Saturday, Golfing

It occurs to me that having skipped a couple of days of documenting this amazing adventure, I have skipped over some details, like the napping thing. Everyone but Leila enjoyed a mid-day nap, which sometimes turned into more than just a nap, much to Leila’s chagrin. Therefore, Leila experienced some things in a waking state that doesn’t get documented, since the documentor was asleep. Anyway, carrying on:

Saturday dawned with Tim and Blair getting ready for their golf outing at the Altea Golf Course. Everyone piled into the car with Leila driving, and using our pal, Google Maps, we arrived at the course on time. Leila and Deana took off for a morning without the knuckleheads. They enjoyed swimming, shopping for food, and just relaxing. More details would require input from those two, but they’re not thrilled with being grilled on two days ago, so suffice it to say they had an ok time.

Tim and Blair checked in to the course, which was carved out of the mountainside, surrounded with upscale housing. Clearly a planned development. And a wonder to behold. Given the landscape, the vehicular entrance to the course is two stories above the pro shop, so we took an elevator down to level 1. The very nice woman behind the counter welcomed us, we chose our rental clubs, Blair going for the less expensive set, and Tim choosing the more pro looking assemblage, with a more robust bag and newer looking clubs. Tim also hoped so find a hat suitable for a very large head…had to settle for a Wilson Staff visor, at 18.5 euros.
We were given a key to a cart, and we proceeded to wander up and down stairs until the pro directed us up, of course, to the cart dispensary. Got ourselves organized and headed for the 1st tee. We proceeded to play a round with moments of acceptable golf, and more moments that are best forgotten.

On the back nine, Blair was dealing with a need for bathroom facilities, and as promised, at the 6th/15th hole there was a convenience. Blair abandoned his ball on the 15th to attend to more urgent matters.Meanwhile Tim pondered a water trough like object that had two spigots, and a sign that stated something that might or might not have been a warning to not drink the water. Being the cautious fellow that he is, Tim chose to drink the water, as did Blair when he emerged from the defecatorium. What, we worry?

The setting was so spectacular, with mountains looming above us to the north and the sea and beach front laid out below us, that bad golf made no difference. We had a great round, lost a few balls, and ended up back at the club house restaurant and ordered ice cold Coke on ice with lemon, as well as a giant blue bottle of cold water. No fluid ever tasted better. We realized we were dehydrated and wondered why we hadn’t thought of bringing something liquid onto the course with us. Lucky we found that water fountain at the 15th hole, right……I mean, it was OK to drink, right?

As previously arranged, Leila and Deana arrived at the course just in time to join us in the club restaurant, where more cold fluids were consumed, and sandwiches of a mediocre description were mostly consumed. When we told the girls about the water fountain, Deana buried her head in her hands, certain we had poisoned ourselves and they’d be nursing us for the rest of our stay. Checking out a photo of the water sign that Tim had taken, as a precaution, we discovered that it simply declared that the water fountain was courtesy of some construction company. Disaster averted! Next post we’ll talk about weddings.