Donkey Basketball

Making the T-Shirts

Okay. You all know that I’m weird. Strange. A little off. So when an ad appeared in the Gardiner newsletter for Donkey Basketball, Heidi and I discussed whether we wanted to play. We both thought it sounded like fun but weren’t too sure about writing. So we caviled for a little bit but finally decided that it really was too cool to pass up. How many times do you think you’d have the chance to play Donkey Basketball (and raise money to help a local with medical bills)? Um, like, none. So to pass this up would be the height of utter foolishness.

Going to get the Donkeys

I called and signed up. Or tried to anyway. Unfortunately, there were already the maximum number of teams. So I went to Plan B and joined the National Park Service (NPS) team. Except that the point person for that team didn’t want to play, she was just trying to be helpful and have a team. Since I was the first person to respond, I became the default captain. Oh, yeah. I’m the CAPTAIN. And that was my nickname. My first email was to scout prospective teammates. We gathered a pretty good team. My next decree was that we all should have nicknames (the only team to do so). I also decreed that we would wear white t-shirts and wear brown pants (Carhartts or Red Ants Pants). That second one was dumb. Have you ever tried to get on a donkey wearing stiff pants? It just doesn’t go well.

Playing

The big night came. You may have noticed that I already have a post for Park to Paradise on this day. “But, Jessi,” you might wonder, “You set up the food for P2P, you ran 5 miles that day, did you actually go and play Donkey Basketball as well?” The answer is “Yes, and I even fit in a memorial service for a former boss as well.” It was a long-ass (see what I did there?) day. By the end of the night, I felt like I blinked and 15 minutes passed. I’m pretty sure I was “this close” to hallucinating.

Bringing in the donkeys

But, this is not a post about exhaustion, it’s about Donkey Basketball. It was fun, it was fantastic. For the whole two minutes I was on a donkey. I got off to retrieve a ball and COULD NOT get back on. My pants were way to stiff and I just couldn’t manage it. At that point, I had been on the donkey, my mission was accomplished, so I called a teammate over and had him jump on.

The whole team

Taking a shot (I missed, but I tried!)

Yep, this was necessary