On Location Tour Continues

After arriving at Cypress at 3.00am the alarm came around quickly this morning, but it was a beautiful morning in another amazing water ski facility. Cypress Hill Lakes was built in the late 80's and is very well established with beautiful homes and seasoned skiers!
Thanks to Craig Weltjer for spreading the word in the Houston area for the On Location Tour Clinic at Cypress, I met Craig about 15 years ago whilst training with Mike Munn and Banana Bend. I was great to spend a few hours with Mike again today, it brought back a lot of great memories! What a fantastic group of skiers Mike Munn, Mark Rivard, David Panneton, Ron Toole, Wanda Holomis, Shane Hill, Kelley Dlugosh, Ann Panneton, Mark Petrie & Holly Petrie


It was great to hang with an old training Buddy!


Heading to Austin for the Collegiate National Championships!

Location:Cypress Hill Lakes Texas

On Location Tour Continues

After a great day on the water at Princeton Lake we left the site at 8.00pm with a 4 hour journey ahead of us to Cypress near Houston. W were only 60 miles out and and the GPS had in the small town of Anderson, we were of the beaten track fir sure!
We needed to make a sharp right turn to avoid hitting low hanging trees, we cut the corner sharp and hadn't realized we we driving the rear wheels of the Tour Rig right into a culvert ditch. The back of the Rig dropped and bottomed out when the Trailer hit the road surface, the tow-hitch was digging into the black top and the right rear wheels we hanging in the air. This was not a good combination for an early arrival at Cypress! By now it was gone midnight and we were whipped from the full day in the boat. The trees we had tried to avoid hitting were on the property across the road from the culvert and the property owner was sitting on his balcony probably think was a bunch of tools!



After accessing the situation it became clear the boat trailer had to be taken of the coach, as it would not go forward without traction and it would not for backwards as the ass was dragging and the tow-hitch had dug into the Tarmac. The guy who owned the house across the street was very cool and happy to help, I guess he thought if he did not help we were stuck in front of his house and blocking both directions of traffic. Ryan and his loverly wife were amazing and After help take the boat off the back of the Rig and tow it back up the hill and out of the way, we could now focus on using the hydraulic jacks on the coach to raise the back end and fill the culvert with anything we could find. Ryan is a tree climber (tree surgeon) and had a large cedar log and a bunch of tree limbs from a job he had worked on.
We also dismantled him rockery out front of his house to fill the culvert, once it was full and level we dropped a sheet of plywood across it all and lowered the coach by letting down the jacks!
This worked a treat and we were out of ditch by 2.00am.



I have to say we have met some amazing people this summer on the Tour and Ryan was no exception, Texas's are amazing friendly people ready to do what ever it takes to help out. Ryan did not bat an eyelid and jump all over the challenge. Anderson is a very small town with the oldest Court House in Texas and once was the capital of the Republic of Texas and the very old house that Ryan had bought only four months earlier was once a guest house to Samuel Adams!

Ryan you are a Very Cool Fella!

Location:Anderson TX

On Location Tour Continues

We dropped into Princeton Lake back in September and met Jasen Whetstone, Robert Lacy and Larry Stogner. We talked about setting up a few Clinic days on next seasons Tour, but when there was demand to come back to Texas again this year the guy's jump all over having a Clinic this year! What a beautiful day at a beautiful site.


Larry Stogner had two sets with us and made great progress with his skiing, great work Larry!



It was a pleasure to meet young Derek Lockman age 12, meeting him brought back so many memories for me. I was also 12 years old when I started to run the course and compete!
Great skiing today Derek, keep up the great work and we see you again very soon.


Gar laid back in the MasterCraft Pro Star 197 2011 edition a pulling her up to the dock for our next skier! He better behind the wheel of the boat!



It was 6.00pm and after the Tour Rig was packed up, it was time to head to Cypress Hills for our Friday Clinic.

KEverything was going smooth until Garminier decided to take us on the back roads a small.

Gar found himself on the back roads, we ended up in the very small town of Anderson with the oldest court house in Texas.
The street became very narrow and whilst Gar was trying to make it round with the front of the coach, in the mean time we dropped the back wheels into a culvert. it too us 1.5 hours to jack the back end up and pack the culvert up with anything we could find!!!! Thanks to Ryan Winery who watch from his balcony the nightmare unfold, thanks to Ryan for helping us with backing up the boat as it needed to come off the hitch because if digging into the road We finally got the couch out of the ditch at 2.00am am got back on the road. Another story for the trip! Gar is leading the stories right now!!!!!

Location:Princeton Lakes Princeton TX

On Location Tour Continues

From New Orleans to Princeton Texas, we had an 11 hour drive ahead of us, this gave me a full day behind my computer to catch up with office stuff whilst Gar took the wheel! This left Diego to do what he loves to do, Sleep! He is half boy half mattress most of the time! Traveling West on Interstate 10 takes you on much water and swamp land and the road becomes a huge causeway of many miles of sectioned and ungalating road surface, we were hoping the windshield would not pop out any further!



The highways, bridges and vehicle are massive in the US, this bridge going over the Missisippee River was a Big one!


Big River means Big Boats, the barges hauling thousands of tons of cargo! You can see the huge barges in the distance of this picture and the the one in the bottom left corner looks small, I assure you it's only because the bridge we were crossing was so high up it seems small!



