Decisions, Decisions! What do we wear!

As the end of the season nears, we never know quite what to pack.   We start of with lots of layers and long pants and by the end of the day we are in shorts and sleeveless.  We go from winter gloves to regular gloves and sometimes rain gloves.

Shirley's '50 shades of grey' for the weekend

 I think we are going to have to start bringing our windshields out and maybe the cart cover and heaters soon.

Friday, September 5th we headed back up NE, and hoping we get to golf.   The weather was not looking favorable when we left at our normal time of 6AM.





Last time we went NE we had to reroute due to all the rain and flooding.   We moved our travels South a little bit so still had all the northern layer of counties to do from the farthest East to the central region.   Then we had one little county in the middle that we used to break up the travel a bit, Buchanan.   So that was our first stop.

Hold on, I messed up!    Got my Bremer and Buchanan Counties mixed up and we ended up at Wapsie Ridge in Bremer County by mistake.  
 We got a few holes done and met up with a couple people that straightened us out that we were in Bremer not Buchanan.   Already have to re-route, DARN IT!

Not much of a decision to make, we had only paid $12.00 for all 3 of us to golf there and it was raining anyhow, so we packed up and headed to Buchanan after just 3 holes.

It was still looking gloomy and rainy and we weren't sure if we would get in the three counties we planned for, but we got back on track and started off at Three Elms in Independence.

This is a nice course with VERY small T boxes.    Sometimes it seemed like there was barely enough room between the markers to even T off.

Afterwards we drove by the Independence Tourism Building, which is the old railroad depot.   It was really done nice.

Winnesheik County was stop #2, Silver Springs in Ossian.   The course had very nice plants and statues, it was decorated nice.   Jim noticed that all the fareway markers were down the right side of the fareway.   If you couldn't see the green, you had better aim left of the markers here.   

 
 

Maybe a little paint touchup would do her good!

The scenery around this course was just beautiful.   With all the rain lately, the farms looked great.   

Allamakee County ended our day.  Waukon Country Club didn't disappoint.   It had a beautiful clubhouse and course was great.    More par 5's for the ladies here than at most 9 hole courses.  Most of them were 4's for the men though.

The courses today were all great and hope they continue to be just as nice tomorrow.  Lot of driving made for a long day today.

We stayed in Decorah at the Quality Inn for the night.   We tried to get into the local pizza place there, but it was football night and the wait was more than an hour so we headed over to Happy Joes.   It was VERY noisy in there with a couple kids birthday parties but food was good.


Day 2, September 6th

Today was a 4 course day so headed out early to Howard County, Maple Heights Golf and Country Club.   The rock that had the course layout engraved on it was certainly different.

We were on our honor here.    Sign on the counter indicated that they were working on the course so either pay at the drop box on hole 1 or later when they were there.   Gotta love Iowa!

Narrow fareways here making it a bit more challenging for some, but we wont mantion any names.   Nice landscaping and great greens!  

Stinky!

Stop #2    Chickasaw County, New Hampton Golf and Country Club

Shirley had her putting going on here.   Funny how we can have our putting working for us or our driving is on target, but we can't seem to put them all together in the same round of golf.   






This is a very mature course and had several places that were 'ground under repair'.   Had to skip a couple holes and then do a couple more twice to get our 9 in since they were aerating.    Very nice clubhouse, would be a nice course to try again.













Stop #3    Floyd County, Wildwood Golf Course in Charles City

This is your typical municipal course, next to a park and kids running around.   

PHOTOBOMB!!

Jim had quite the climb to his T box here, only to find out after he got up there that he could have drove up.   If you look really close you can see him on his T box at the very top.   HA

Final stop - Mitchell County, Sunny Brae in Osage

This little guy decided to hitch a ride with us to this course.   He stayed clinging to the window the whole way!

This course was very hilly, so also challenging.   It was somewhat confusing and could have used some better signage, but we liked the elevated T boxes.    

The green is WAAAAAY up there! 

Gobble, gobble.   We have seen a lot of wildlife on different courses but this is the first time we have seen turkeys.

The bridge over the Cedar River was scary.   After getting across the bridge we discovered that you had to bring your driver for the next hole with you too.    We let Jim hit over the river for all of us since he was the only one with a club to do it.

WE DID IT!!!   We got all four courses in today!











Beautiful sunset on the way to Northwood

We stayed in Northwood at the Holiday Inn Express which was right next door to......THE CASINO!    Quite the experience here, got my room key and found somone else was in the room.   Thank goodness it was early and nobody was in bed!   We did have a good laugh and the people in the room were very nice about it.   We had a little chat with the front desk and was upgraded to a suite.  

Diamond Jo's was our entertainment for the night but we didn't last long, we were tired and had one more day to get in.



Day #3
Golfing our way home via Winnebago, Worth and Cerro Gordo

Rice Lake Golf and Country Club in lake Mills.

Little disappointing that we never really got a view of the lake, either driving there or golfing.  There were a few glimpses but nothing attractive to see, so wish there would have been better scenery here.    

The people weren't overly friendly either.    Course was nice though!    Rough was very thick and tall, and hard to get out of.   Jim lost a few balls here, wondered if he even had enough for the rest of the day.   I'm sure he had plenty in his bag though.


Worth County was our 2nd stop in Northwood at the Northwood Country Club.  

This course was in the middle of nowhere and I mean nowhere!    Some of the signs were marked and some were not, making it a little difficult to know where we were going.   Couple challenging holes and a couple of stinky holes too.    Cows and stagnant water, oh my!







Cerro Gordo was our last county, it was supposed to be in Rockwell at Linn Grove CC but they had a tournament that they failed to tell us about when we called.    Had to re-route to Thornton to Pleasant Valley Golf Club. Didn't have many options if we wanted to get this county in and not backtrack back North.

It was an OK course though so nothing lost.    Its disappointing when we find these courses that we think are OK but yet, if they spent some time weed eating and putting a little effort into them, they could be very nice courses.    The signage was terrible and it was NOT women friendly.   Absolutely no markers, yardage, ball washers, NOTHING, for the women.   I wouldn't say that the men had much either though.   Sand traps were a joke, more like dirt and weeds.   We got it in though, and that was the most important thing.


UPDATE:   So as of today we have 14 counties left to get in.   9 over by Council Bluffs and 5 by Burlington that we got rained out on a previous trip.   Lets hope the weather stays nice for us to get them in this year.

My golf addiction is literally out of control. I really want to play from the moment I wake up to the time I go to bed.
~Hugh Grant