On the road again...

For those of you who may not know (which is probably no one), the last, oh, six or seven months of my life have been somewhat hectic. Traveling to 'study' in Australia, the intermittent trips to New Zealand and, later, Thailand left me exhausted when I finally did return to the states in the middle of June. Shortly thereafter, my brother got engaged...

...so it was off to see Mainers and the Mankes in New England after only a month spent in Austin (where things were far from boring amid switching houses and living at home without the parentals). Back from Maine as of this past Friday, I made tracks for Tulsa, Oklahoma, site of the 2007 PGA Championship (henceforth 'the PGA') golf tournament.

I first had the idea to go to the PGA when watching the Masters Tournament while in Australia. An announcer commented on the PGA's being in Tulsa and, knowing I wouldn't yet be headed for Chapel Hill and that, well, I really wanted to go to a major golf tournament, I knew Tulsa was about as close the Austin as I would get to one. I e-mailed the organizer of the volunteer operations for the tournament, and she told me that I was not too late to join the junior volunteers for this year's tournament. This meant, essentially, that I could see all the golfing greats in one place, and not even have to pay to do it. All I'd need to do was volunteer for four hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (all practice days before the tournament actually begins on Thursday), and then I was free to stick around for the actual tournament with my week-long grounds pass. I faxed over (from Australia) a few documents and I was all set to go.

Flash forward to yesterday (Sunday August 5th) when I hit the dusty trail (I-35 North) to Oklahoma. The drive from Austin to Tulsa takes about 7 1/2 hours, and is boring, like almost all 7 1/2 hour events (orgies and air raids, I imagine, might be exempted). I did, however, purchase the new (and awesome) Common CD, which I listened to three straight times over the course of about 2 and a half hours. I left Austin at 11 AM and made the city limits of Tulsa

around 5:30, but then got exxxtreeemely lost amid turnpikes and wrongturnpikes and didn't make it to Wendy's home until about 7:45. It was pretty disastrous.

Wendy, for those of you who don't know, was an employee of my mother's first law firm, and, more importantly, my babysitter growing up. She has grown up and has a family all her own now, with two rambunctious little girls: Abby, 6 and Harper, 4. They graciously allowed me to crash at their home which is literally only a mile from the course at Southern Hills. So, if you're keeping score at home, I now have a free ticket to the tourney, and a free place to sleep, which is amazing...I'm never this lucky.

Last night, I got settled into my new digs and talked with Wendy, catching up on each others' lives for the last 10 years or so. I had to be at 'work' at 11 AM the next morning, and all the traveling made me a tad pooped, so I hit the sack around 11, ready to embrace the glory of a major golfing event for the first time come morning.