Playing Petanque at Colt State Park

Earlier in the week our friend Magali contacted us in hopes of arranging another petanque session out at Colt State Park. The three of us along with friend Sheryl, enjoyed a wonderful session of playing petanque followed by a delicious picnic last year and she thought why not do it again -- but this time bring along more people. So she invited Gigi and Noel to join us as well. Our thought was the more the merrier!

The plan was to rendezvous at the boules court about 4pm.

We found a place to park right next to the court and enjoyed watching a family playing bocci on the one court available. (If you must know, boules or petanque and bocci are quite similar games of throwing small balls, wooden or metal, trying to align them as close as possible to the small white ball.

Susie and I sat on a nearby bench to watch the game and a few minutes later Magali joined us. The three of us caught up on all the latest news of work, life, and details from her visit to her family in France.

Eventually Noel and Gigi pulled in and then Sheryl. We broke out our beach chairs and just enjoyed the overcast skies, slight, occasional breeze off the water as we sat in awe of the bocci players' acumen and skill with those little balls. While some in their family were clearly better and more adept at the game than others, these folks took the play seriously giving my dangerous ideas about how to throw the ball. Those ideas would, of course, get me into trouble, later after they finished and we took over the court.

Since Magali had forgotten her balls we had to rely on our pack of six, which allowed three players, so we opted for no teams, just individual cutthroat. The first group up consisted of myself, Susie and Noel who claimed he had never played before but seemed a bit of a hustler to me -- but Susie walked away with the first round. Up next was the defending champion, Gigi and Magali, and way too much fun:

l-r: Susie, Gigi and Magali

Magali won the second (and final) round, which was a signal to break out the coolers and park ourselves on a nearby bench for dinner.

Salads, chips, sandwiches, followed by cocoa hazelnut and pistachio berry financiers and a small peach flan rounded out the dinner portion of the evening. Plenty of laughter to go around, compliments of Magali and Gigi, two of the world's most skillful machines.

Eventually we had to pack up -- closing time was sunset although on such an overcast day that calculation must pose a bit of challenge to the park service. We bid adieu and au revoir to all, loaded up our car and headed back north to Rubetown.

Not a bad way to kick off Labor Day weekend. . .