The NWPA's fourth tour stop of the 2012 season was hosted at Black Diamond Billiards & Eatery in Spokane, WA last weekend. With work keeping me busier than usual, I had very little time to practice or prepare the way that I would have liked to, so my expectations were not very high. That being said, I was very excited about the trip as it would be the first of hopefully many, family trips that involved some mama time at a pool room.
My husband and I just bought a brand new toy hauler and it is totally bad ass. For those of you who haven't met my hubby, he is 6'6" so he likes everything to fit just right... Tall doors, tall ceilings, tall shower, you get my drift, I am sure... Anyways. The week before the event I was scrambling trying to coordinate lodging and perhaps some family time with Sierra and my mom with my relatives on the east side. You would think that this might be easy, but honestly all of my family in Spokane had way too much going on. My husband offered to christen the toy hauler, so we headed east on Friday afternoon after he got off work... Me, my mom, my daughter, and my wonderful husband were bound and determined to make some memories :).
We ended up leaving around 5:30 p.m. which wasn't too bad, all things considered. I had made us a reservation at Ruby's on Silver Lake, located in Medical Lake, WA (about 30 minutes out of Spokane). Honestly, it was the first name that popped up when I did a search around Spokane for RV parks, but it did have all of the amenities. We reserved a nice little spot by the park, not too far from the lake, or the bathrooms (my hubby has a thing about using the lavatories in his own rigs, topic for another blog ;)...) When I made the reservation, I told the lady, Rose... I think, that we would be coming in late and there was no issue at the time; however, when we arrived at Ruby's absolute mayhem was awaiting. We saw several bonfires, limited access to spots, and people were all over the place. In fact, out spot had been rented out so we had no where to stay that night... Considering that Sierra had just woken up, from a much too short nap (would've been bed time if we were at home), we really just wanted to get settled in. Not yet. We used the hubby's GPS and located Peaceful Pines RV Park in Cheney, about 5 miles up the road. (Maybe 10, I was borderline delirious at this point.) Either way, we settled in for the night.
My husband got up bright and early, started moving about the camper (waking up everyone inside) and ended up taking off shortly after to go get coffee... I think it was more of a get his bearings type drive, but it's hard to tell. Needless to say, we took the opportunity to explore the tiny little RV park that we were at. I opted to take a shower at the park bathroom, just to minimize the hassle and potential mess in our camper... plus it took forever for the water heater to start pushing out water above freezing temperatures. When I got back to the camper, I was dressed and ready to go. I finished up with hair and what limited makeup I try to apply and then waited, and waited, and then waited some more. Brian finally returned about an hour later, completely fuming, pissed off beyond belief.
Not two block after pulling onto the main drag, my husband was pulled over by a WA state trooper for not having mud flaps on his lifted F350 (pretty common during the summer months, but a citeable offense nonetheless.) After the initial warning, the state trooper noticed his 45 sitting on the seat and told him that he would be taking that. Long story short, my husband sat and waited 45 minutes for the trooper to come back, only to find out that his weapon and his concealed weapon's permit were going to be confiscated because he was a convicted felon. I can only imagine his reaction, but seriously, how would you react if you were falsely identified, stripped of your weapon and your permit, and then not even given so much as a ticket with any way of identifying that the situation had occurred. My hubby was livid... That being said, the rest of our trip was without aforementioned 45... Resolution is in process for the case, they did apologize for the mistake, but he has yet to receive the returned weapon.
Oh wait, did I mention, there was tournament to get to?!? LOL. After trying to calm my hubby down (can you believe he didn't even get himself a coffee while he was gone), we headed into Spokane. He dropped me off at the pool room, and with a kiss and a smile was gone to head the effort of relocating our family camper to a better suited location. With 27 players to start and only 8 returning on Sunday, we knew that Saturday would be action packed, but as always, it was such a pleasure to catch up and share stories with the ladies of the NWPA.
I played four matches on Saturday, with a mixed bag of results... My first match was on the live stream against Spokane resident, Sharon Bledsoe. We both struggled during that match; however, my struggles were earlier in racks, while hers were later. I won 7-2, but knew that I would need to play way better if I was going to win my next match against Shelby Locati (Vancouver, WA). Early on, I was so distracted that I couldn't tear my eyes off of the white sweat socks that the lady on the table next to me was wearing with her dress shoes... Not that I really care, but for some reason this dress code violation rubbed me the wrong way.... That being said, I was down 4-0 before I could blink, so I took my break to regroup and regain my concentration. I came back with a vengeance, ultimately tying the match at 5, before succombing 7-5, after a missed 8 ball in game 12, resulted in my heading to the B side of the board.
I didn't have to wait long and my next match was against Miss Sheila Clark (Oldtown, ID). A flip had been switched and I played near flawless. I won that match 6-0 and was eager to keep the momentum going. Since many of the other matches ended up being much closer in score than mine, I had to wait a couple hours before my next round. I played a good friend of mine and the pool gods decided that it was the end of my tournament. It felt like every time I missed or played safe, the next numbered ball in sequence ended up near the 9 ball. It was uncanny. Alisha defeated me 6-3, after pocketing 5 early 9s (in a race to 6!) I was sick to my stomach. My tournament was over and there was not a damn thing I could do about it... Crazy! Wow! OK, well... I guess it was time to move on... Alisha apologized for the match, but I couldn't accept it. I told her she was a combo monster. She intended to make all 5 of those combos, and make them she did. From the moment I came to terms with the loss I was ready to go. My hubby had left a message on my cell for me to call him, along with a text with the same message. So I called, and I called, and I texted, and I called, and I texted, and called.... for the next 6 hours. During that time I sold raffle tickets, visited with friends, ate a totally delicious French Dip, then went on to complain, worry, and yes call & text multiple more times. By the time we finally got in touch it was after 11 and I had come to terms with the possibility of sleeping on one of the other ladies couches for the night, so yes the cocktails were flowing.
We were singing and dancing and shooting scotch doubles when my husband finally came to the Checkerboard Tavern (also on Sprague, west of Black Diamond Billiards & Eatery.) Upon his arrival, I tried to woo him into singing me our song, but he wasn't having anything to do with it. He was also upset about not being able to get in touch. So this is when I broke out the big guns... I then sang You Never Even Called Me By My Name to him... This was such a first for me, he couldn't help but smile. Under any other circumstances I might have won one of those cool wife awards.... LOL, but it wasn't. He just smiled and we departed, not to return to the company of the pool playing folks for the duration of the adventure...
For the rest of the weekend, we ate, drank, visited, swam, rode the 4 wheeler, and watched movies. It was truly what a vacation should feel like. No alarm clocks, no dress codes, just good times with good company :). I am looking forward to many more. Check back soon to see where my next adventure takes me...
