Korean Friends

Afternoon fun with some friends from Korea-- Kirk Edwards in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

Meanwhile back in the Carolinas...

A Great Day for Pétanque!

We couldn't have asked for better weather.  There was hardly a cloud in the sky, there was an occasional breeze, and the courts were dry and fast.  This week's Sunday pétanque was well attended with about 20 people:  Nelson, Rebekah, Terry, Sue, Stump, Cheryl, Jean, Junior, Gail, Rom, Barbara, Fred, Bob, James, Joe, Catherine, Bert, Ed, Ronnie, and Clark, a bocce player whom Rom had invited out to play.  For most of the afternoon we had four courts going!  The new picnic tables were christened with food and drink, and everyone seemed to like them. 

Several people asked about you, Gary and Shirley, and I told them you hoped to be back in time for Mother's Day Weekend.  You are sorely missed!

Rebekah

Manor, Texas, on Sunday

Terrain on the outer courts

Walt and Estefi

Pregame

Umpire on call

Andre and Thierry (Father-son team)

San Juanita and Chris

Our final game drew a few spectators

We lost 11-13 in Consolante Semi-finals

Hostess (with the mostest!) Linda with Coco

Arsene

Consolante Winners and Runners up

Thierry with Mom and Rachel

Jacques with Estefi and Walt

The Finals

Getting the shot

Yannick in action

Champions and Runners up

Shirley counting her money!

Consolante third place tie (Michelle Healy, Earl Lovell, Gary, and Shirley)

Consolante runners up (Rudy Vallee and Christophe Chambers)

Consolante winners (Arsene Dupin and Amine Najah)

Third place tie (Michel Costa and Nicolas Bienvenu)

Third place tie (Juan Garcia and Pascal Corchia)

Runners up! (John Rolland and Claude Laulhe)

Champions! (Bernard Martin and Yannick Laulhe)

Goodbyes

We had a great time at the Bloor Ranch in Manor, Texas, on Sunday.  Jeffrey and Linda Schryver hosted the first (annual?) inter-national ThinkTanque petanque tournament with a prize pool of ten thousand dollars and many of  the top teams from across the country showed up to try for first prize.  Winners were Yannick Laulhe from Canada and Bernard Martin of Florida.

Pictures from Texas on Saturday

As promised, here are a few pictures from Saturday at the Bloor Ranch Texas ThinkTanque Open petanque tournament.  The need to change tournament producers and directors near the last minute, and the fact that the teams that were expected to come from Europe were unable to do so, resulted in a much smaller turnout than had been hoped for at this first-time event. But, I have a feeling that Jeffrey Schryver's decision to continue the event at full payout levels ($10,000 prize pool!) and the UNBELIEVABLE amenities provided will lead to a word-of-mouth tidal wave of good publicity for future events.

What other tournament has ever provided two-and-a-half full days of some of the best petanque this country has to offer along with free camping, free live music bands, free beer, free water, free food, free Ricard flavored ice-slushies, free event t-shirts, and free French pastries at its inaugural event?  Texas-sized hats off to Jeffrey and Linda!!!

Since I didn't lead out with Saturday's results, you may have already figured out that Shirley and I didn't fare too well.  We had set our goal for the day at breaking even, knowing that it was a strong field.  Believe me, we would have been happy to play at .500 in this league!  We fell short, though, finishing at 1 and 3 for the day.  We lost to Juan and Pascal (both members of the 2013 US national team); we lost to Yannick and Bernard (Yanick is on the Canadian national team and you all know Bernard Martin as Marco Foyot's usual partner when he's in the US); and we lost to Nicolas and Michel (the San Antonio team that won the Heart of Texas Open in March).  We did squeak out a win over the fine Heart of Texas team od Rick Armstrong and Jim Schwobel.  So, we'll be in the Consolante division on Sunday.

The third Carolina Petanque member playing in this weekends' tournament, Walt Elder, played with Terry Plemons of Austin.  They managed to finish 2 and 2 and will probably be in the Concours division.  They came very close to upsetting Juan and Pascal jumping out to an incredible 12-0 lead!  They were holding point number thirteen on the ground, Walt had just hit an unreal shot at approximately 17 meter, when Juan played his last boule, still at seventeen meters, and bumped Walt away to save the game.  Amazing stuff!  The final score was 13-12 for Juan and Pascal.

I'll keep you posted.

Gary