We dropped down over the bridge into Baton Rouge Louisiana


The Duck Tape I had put across the corners of the wind shield to hold the glass in whilst in New Orleans has come free again, it was time to find a hardware store and some Guerilla Tape! Move over Dick Tape! The is always usually something bigger, higher faster, larger, stronger or stickier in the US if you look hard enough!
We had crossed the State Line into Texas and pulled over at a Lowes DIY store, as I mentioned before bigger than normal, this Store was Massive! I guess that's how I knew we were in Texas!

On the way out the store, I met a gentleman in looked remarkably like Elvis Presley. He was carry a 12 foot high step ladder and I asked him if he would mind if I used his new step ladder for 10 minutes to apply the new Guerilla Tape to the Rig! He very politely introduced him self as James L Wages and said by all means I have more shopping to collect take it and I come over and collect it shortly! An extremely nice Fella with a heart of gold!
Pretty soon I hard the glass strapped down hard and fast with the new Tape, the wind shield was pretty secure now.
James over to the Rig and I had to ask him what he did for a living, low and behold he is a full time Elvis Presley Tribute Artist as has just been voted the world best Elvis Act! Check him out on his web site jameslwages.com
He is a class act all the way around and it was a pleasure to have met him! Thanks for the loan of the ladder James!

Diego did not realize he was hugging the King! In his Juan's Deere T- Shirt! What an Ass!

Location:Heading to Texas

On Location Tour Continues

We left Covington around 6.00pm with enough time to crew the Tour Rig in to The French Quarter in New Orleans, it was pretty crazy to find a large and very nice RV camp ground within walking distance from the Quarter!
French Quarter RV is a great site with swimming pool, hot tub, laundry and nice shower facilities etc. And all beautifully paved with brick! We drove over the Cause Way into New Orleans as the sun was setting over Lake Pochitrain.


It was cool to see the renovations all around the city after the rebuild from Hurricane Katrina, even the dome has been renovated. This is where thousands were evacuated from!


The weather was a little rainy and the Bourbon Street was a lot quieter then the last time I was there about five years ago, before that was Mardi Gras back in 1994.


We had a great dinner at The Bourbon House on Bourbon St, there were many great live acts on stage in most of he bars.



We headed back to the RV around mid night and awoke to a beautiful morning in the Quarter.


The weather was great as we rolled out of the RV park around 10.30am bound for Texas!


Prior to our departure, we loaned a step ladder to put a little gorilla.

I want to thank the guy again who loan my his step ladder, I needed to put a layer of Dock Tape on the top corners of the Tour Rig windshield to hold the glass in. It appears that we have popped the windshield from either raising the hydraulic jack uneven or twisted the coach frame over some rough and uneven ground, something else to have fixed over the winter period. This Rig is pretty cool!


This is the Mac Daddy of all RVs though, it's the Prevost

Location:New Orleans Louisiana

On Location Tour Continues

We arrived in Covington at around mid night and Got parked and to bed pretty quickly, whipped from two great days in boat with beating down sun all day long!

We met up with Chad Scott early morning and whilst he caught a few bad guys in hood this morning, Chad is a DEA agent in the New Orleans area. We took care of a few chores and met up in town for a local lunch at Food and Spirits of New Orleans, a great restaurant with local specials to die for. The Tuesday special Shrimp Stew and Rice, with beer batter Fried Shrimp. Mmmmmmmm.


We arrived at Ski Ranch and It was an amazing site to see a glass calm lake with a perfectly manicured white sand shoreline, negative edge pool overlooking the lake and lounge chairs all over the very large dock area.



Chad, Diego and Gar sat back on the dock chewing the fat under the seeking fans!


David & Claire Dipol have probably the most manicured water ski site I have ever seen, it was a pleasure to be there and hangout and pull some sets!
Lori Kreuger and Daniel Dipol worked on the gate set up, by being wider than their normal set up.


David Dipol built the lake 14 years ago on what was originally a grass sod farm with open land, after digging the lake he planted 70,000 pine trees. The wind is not getting the this water ski paradise to easily!


Gar was in heaven and could not believe he was skiing the world record site!

On Location Tour Continues

Following our On Location Tour in Tallahassee, we drove another 200 mile west to Ski Watch in Milton Florida for another clinic on Sunday and Monday, it was time to cook a hearty breakfast to keep us going for the day!
Eggy in a basket with scrambled eggs and ham! Emmmmmm!


It was a pleasure to meet skiers from all around the Pensacola area, Dan White from Ski Watch did a great job for pulling a fine group of skiers together.


Dan on the left, Lisa Harber from the neighborhood learnt to make the slalom course back to back and Carrie was ripping through the course with her new stance on her ski!


Dan White made huge steps forward with his skiing at the clinic, he is now in control and ready to rock the short lines!
Dan was looking right at home on his brand new 2011 Radar Strada with Strada bindings.



Diego needed to build a shin guard for when he is tricking, the Jodi's Ski Skool Gift Card worked a real gift for Diego's leg!


Skiers hanging out the new Tournament start dock at Ski Watch, this dock is very cool to hangout on!


What a beautiful lake to ski!

Location:Ski Watch in Milton Florida