Cathy’s race makes for an amazing gift
It is with grave misgivings that I reveal the insane lengths Kyle Nolte went to so his wife, Cathy, would have a memorable 40th birthday party last Saturday.
Memorable? The Athens Olympics weren’t this memorable.
Kyle pulled out all the stops to create “Cathy’s Amazing Race,” a mini-version of his wife’s favorite globe-hopping TV reality show. The all-day event saw four women (two per team) taking a journey that put them in canoes, airplanes, Jet Skis, trucks, taxi cabs and bicycles.
It ended with them pushing old tires along Sprague Avenue.
The women stayed the course, receiving clues at prearranged checkpoints. Kyle put one of his clues in a classified personals ad.
“Make your way to Felts Field Aviation,” it advised.
The goal was simple: First duo to cross the finish line wins $300.
That finish line, by the way, was a Spokane Valley restaurant where 30 friends were waiting to give Cathy a surprise party.
There’s no gentle way to put this.
Kyle Nolte has ruined it for every schlub out here in Husband Land. We’ll never live up to this.
“It was just remarkable,” says Cathy. “Words can’t sum it up.”
See?
Kyle, who turned 40 last January, invested weeks of planning into Cathy’s Amazing Race. “I’m kind of anal,” he says. “Every morning I’d get to work and go through the plan.”
When it comes to attending to detail, Kyle does have an edge. He spent five years prosecuting cases from misdemeanors to murders as a U.S. Air Force JAG (judge advocate general).
He retired earlier this month as a major with 22 years in the military. The Noltes moved from Springfield, Va., to Liberty Lake with their two young children. He has opened a Valley law practice.
Kyle lived in Spokane from 1984-1997. He served as a helicopter pilot here and attended Gonzaga School of Law. The Noltes celebrated their 11th anniversary last spring.
Spokane, Kyle adds, reminds him of Minnesota, where he grew up, but with less humidity and more manageable mosquitoes. “We love it here.”
The race kicked off Saturday morning. It was Cathy and Nikki Mee vs. Andrea Schell and Suzie Lewis.
They began by paddling canoes on Liberty Lake. A few minutes after starting, alas, Andrea and Suzie rolled their canoe and drenched themselves.
That allowed Cathy and Nikki to finish first. They jumped on mountain bikes and rode for a store parking lot seven miles away. Well out in front, Cathy says she couldn’t believe her eyes when a pickup roared past. Andrea and Suzie had hitched a ride and were sitting with their bikes in the truck bed.
It looked like a flagrant foul. But Kyle’s instructions merely said the women had to “stay on” the bikes. The two women claimed they kept their legs “on” the bicycles during the entire truck ride.
At Felts Field, Kyle had arranged for flights to Sandpoint where rented pickup trucks awaited. The women had to buy an item at Coldwater Creek, save the receipt as proof, and drive to Coeur d’Alene.
Then it was Jet Skis. They sped to Arrow Point and returned with one of the long straws used in that popular tub o’booze drink, the Derailer.
On the jarring wave ride back, alas, Cathy lost the plastic bag containing her cell phone and Coldwater receipt. The team burned up 45 minutes convincing the Sandpoint store to fax a copy of the receipt to the Coeur d’Alene Resort. It was a fatal blow to the birthday team’s cash hopes.
But there was no quitting. The race took them to a bowling alley where they each had to bowl a strike. Taking note of her competitors’ bogus truck ride, Cathy slipped off her shoes, padded down the lane and rolled her strike three feet from the pins. These women are animals.
They slid down the red wagon at Riverfront Park. They climbed rock walls at Wild Walls. They bought a shot of whiskey at a downtown bar. They returned to the Valley, where they rolled radials to the party at Players & Spectators. Though she finished out of the money, Cathy Nolte says the 40th birthday bash her hubby dreamed up couldn’t have been sweeter. “It was,” she adds, “the memory of a lifetime.”