Yellowstone Adventure Pics: Getting There

I'm assuming that most of the people who come to this blog do so accidentally. You were looking at a picture on the web, and it just happened to originate here, or you searched on the phrase "Idaho drinking age" and you followed a Google link to discover that sometime, many years ago, I randomly referenced Idaho in a post I wrote about how the drinking age in every state in America got raised to 21. Very few of you are here because you know me, or because you are familiar with my writing and photographs. That's okay, and I always hope that whoever wanders by finds something that they enjoy enough to make the virtual trip worth at least the time it takes for the site to download. I must admit, though, that today's post probably isn't the one that's going to put me on your blog roll. Today is all about vacation photos, and worse yet, they're not even the "exotic journey in the Himalayas" type of photos. This little set of pictures is my personal memoir of travelling from Point A to Point B. Bail at will.

Now, I grant you, I think Point A (Portland, Oregon) is a pretty cool place to live, and Point B (Yellowstone National Park) is an absolutely fabulous place to visit, but getting from A to B is a long drive, and it's made even longer when you're pulling a trailer. There's no such thing as fast when you have 7,000 lbs. of house hitched to your bumper. My husband Ked and I have made this trip before, and found the drive totally worth it, so we knew what to expect, although this time we added a twist--our friends Scott and Mary came along for the ride, their two munchkins in tow. Our little trailer did yeoman duty, housing all six of us for twelve days and nights! It was a bit of a tight fit for Scott, who was a wee bit too tall for the table-turned-bed in which he and his five-year-old son slept, but other than a few back twinges, I'd say it worked out all right. Ked and I had no complaints. (You'll have to ask Scott and Mary whether they felt the same. They're too nice to gripe to our faces.) Anyway, it's about 840 miles from Portland to Old Faithful. Add to the regular drive time enough coffee, food and potty stops to keep six people relatively comfortable and happy in their seat belts, and you're looking at a couple solid days of driving.

We decided to tackle the trip strategically. Since we were travelling with a five-year-old and an eight-year-old, it made sense to get as much of the roadwork done as we could while the tots might possibly sleep away a portion of the miles. Accordingly, we set off after work on a Friday and planned to keep moving well past dark. Keep in mind, since this trip started at the end of June, dark didn't happen until sometime around 10 p.m., and we hoped to make good time before calling it quits for the night. Off we set, with high hopes of making it close to the Idaho border before finding a rest stop where we could climb into bed. (I just love that about the trailer. There's no "checking in" on the road needed, only pulling over.) I should say, Ked and I set off. Since our friends weren't hauling a house-on-wheels, they took the chance to run a few errands before leaving town, knowing they could catch up easily, or so we all thought.

That is where the first adventure, if you can call it that, of the fortnight occurred. Being well fueled with coffee and an eager spirit, Scott got a little too anxious to make up time, and within minutes of leaving home found himself pulling off the road--at the behest of a state trouper. Aargh! What a way to start a vacation!! The trouper dinged him for a hefty fine (need to fill up those dwindling state coffers, don'tcha know) and a still-eager, but much more restrained Scott and Mary started the long haul to re-connect with us and their beds for the night. It actually took far longer than we expected. We made good time, despite towing, and they had four people to keep comfortable, rather than just two, so twice the stops were necessary, and it wasn't until the sun had long since fled that we reunited. We all pulled into a rest area somewhere outside of La Grande, and gratefully slept until morning. (The rest of us slept, anyway. Scott--working on his second master's degree--had homework to finish.) We hoped that, with the ticket, we had gotten our mishap quota for the trip filled, and that it would be smooth trailing from here.

When morning came the adult members of the crew sought out coffee. Everybody sought out breakfast, and soon it was time to get moving again. We all did our best to make the journey as interesting as possible. The kids rode with me and Ked (allowing M and S some rare just-the-two-of-us time), and we sang songs, and played games with road signs and the alphabet, and often returned to that old favorite--20 questions. Gradually the day passed away. I confess that we eventually did resort to the video screen inside the car to keep the small fry entertained, but only after we had exhausted all other forms of munchkin amusement at our disposal.

We did plan a goodly time cushion in our day for stretching our legs, and Scott and Mary proved especially good at planning out diversions along the route. The best outing of the day came early, at the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. (Mary and I were in agreement that the name leaves much to be desired.) Here we got to investigate a wagon train, and explore a mining operation, and by driving a little up the road, we got to walk on the actual, honest-to-goodness Oregon Trail! There we discovered that, while settlers may not still be passing along this route, there is an enthusiastic colony of mosquitoes desperately awaiting their return. We did not stay long on the Oregon Trail! Later in the day, farther down the road in Idaho, we checked out a place called Register Rock, which is a huge boulder (currently protected from modern abuse by a high and highly un-picturesque chain link fence), on which passing settlers carved their names and the dates of their arrival.

