Another water polo tournament, this time an overnighter. In Rockford, just north of Grand Rapids. Not all is lost. In the hotel parking lot we got two new species for the year, Northern oriole and Tennessee warbler. While sitting in a strip mall Starbucks between games Lise spotted a bald eagle soaring overhead. Hundreds of other people around us and I doubt another person saw it.
The tournaments are kind of mind numbing. Lots of dead time, sitting around staring at walls thinking of all the productive things you aren’t doing. Kind of like sitting in an airport listening to endless messages advising you not to carry a bomb on board the plane for a terrorist you don’t know. Trapped in endless monotony. I guess it could be worse. At least I’m not in Cleveland.
The games are interesting to watch even though we still don’t understand the game. It appears you try to get the ball into the opponent’s net while inflicting the maximum possible damage to your opponents you can without getting caught. Getting the ball into the net seems to be secondary to inflicting the damage. Apparently you can hold your opponent underwater until they drown, bloat, and float to the top but, you can’t hit their wrist. Sometimes there are miscellaneous body parts floating around the pool. Rugby with a chance of drowning. I amuse myself trying to take pictures of the carnage. Not real easy considering moving targets, with a biggish lens, in bad light. Molly scored and this time I saw it. I even got a picture of it. My sister Lynn had an amusing water polo comment. The most important thing in water polo is keeping the horse’s head above water.
She shoots, she scores, the crowd goes wild. At least Lise and I did.
Miss Molly Mayhem, on them like ugly on a toad.
Mind if I push your head under water?
The Lady of the Lake extends Excalibur, the magical water polo ball that bestows ultimate power to the true water polo queen.
Hassan chop! (For those of you that are Bugs Bunny fans).
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!
Shall we dance?
The town of Rockford is kind of interesting. We found a neat place to eat, the Corner Tavern. Oldest brick building in Rockford. Built in 1873 it survived the great fire of 1883 and the Main Street fire of 1896. Apparently Rockford is quite the hot place. The food is good basic bar food but their real claim to fame is chili dogs. If you eat 12 of them, including buns and chili, within four hours, you get your name on the wall. And a reserved spot at the emergency room. One disgusting person, Tim Janus, ate 43.5 chili dogs in the four hour period. He broke the existing 43 hot dog record that was held by a woman. I think she played water polo on the East German Olympic team.
That’s about enough hot dogs in four hours to feed Bangladesh. I’ll bet ol’ Tim was fun to be around the next couple days. I wouldn’t want to light a match anywhere near him. He would go up like the Hindenburg. I wonder if he could eat 43.5 pounds of scrapple?
All was not lost for Cinco de Mayo. We came back to a great dinner and drinks with our friends Barb and Ellen. And today we did some great birding with Barb. But more on that when I get time to update lists.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 