My New Discovery

I have made an incredible discovery.

Today was one of those days when you stayed up too late working the night before and had to get up too early. One of those days when you struggled to get up with the alarm, yet sill just missed breakfast. The steaming pits in the buffet line where treys of food had been moments before, taunting your empty stomach with each exhaled breath of steam. One of those days when you spent six hours editing two paragraphs, and when you were done the original author tells you he liked it better the way it was before you started. One of those days when you have been sitting long enough that you feel restless and tired at the same time.

Volleyball didn't start for another hour, and I needed a change of scenery. Nobody wanted to go outside and play frisbee. What do you mean you don't want to dress up it 5 layers and clumsily throw a disc in -25 windchill? So I decided to take my frisbee for a walk to the "end of the world."

The "end of the world" is the outer edge of the berms area of the South Pole station. It is where they move all of the snow that builds up around the station from winds rolling across the Antarctic ice cap. I walked out that direction, throwing the frisbee, watching its white spinning form blend into the white sky and the white snow. Funny thing, when the frisbee lands on the snow, it doesn't stop spinning right away, because there isn't much friction. The temporal continuity of the frisbee's motion blended in smoothly with the spatial continuity of the whiteness surrounding me.

I meandered out to some old human-sized tunnels of corrugated metal that were half buried, about 10 minutes walk from the station. I tossed the frisbee into the opening of the tunnel, and jogged after it. A small sign at knee height broke suddenly forced my wandering thoughts to focus. The sign had a "6" printed on it, and an arrow with the words "basket by yellow flag, par 3." Par 3? I looked up and noticed a metal post with chains hanging off of the top and a cylindrical metal basked affixed to the post at waist height. Suddenly it clicked. I had taken my frisbee for a walk and had inadvertently stumbled onto a folf course!

The moment of discovery.

For those of you who don't know, folf means frisbee-golf. It is usually played on an 18-"hole" course. Each "hole" consists of exactly what I had just found: a metal post standing head heigh with a cylindrical metal basket at waist height and metal chains running from the top of the post into the basket. You try to throw your frisbee into the basket. Just like golf a par-3 means that you get three throws to get from one post to the next in order to be on-par for the course.

Post #9. The tunnels can be seen in the background.

Can you get the frisbee through the ring of fire?

Now throw from on top of an industrial sized spool of hose!

I was very excited, and started playing the course from 9 on. The course was quite interesting, with some home-made posts that were hoops you had to throw the frisbee through, ladders to get up on top of industrial-sized spools of hose, and the tunnel I had stumbled upon originally. I ended up playing the course 1.5 times, and found most of the posts. By the time I quit, I was late for volleyball and above par by 5 throws at the 13th hole. But that was fine with me. It was a great way to finish one of those days.