Soon after viewing this fine example of 150-year-old graffiti, we all reckoned it was time to settle in for the night, let the kid's ride their bikes for awhile, and allow our road weary bodies a nice hot shower before bedtime. Accordingly, we located the nearest campground, which happened to be Massacre Rocks State Park--isn't that a charming name? It actually was a lovely camping spot, despite its colorful moniker. Really, the name was merely keeping the tone of the journey to this point. During the previous day's travels, while still in Oregon, we had also made our way past such places of note as Poverty Flat, Old Emigrant Hill, and the ever cheerful Dead Man's Pass. Golly, don't you just want to head right there and make a home for yourself? No wonder people were emigrating! Of course, also on the previous night's journey, we got to drive by Lake Bob as well, so all hope was not lost. There is still cheer and whimsy in the world--even if you have to travel through Dead Man's Pass to get there!

Needless to say, we eventually made it to Grizzly RV Park, in West Yellowstone, Montana. That was the jumping off point from which the real fun began! The days (and the photographs) got much more interesting from there. What follows here are just a few snaps from the drive--almost all people shots, since this little post is mostly for my own memory's sake. Go ahead and have a look. If you've stuck it out this long, you might as well hang in there the rest of the way... (Click on 'em if you want to make 'em bigger.)



When we opened our eyes that first morning at the rest area, this is what we saw. Not a bad view for a parking lot by the side of the road, and not at all what we expected to wake up to when we parked our cars in the dead of night.



Here's The Boy, doing what boys do. See a fire pit, stir it with a stick! It's the law or something, right? I'm sure that eventually he stopped to notice the covered wagons and vast countryside. Maybe.


Wandering down some stairs, and taking a few turns in the path ahead, we eventually came to this fun and educational water feature. Pretty amazing that folks actually found gold this way, just carried along by the water until it got stopped by notches in the bottom of a trough. People are seriously ingenious, you know that? Really, we take engineering and technology so much for granted, but people had to think this stuff up, from mining operations, to pyramids, to iPods. It's all amazing.

Okay, okay, it's not the most flattering picture (except of Scott there grinning away, a rare photographic moment.) I include it, though, because this is the big moment. All five of them are standing where the ruts of the covered wagons can still be seen in the hard Oregon dirt. It's the Trail, and I have to record that. Besides, this is the only picture they would let me take. They were all being eaten alive by the thirsty, blood-sucking mosquitoes, and that was as close to still as they were going to stand while in that spot. Truth be told, these little vampires were just the warm-up act. It turned out that Yellowstone had a particularly wet winter and spring, and meat was on the menu the whole trip. I must gratefully, and somewhat guiltily, report that I am pretty much immune to the little beasties, but even I found them really annoying because of their sheer numbers and ever-present buzzing. I felt terribly sorry for everyone else, though. They got munched so badly you could have drawn constellation maps on their legs. Death to all mosquitoes!!

I really have nothing to narrate about this picture. Girlie just looks so adorable that I couldn't resist posting this one.

Here is evidence that we did, indeed, make use of the DVD player in the car that second day. Can't say it didn't keep the munchkins content!

Here are Mary and I at Register Rock. (Mary left, me right.) We were the photographers for the trip, so getting both of us in a picture was something of a trick. Ked manned the video camera, and Scott took charge of all things which required maps. All in all, it worked out equitably, although I'm sure I drove everyone nuts by the second day, because I live by the philosophy that if you take a hundred pictures, five will turn out. I snap a lot of pictures.

Here's a more flattering picture of Ked, to make up for the mosquito-flailing shot from earlier. Behind him is the Snake River. This was our view first thing, early the second morning, when we woke up at Massacre Rocks. Looks a lot nicer than it sounds, don't you think?

Just to be a good sport, and prove that I'm not above humiliating myself for the sake of keeping things equitable regarding the mosquitoes-on-the-Oregon-Trail photo, here's a view of me, first thing, early that second morning. I am not a morning person, so I hope this squares me with the fairness police (the ones that live inside my head.) The things I do to keep from feeling guilty...

Next up--Yellowstone National Park!!

Yellowstone Preamble

I'm supposed to be packing. I have eight typed pages of checklists to make sure I remember everything. (Yes, I am a bit compulsive about checklists.) Ked and I are heading to Yellowstone tomorrow. I'm so excited I can hardly think straight--thus the need for all the lists! We're taking our trailer, two friends and their two children on a twelve day excursion. I better not forget anything. Twelve days is a long time to go without shampoo! (Yes, I know, most people would just buy it on the road, but do you know how hard it can be to find unscented shampoo at a truck stop? Not even an option.) I've been cooking and prepping for weeks, and we will try to cram all that food, clothing and sundry supplies into our little 22' trailer tonight and hit the road tomorrow afternoon.

