of Waco Texas:

• Jomez Pro 100k Subscriber Party
• The tournament Players Party on the Waco Suspension Bridge
• Big personal strides for myself as I confronted some personal demons along the river
• New friends from all over the world including personal disc golf role models
• Watching Simon Lizotte throw a putter 500′ for a tap in eagle on hole 18

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Texas limped out of the gates, but picked up steam quickly. I really enjoyed Texas and am excited to come back and explore some more.

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$24 for a 128oz growler fill of a Rye Double IPA called Rye’d or D’IPA, and a honey fill station in the grocery store.
I also saw a double rainbow. 10/10

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My only experience with Kansas at this point was soon to be the 8.5 hour drive through Western Kansas to Denver Colorado. The most exciting moments on this drive were seeing Semi Trucks hauling wind farm fan blades, which made the Semi’s look like hotwheel toys. So that part was cool. The rest of the drive was equivalent to drinking a LaCroix that has been sitting out for 2 weeks: bland, flat and smells a little funny.

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Rolling into Denver was a fresh of breath air. The outside was brisk, there were mountains, and we were once again back in civilization.

On Wednesday and Thursday we got to see small portions of Denver, mainly in the South Broadway (SoBro) part of town. Here there are a lot of great bars, friendly people, AND THE BEST DAMN SANDWICH I HAVE EATEN IN MY LIFE. On first look, Finley’s Pub seems like an average fun night out at a small Irish Pub, but after eating their lamb french dip, I can say without question it is one of the best meals I have had. If you are ever in Denver, go to Finley’s and order the Lamb French Dip. If you don’t I will get in my first ever fight, and probably lose to you, but it will have been worth it.

Over the weekend we drove higher into the snow capped peaks of the Tenmile Range to stay at Breckenridge. Here we were greeted by Mando’s family and close friends who welcomed me as part of the family immediately.

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It was a weekend of great food, drinks, laughs, games, March Madness (Go Ducks) and the beautiful sights of mountains reaching upwards of 14,000 feet.

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Before making the unenviable trek back across Western Kansas we spent another 2 days in Denver. I walked from North of downtown into the epicenter of the city on a crystal clear day while Mando had another obligation. I started at Mockery Brewery with a delicious Lemon Meringue IPA and continued down the corridors of new high rise apartments. There was incredible street art hidden everywhere in nooks and crannies along the path to the South Platte river. I then followed the river, like a vain, into the heart of the city. Surrounded by old and new architecture and art I walked, people watched, and eventually built up the courage to busk on the street for the first time in my life. This was a special day for me as I gathered inspiration for music, art and embraced life to my fullest.

Colorado is beautiful. Perhaps I could see myself calling this place home one day..

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Ok, before this point in my trek through Kansas, my view on the state was a solid Meh to No Thanks, BUT this was before I got to check out Emporia, Lawrence, and drive through Kansas City.

Similar to Texas, Kansas slowly gained momentum the more time we spent there. Emporia Kansas has some great disc golf and is the home of a new good friend who is as crazy as he is genuine, and his family matches the love that he has for life. THANK YOU TACO!

After leaving Emporia we headed for Lawrence Kansas for a small 1 day disc golf tournament. It was a fun day full of great people, doughnuts, disc golf, rain, wind, and of course, snow…
The fellow competitors played really well in tough conditions. I managed to get through the tournament tied for third, which means that I officially made money disc golfing on my trip.

Phew…. Anyone still with me? If you are bravo and thank you for sticking with it as I jumped from place to place and story to story. It has been a wild month full of memories and things that I hold close to my heart, and it has been a fun challenge to try and fit everything into one post. However, the madness won’t be slowing down anytime soon… After this we will be making our way through St. Louis and spend a week in Tennessee.

Needless to say, I love disc golf, but this trip is so much more than that. I have seen incredible places, done some really fun things, had some great beer, but above all, connected with amazing people. All of these experiences is the lamb to my french dip of life, and being able to share it with all of you is the icing on my Texas sized cake.