Day 41 - Thursday, September 29 - Oregon << Index
Anticipated: Play golf at Ontario Golf Course in Ontario, Oregon.
Travel:
  Itinerary:
Leave motel for 9:00 tee time at Ontario Golf Course. After golf, we will drive to a motel in Ely, NV. casino
  States/Provinces Played:
Web: Ontario Golf Course - Ontario, OR
Actual: (Photos and text)
Click on the photos below to enlarge

Ontario Golf Club sign and Pat with Charles Tate, General Manager of club

Jim with reporter John Braese

Scenes from the golf course

Top picture, desert scene, and sunset silhouette

Cowboys herding the cattle across Highway 93
We left the Super 8 Motel shortly after 8:00 AM in order to arrive at Ontario Golf Course before our 9:00 AM tee time. Charles Tate, the General Manager, greeted us as we walked into the golf shop.. He presented us with a souvenir golf ball and tees bearing the Ontario Golf Club logo. He is very interested in our venture and has an article about our trip posted on the bulletin board. We want to thank him for waiving both the green and cart fees. He informed us that a reporter from the local paper, the Argus Observer would be out to interview us for a feature story he wanted to write. In fact, the reporter, John Braese showed up at the second hole and stayed with us for the next four holes asking us questions and taking pictures.

Ontario Golf Course is well maintained and has some “tricky” holes. The greens are well manicured, and the course was on the whole, very nice to play. Our weather today was in the mid-40s at tee off time, but climbed to the low 70s by the time we finished. We had another clear, sunny day on the golf course. We have been lucky so far with near-perfect conditions every day. Jim shot 88 (yardage = 6072) and pat shot 113 (yardage = 5440).

Note to our Ontario, Canada friends: The Ontario, Oregon golf course reminded us of the Summerheights Golf Course that we played in Cornwell, Ontario. Even though the surrounding terrains were dissimilar, the courses were very similar. We would like to take this opportunity to say hello to Rory MacLennan and his dad, the owners of Summerheights Golf Club.

After golf and a pleasant conversation with Chuck Tate, we were “on the road again” heading for Ely, Nevada via Interstate 84 through Boise and Highway 93 south. We started driving at 1:30PM and arrived in Ely seven hours later. We had a couple of minor delays: (1) Road construction on Rt. 93 held us up for nearly 30 minutes, and (2) At dusk, about 90 miles north of Ely we saw huge black dots crossing the highway. As we got nearer we saw that the dots were Black Angus cows and cowboys were herding them across the highway (see pictures) – shades of the Old West!!! It reminded us of the old western movies and of the cattle drives. We were stopped for about 15 minutes while the cattle crossed the road. There were about 6 cowboys, and it seemed that it took that many to keep the mavericks in line. Refer to the picture---the cowboy in the white hat and jacket seemed to be the trail boss. It was very close to dusk so it was difficult to get bright pictures