I'm nowhere near ready to go as I sit here typing. Why then, you ask, am I wasting time on a blog post when there's work to be done? Answer: I can't help myself!! I started thinking about all the great hikes and sights the last time we visited Old Faithful, and my mind wouldn't rest until I dug up a few of the memories. I just had to pass a few of them on to you. The picture quality isn't great, but it's the best our technology at the time could manage, so here we go. I won't spend lots of time captioning. (There, the limited captioning ought to give me at least two or three extra minutes of packing time!! Whew. That'll save my hide later when the pressure is really on!)


I can't wait until the kids (8 and 5) see their first buffalo... or elk... or moose... or bear. Whee!! This should be fun!

Everywhere you go there are landscapes that look like they belong on some alien planet. If I remember correctly, this beauty is called "Morning Glory."

Not all the hot springs are particularly benign. There is something a little disconcerting when you are in Yellowstone about knowing that you are in a giant caldera and the volcano ain't exactly sleeping soundly.

Evey time I see this picture it makes me think about that cartoon that I used to read when I was a kid. What was the name of that little guy? Iggy? Izzy? Something like that. It's gonna bug me till I remember. Anybody else have a clue? Ziggy, maybe?

I know it's only been six years, but I can't get over how much younger Ked and I look. (Psst. Don't tell him I said that...)

Who is that mere infant standing there, and when we see her next will she have any feet?

We saw this family of bald eagles every day as we entered the park. Dad, Mom and youngster made that nest a must-visit to start each day's adventures. Once we got to see Dad flying in a big, fat fish and dropping it to his eagerly waiting family. Ked actually caught the whole flight on video. How cool is that!?

Well, so much for limited captions! I'll end with this little shot, stitched together from several others. We took our time playing with the camera until we figured out the "panorama" setting. I know it will be different this time around, because we probably can't ask the kids to wait while we get just the right photo, or drag them on seven mile hikes, or make them sit in a car for hours hoping a moose walks by, but this adventure will be great in its own way, I know. I can't wait to get to Wyoming again and see all the amazing places, animals, geysers, mud pots and all the rest, through fresh, young eyes. Hurry up tomorrow!! Oops, that reminds me--I better get packing!

Sight Restored

I'm heading over to my church to work on some rooms I'm remodelling, but something came in my email that is completely, unbelievably, wonderfully cool, and I had to take a minute to pass it your way. Scientists are discovering more and more ways they can heal you with stem cells from your own body. I can't believe how simple, quick and painless this one is--take a look!

Aaaarrgh!!!

Plumbing disaster number SIX has just struck our home. That's six in less than two months!! The only good news here is that we've got to run out of plumbing-related things to go down the drain soon. There just aren't that many possibilities left--everything else has already broken.

Star Trek

Went to see the new Star Trek movie this afternoon! I haven't been to a theater in a very long time--not many films can lure me into "Overpriced Discomfort World," but I've been watching Star Trek since I was five years old, and it beckons like the purr of a baby tribble, or the distress call of a Federation science outpost under attack from a Romulan Warbird. I will not bore you with my opinions about casting choices, character development, relationship twists, time travel, alternate time-lines, or the potential for exciting sequels. These are judgements every sci fi fan must make for themselves. The definite opinion I will offer, though, is that this movie is FUN! I was thoroughly entertained, and loved some of the nods to the original series. If you're in the mood for some rollicking sci fi adventure, you could do worse than to go see the latest Roddenberry spawn--a lot worse.

Fun In The Sun!

Ked's home from the office this week, and we're tackling some long-neglected and much-anticipated home improvement projects. We have been going gangbusters, and been extremely productive. The weather has been perfect for what we are doing, and even the one bout of surprisingly intense rain we had on Tuesday did not hinder us. We are cruising through our extremely lengthy to-do list. We won't get it finished this week, by any means, but the list is looking more manageable all the time. We now have working sinks and faucets in both our bathroom and our kitchen, the pipe is laid in the ditch that runs from our gutter downspout to our newly-dug dry-well, we have drywall up in the unfinished part of our basement, all of the furniture and stuff has been packed up and moved out of what used to be my sewing room (but has been unusable for the last five years--yes, the to-do list is that long), and we are ready to get to the destruction and reconstruction portion of our "vacation." I'm starting the demo on the sewing room remodel today, while Ked will be replacing the sealing around the windows and door on our travel trailer. (We have to get it ready for our trip to Yellowstone--only a month away!!) As you can see, we are getting so much done! I'm almost dizzy with the thrill of it all!!

