24. Goal Ball

I know what you are pondering. "Why did they stop in Bemidji?" you are asking yourself. Ponder no further, I will enlighten you.

We went to Bemidji to see my friend Rob. Rob is a teacher at the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind in Tucson. Among his many talents, Rob is a goalball coach. One week out of every year, he coaches goalball in Bemidji at a camp for visually impaired students. Although we've had plenty of chances to see him at work in Tucson, for some reason we never managed to make it to a game until we got to see Rob at work in Bemidji.

We started with a tour of Bemidji State University, where the camp takes place. It's a really beautiful campus, on the shore of Lake Bemidji (they use the lake as a parking lot during the winter). Then we went to the gym to see the students play goal ball. We were there at the very end of the camp, so we were seeing the tournament that determined the camp champion goalball team. The game is fascinating, though like soccer, I think goalball would be more fun to play than to watch.

We had dinner with Rob at a lakeshore restaurant, and I also got to join Rob for breakfast Saturday morning before we headed off for a short 100-mile drive to Bay Lake.