Needless to say, there's not been a lot of time this week for recreational reading. We've been hopping, but something came into my email inbox that caught my eye, and I took a minute to follow a link to this little piece about a new tech toy that I thought was very cool. Imagine that you are working out in the hot sun, say, digging a dry-well, or, if you want to have a little fun instead, you are out hiking on a desert trail. Wouldn't some music be nice? Kind of a pain, though, since the cord to your headphones got all tangled while you were digging, and/or the batteries to your wireless set died ten minutes into your hike. Such a pain. Couldn't you use some solar-powered Bluetooth headphones for just such occasions? This fun little gadget isn't a reality yet--just a glimmer in the inventive eye of engineering student Shepeleff Stephen, but I'm sure something like it is on the way, and soon. I'm guessing you'll have such a toy on your head long before Ked and I have made it all the way through our home improvement to-do list. We're making serious progress, but these days technology gets conceived and invented so quickly that these things will probably be obsolete before I get the first coat of mud on the new sewing room drywall.

Well, I'm off to be productive. Need to make hay while the sun shines!! Maybe soon we'll be making music while the sun shines, or listening to it, anyway.

Scary

I've mentioned recently that I'm not particularly brave, rather a chicken, in fact. People, especially, tend to make me wary, because they are unpredictable and it's hard to read their motives. You just can't know what's going on inside another person. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, because it's what I want from them, but it's hard not to interpret certain signals negatively and go into emotional-self-protection mode. My tendency is to duck and cover. I don't want to be hurt, and my instinct is to make myself a smaller target and "disappear" when I think other people are unhappy with me, or have rejected me. It's probably not the wisest approach to life. Things go unresolved when you disappear, and if other people can possibly interpret your motives wrongly, it's a pretty good bet that they will a large portion of the time. Protecting yourself emotionally by withdrawing from potential sources of pain can be interpreted as rejecting others, for example, or as punishing someone else for previous hurts. It doesn't matter what's true, usually, or how much internal good will you have toward others. What matters is what's perceived, and it's hard to reengage once walls have been built to hide behind. I usually need encouragement to come out from behind them, and it's often the case that that encouragement never comes. It would be far better never to hide in the first place, but instinct is a hard thing to fight. That's a problem I'm still wrestling with, the struggle between instinct and wisdom. May God grant me grace and strength for the ongoing struggle.

So what happens when this occurs on an international scale? What happens when it's countries interacting, interpreting motives, and even "disappearing?" China, for example, withdrew from the world for a good deal of the twentieth century. Isolating herself from other nations, she put up a big Do Not Disturb sign and turned her back on the rest of humanity. That has changed for the most part these days. China wants trading partners, and customers to buy the goods of her billion or so budding entrepreneurs. The world has pretty much thrown its arms wide to China, buying her merchandise and exploring this once closed land. The Olympics gave the Chinese government the perfect chance to cast as benign a light as possible on her culture, people and intentions. Still, the international community does not know China very well after all those years of isolation, and there's bound to be some legitimate suspicion.

As an example of a "how am I supposed to interpret that" scenario, what should the world make of China's development of new and extremely powerful weapons systems? Gizmag has an article out today about what is believed to be a new and truly scary Chinese anti-ship ballistic missile, "capable of targeting and destroying US aircraft carriers"--in one shot. How does the world, and the U.S. in particular, go about giving China the benefit of the doubt here? Are the Chinese, in their own way of thinking, just protecting themselves from real or perceived threats, or are they getting ready to attempt a take-over of Taiwan? How should the countries of the world react?

Is China's development of aircraft carrier killers any different than the U.S. developing what we would consider defensive weapons systems, like Star Wars, or is China just keeping ahead of the game in a big, bad world? Many would say that China has shown herself to be a bully, and that once places like Tibet are free, then we can talk about China's legitimate right to self-defense. Of course, many in the world (I consider them in error) would say that the U.S. is a bully, and has no right to limit the military acquisitions of any other sovereign nation. For example, some people would say Iran has a perfect right to develop nuclear weapons capability. They would claim that if we can do it, Iran should be able to as well. Of course, the U.S. doesn't go around supporting Canadian terrorists and threatening to wipe Mexico off the map, as Iran has done with Iraq, Lebanon and Israel, so I'd say there are moral canyons between America and Iran, but that doesn't change the fact that reasonable people can disagree on the rights of nations, and that it's a difficult task to interpret the motives of another person, let alone another culture. I'd say Iran is pretty hard to misinterpret, if you take them at their word at all, but China is a different story. China is not nearly as talkative as Iran. Can we really know what the Chinese powers intend?

So, how should the U.S. react to this Chinese development? The Gizmag article makes it seem that the U.S. is taking this new weapon pretty darned seriously. I'm glad that I don't have to make the decisions here. As I've said, I'm a bit of a coward. I'd probably just duck my head and hope the situation went away. Okay, not really, but I'm taking my earlier analogy to its ludicrous extreme. Hmm... is it so ludicrous, though? I'm sure there are lots of people here in the States who would love to give China the benefit of the doubt, as we would like others to give it to us, and assume that her intentions are totally self-protective and not at all aggressive in nature. They would love to simply ignore the situation and assume that China will just happily go along supplying Wal-Mart with inexpensive merchandise, but can we afford to be that charitable and trusting? Probably not. Instinct says that not everybody can be trusted. Wisdom actually says the same thing. I hope the Chinese motives truly are as benign as the face they tried to show the world during the Olympics, but I also hope that the U.S. military finds a counter to this aircraft carrier killer soon. Both instinct and wisdom are telling me that's a good idea. May God grant us all grace and strength for the ongoing struggle.

Courage

Pajamas Media has the story of some incredible women standing up against tyranny in Afghanistan. Appalling things are happening there, but given the history and current conditions, I'm amazed that these women could find the fortitude to protest. I'm pretty sure I could never be that brave...

One Day This Will Be Funny

I was talking to my friend Mary today, telling her about my rather challenging weekend, and she told me I needed to write it down to remember later, as one day this story would be funny. I thought this was a good notion, because the adventures of the past weekend are probably worthy of special remembrance, with enough weight to hang around for a long time, growing and deepening, until the memory rightfully achieves the status of legend in the annals of home improvement here in Meowville. I can certainly see how telling it right could make it funny, and if I were Dave Barry or Bill Cosby, you would be clutching your sides already, holding back the chortles while you tried to focus your eyes through the streaming tears of laughter. Unfortunately for you, I am not Dave Barry, so I will simply relate the events as I remember them, and you can take your chances.

Saturday started out memorably for Ked and me for one clear reason. We had nothing on the calendar. Oh, we had lots of things we should be doing, and lots of places we needed to go, but the official events of the day had melted away one by one, so that we were left staring at a completely unstructured day, and complete freedom as to how to spend it. We wanted to watch The Passion of the Christ that night (since it was Easter Eve), but had a whole day to get something useful done!! It was liberating and terrifying all at the same time. I swallowed my guilt at not rushing over to the church to pick up work on the remodelling project which has languished there for the last month while Ked and I battled various illnesses, and together we decided to tackle a small-but-important task that has been needing attention here at home. For the last six months we have had a brand new toilet sitting in our garage, waiting patiently for the day to arrive when it would be officially installed into its new home. This was to be the final step in the bathroom overhaul which we started six months ago. The new tub, sink and most of the floor were in, and the toilet was the only major piece of the puzzle remaining unfinished.

We only have one bathroom, so we weren't willing to tackle this task without plenty of time to see the job through. We did not want to find ourselves with the project unfinished at the end of the day, and even though installing toilets is neither complicated, difficult, nor particularly time consuming, things can and do often go wrong in home improvement, and we didn't want to be taking any chances. So, the box stayed in the garage for all those many months until the moment finally arrive. We were excited. This was our chance!!

Oh, if only we had listened to ourselves about that "plenty of time to see the job through" thing. As the morning went on, and the phone kept ringing, and the hours crept past, we should have realized that this chance was rapidly slipping away. We even talked about it. "Oh gosh, the rest of the world is not cooperating. We've spent too much time on the phone, and responding to important emails. We better put this project off again." Did we listen to ourselves, though? No!! After deciding that we probably needed to delay the work, I made the choice to "just do a little of the prep work," and then Ked decided "just to bring the box in and have a look." Then we finally committed ourselves to lunacy, and at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we jumped into the project full steam ahead, tore out the old toilet and tossed it, broken and bleeding, into our trailer to be carried away to porcelain heaven. It was a very old toilet, and we really did have to damage it to get it out of there, a circumstance which was to kick us a bit later, when we were down.

After the old unit came out, we spent some time replacing the last section of flooring and putting in some molding which was much easier to install with the giant porcelain barrier removed. Progress!! We were ready to move on to the main event. We very carefully followed the instructions which came in the big cardboard box. We made sure all the parts were there, and we gathered all the proper tools and materials. We successfully maneuvered our way through every step, and when we were done we were thrilled! It looked great, and felt solid. Now for the moment of truth! We flushed.

Oh, the joy! Oh, the triumph! Oh, the water gushing everywhere!! What had gone wrong? We tightened bolts, we examined connections. We took off the lid and poked and prodded. We inspected everyplace that could possibly be leaking. We came up with no clue why our meticulously installed toilet was making puddles on our new floor. Aargh!! This is why you do not start projects like this at 2 in the afternoon! We figured it was time to take the thing out and start over. We figured we must have messed up when we put on the wax seal. So, we knelt down to start the removal process, but decided to give it one last flush to see if the problem would reveal itself. That's when I saw it. As I lay on the floor in a position in which you almost never find yourself in relation to toilets (unless you are living in a college dorm), I saw it. It was a hole in the porcelain, right there where the bowl meets the pedestal. An honest-to-goodness, straight-from-the-factory chasm, through which poured more water than I could imagine coming from a hole which was not big enough to observe without close and desperate inspection, but which turned out to be plenty big enough to flood the area with H2O.

Get used to the word Aargh!! We used it a lot that day. Out came the brand new toilet. Into the box it went. We knew we had a receipt somewhere, but it was now going on four hours that we had been without a toilet (did I mention we only have one bathroom?), and we were feeling pretty strongly inclined to remedy this situation, so off we went to Home Depot. We knew they would be good about the receipt. All we wanted was to exchange the unit for one which came without pre-fabbed extra holes, and besides, this could be classed as something of a plumbing emergency, right?

Home Depot was, as we knew they would be, really great about it. The helpful cashier wrote down the brand info for us, so that we could go hunt down another toilet, while he got the return taken care of at his end. We went back into the bowels of the store (sorry, I couldn't resist), only to find that they didn't have any more of this unit. As it turned out, they had never had any of this unit! It had been six months since we bought it, and we had forgotten that we had been at Lowe's when we made the purchase. Terrific. We waved goodbye to the uselessly helpful Home Depot employee and made our way out to Gresham. It only took us about half an hour to make the trip. What's half an hour when you have all day? Oh wait--we didn't have all day. By this point, it was nearly seven. We made the exchange at Lowe's, after a little more fuss from them about the lack of receipt than we had experienced from the Depot, but eventually we found the identical toilet, put it in the back of our car and started what seemed to us to be a very long drive home. We stopped for a quick burger along the way, since home improvement never goes well on an empty stomach, and we didn't want tempers to start flaring. We made it home by about 9.

Eagerly, we lugged the big heavy box in the house, plopped it down in the dining room and cut the tape which sealed the container at every conceivable fold, joint and seam. Out came the tank. Out came the bowl. No holes. We're ahead of the game! Out came the seat, and then out came... nothing. There was no hardware in that box. As taped up as that box had been, we didn't notice that the unit had been opened and returned by a previous customer, who had neglected to include everything which came with his purchase when he sealed things up again. I can't even begin to tell you how frustrated we were. It's nearly nine-thirty. We have no toilet. The stores close at ten, and we can't even put the old toilet back in to get us by for awhile, because we broke it when we took it out! Get ready for it--Aargh!! (Although, I must admit, the language had gotten a bit less printable than that at this point.)

Out we trudged to Gresham again, just beating the store closing. This time we inspected every box, and discovered that ALL the toilets of that brand had boxes that appeared to have been previously opened. This did not bode well for future installation, so we decided to move on to a different option. Of course, when we looked, there was this reason why we couldn't get that affordable toilet, and that reason why we couldn't get another, and by the time we were done, we ended up spending another $180, on top of the money that we already had invested in the ticking time bomb that sat in our garage for six months, waiting to pounce on our unsuspecting and hopeful Saturday. By this point we didn't even care. We just wanted to get home and get the blasted thing installed. Ked had to be up at six in the morning to make it to worship rehearsal for Easter Sunday service. This toilet promised "40% faster installation." We plunked down our money and headed home.

It is with great gratitude that I report that the extra-spendy toilet really did install 40% faster than the gusher did. We finally had a working bathroom by approximately eleven o'clock that night. We heaved a deep sigh of relief. (Actually, I coughed a deep sigh of relief. I am still recovering from the worst flu bug Ked or I have ever had during the whole course of our 22-year marriage. To say I was tired at this point would be an understatement of very large proportions.) Anyway, our movie time was trashed, but we would not have to knock on the neighbor's door at two in the morning begging to use their facilities. We had survived!

There is one little addendum to this tale of woe. As we were inspecting the toilet during the initial gushing fiasco, we had to remove the lid. We placed it on the vanity, miscalculated the distance, and dropped it in our new porcelain sink. That sink did not survive. The toilet top punched a five inch hole in the bottom of the sink, reducing our once-functional bathroom temporarily to nothing but a tub. We tore the rest of the bowl out on Monday and plan to replace it sometime over the course of the next few days. Yes, we currently have no bathroom sink, and are brushing our teeth in the kitchen these days. The saga continues. Oh well. At least we have a toilet, and a story to tell. Someday, we may even laugh at it. Wish Dave Barry were here.

Quike The Adventure!

Hee hee. I bet you think I forgot to use Spellcheck, don't you? I bet you think I meant to write Quite The Adventure, isn't that right? Good logic, based on standard English usage, but ever so wrong, despite your solid reasoning. Then what in the world has happened to the English language, you may be wondering? Could this be yet another new word invented to cover some remarkable new tech discovery, or some new form of kid-speak that is sweeping through text messages like wildfire? No, I assure you, if it were some new lingo for the under-twenty-five set, I would have next to no way of knowing about it, ancient as I am. Okay, I do have some friends on Facebook who are in the text-speak generation, but most of what they write in said language goes completely over my head and I require translation on a regular basis. So, I would not dare to attempt to such generationally sensitive pseudo-gibberish myself without intense underage supervision, and Spellcheck would be as useless as a rotary-dialed cell phone.

Well then, what about the new-tech thing? No, that's not really it either. The word "quike" does not refer to a new-fangled technological breakthrough, though we're getting warmer. In fact, although there has, indeed, been a new twist added, the technology of which I speak is quite old. The humble bicycle was making its mark as innovative and cutting-edge way back in the 19th century, and the horse-and-buggy crowd were mocking bicycle riders as early as 1885. However, as we all know, forward-thinking bicyclists have had the last laugh. Nowadays, only the rich and the Amish can afford to stable horses, while the bicycle is used by millions of people for their principal means of transportation. Seen any video out of China lately? The bicycle is king. A little impractical for winter transportation in Oregon, maybe, but still a reliable and enjoyable means of getting around. Indeed, biking is my husband's favorite form of exercise.

So, now for the twist. A bike has two wheels, so the quike would have? Yes, I win the obvious-question-of-the-day award. It doesn't take the quadratic equation to figure out that a quike would have four wheels, along with the ability to cover rough terrain and carry loads that a mere bicycle would never be able to manage. (Although I've seen some of that aforementioned video out of places like China where skilled pedalers carry impossible-looking loads on their two-wheelers--balancing burdens the size of small cars on bicycles the size of, well, bicycles.) Four wheels add stability and weight distribution, and also add an ability to share the load when there's a second seat for additional pedal power.

So, what is the use for all that extra hauling ability? Four wheels probably wouldn't make it any easier to navigate the crowded streets of Beijing. What about more open landscapes, though? Rough rural roads, sand and snow? Well, there are a couple of ambitious and energetic young people out of Australia who are planning to muscle close to a thousand pounds of gear, supplies and body weight on a 7,400 mile, year-long journey that will take them through "Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Western China (Xinjiang) and Southern Russia (Tuva)." It's a pretty interesting story, which you can read here, along with some design info on the quike.

Roger Chao and Megan Kerr are hoping to document some of the vanishing local customs and stories from the cultures they will encounter, even as they take on the tremendous physical challenges of the trip. You can read more about their objectives at their website. They plan on keeping an ongoing online journal of their trip. (Ahh, the blessing of video cameras, tiny, portable computers and satellite technology. The twenty-first century does have a few things going for it.) I hope they do well in this effort. It would be interesting to read about their journey as it happens and explore these distant locations and cultures vicariously. I love discovering different places and people, although I don't think I would ever have the ambition to commit to peddling my way across 7,400 miles of remote and rugged, and multi-languaged terrain. That, like text-speak, is something best left to the young.

Portland's Japanese Garden

I'm needing a flashback to something fun and nice today. It's been a hard week. (Heck, it's been a hard winter, truth be told.) Husband's sick. I'm sick. Again. I'm tired of being sick. Whine, gripe, whimper. I did get some good work done on the church remodel project this week, which is a blessing. One of the advantages of being sick a lot (yes, we are striving to be positive), is that you learn how to ignore pain and fatigue and function anyway. I decided that I would feel better mentally if I just went ahead and got something useful done, and I was right. If you're going to feel lousy physically no matter what you do, you might as well be productive if you can, right? Now, I still feel lousy, but I feel lousy with one more coat of mud on the walls. I can live with that.

Anyway, right now I'm waiting to take some friends to the airport before heading over for one more round of productive enterprise. (Corrective update--never made it to the church. By the time I got back from the airport my temperature was up three degrees. I'm not working on anything for awhile.) I thought now would be a good time to dip into some cheerful memories, and take care of some photographic housekeeping at the same time. It's high time I sorted and posted some of my favorite pics from the Portland Japanese Garden, an authentic Japanese garden near Washington Park and the Oregon Zoo. I took a stroll through this beautiful pleasure-ground (actually five gardens in one) last June with my dear friend Su. Yes, I have been holding on to these pictures for almost a year without actually doing anything with them! Kinda pathetic, eh? Oh well, I've picked out the ones I like now, and am ready to share them with the world. (Heh. Maybe I should narrow that "the world" thing down to a very small subset of the world that will happen to randomly wander by when they Google "feline misspellings," or something equally random.) No matter. Here goes. I don't have a lot to say about many of these, so I'll mostly let the images speak for themselves, okay?

I found this rather interesting. In the midst of all the natural beauty--stone, wood, water, trees, moss and flowers--there is something that looks very much like Plexiglas. Hmmm, how did that get in here? Pretty, though.

There was some official showing going on in the art gallery, to which Su and I lacked an invite, so I had to content myself with peering in from the outside and trying to use the reflections and glass I shot this photo through as an asset as best I could. I kind of like how it turned out, and really think the vase is beautiful and creative. It's not something I would use to decorate my own rather "traditional" American house, but I love to see it in its native habitat.

Here is Su, sketchpad in hand. While I snapped photos, she was happily engaged in drawing whatever took her fancy. Her method took little longer, but her pencil never ran low, whereas my camera battery barely gasped its way through the afternoon. I'd say we both enjoyed our chosen form of artistic expression for the day, which is what counts, right?

How is it the Japanese manage to make something artistic out of plain old ordinary grey boulders, without even adding flowers to brighten up the scene? I don't know--I sure couldn't pull it off--but somehow it works in this setting.

I loved getting the picture of this bee. Isn't this pretty? You can see the cells in the lovely little pollinator's wings! (You can really see the detail if you click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Su sketched this scene for quite a while. (The drawing was beautiful--wish I had a copy.) She drew quite a crowd at one point when a tour group wandered by. One lady was actually rather annoying about it, hovering over Su's shoulder and making comments about what she saw. I was impressed that Su managed to take it in stride and still put out a charming sketch, despite the distraction.

While Su was busily putting pencil to paper, I waited for this bridge to clear so I could snap this photo. It was a very limited opportunity moment. The gardens were busy that day (of course they were busy--have you noticed all that beautiful sunshine?), and this is the only chance I got in about 15 minutes of waiting for the sketch artist to complete her latest vision. Don't know that the picture was worth all that hovering, but now that I've snapped it, by golly, I'm going to post it!!

What would Japanese gardens be without koi? Inconceivable.

Well, there you have it, only ten months after the fact... Don't think of these pictures as being late and out of their proper time. Think of them as getting us in the mood for summer! It certainly brightened my mood to post them. Hope you enjoyed them too.

Star Wars-Inspired Mosquito Destruction

What's not to like? Frank J. at IMAO calls this the Mosquito Death Star. Being developed in the U.S. as a way to fight malaria, it's a laser which hears that peculiar little annoying whine that mosquitoes make, and then zeros in to blast the little bloodsuckers into a galaxy far, far away. (Does that work as a euphemism for a quick and thorough death?) Okay, so the inspiration was from Star Wars, the missile defense system, and a degree of separation or two away from Star Wars, the generation-shaping science fiction escapist movie icon, but who cares? This technological gift to man and beast can potentially kill millions of evil mosquito warrior clones in just a few minutes. There is no downside here. May the Force be with it!

(Maybe it would help me get my husband to venture outside on warm summer nights...)

Worth A Look

I don't care where you stand politically. This is worth seeing. It's what a trillion dollars looks like.

Hat tip: IMAO

Winlock Takes Fifth In State!!

Hi basketball fans! If you're not a basketball fan, you might as well bail now, because this post is all about how awesome the Winlock boys basketball team is, and how proud I am of my nephew, Jake Brown! The Winlock Cardinals beat the Naches Valley Rangers 56-38 on Saturday morning to take fifth in the Washington 1A Boys Basketball Tournament--their best trophy ever at the state level. According to the Associated Press, they shot 59 percent from the field to get there, and were 11 for 17 in the second half. The quarters in high school ball are only 8 minutes long, so you can imagine what an exciting game it was for them to rack up 58 points in 32 minutes! Jake scored 14 points and hauled down 10 rebounds to cap off a stellar senior year, and Ked and I couldn't be more proud of him.

All the boys showed tremendous grace under pressure, and one of the things which impressed us the most watching them through the season was how focused they were the whole time they were on the court. These kids are not whiners. They don't blame a bad game on bad calls (not that they had many bad games--they ended the year 24-3), and they don't waste energy "acting" to sway the refs. (We did see some of that at the tourney from other teams. Found it pretty sad.) They just play basketball really, really well. The starters on the squad have been playing together since they were tykes, and it shows. They work together and care about the team more than they care about their own glory. Not that there's not glory to be had--as 6'9" Jake wandered conspicuously through the crowd after the game, kids who barely reached his knees were clambering for his notice. Autograph hounds had him signing programs and shirts. One enthusiastic fan, lacking a souvenir at hand, even had Jake sign his chest! It's enough to turn anyone's head, but Winlock's boys seem to have kept theirs on their shoulders. Everyone we've talked to about the squad has said over and over that these are good kids, and good friends who just love playing the game together. That's a joy to watch.

I only wish I got to watch more of this particular game. Ked practiced all day Friday at the tournament with the camera to get the perfect action shots, but at the last minute he got recruited to camcorder duty (this is the result of snagging front row seats), so I was left with the Canon SLR and a big fat zoom lens, neither of which were particularly familiar to me. I did my best. I missed a lot of the action, because I was so focused on following Jake around in the viewfinder, hoping to catch some magic moments, but it was a lot of fun anyway, and I think I snagged a few memories for Jake and the family. Hope you enjoy them. (Click on the photos to enlarge them. I didn't bother to reduce the file size for these pictures, so some of them will be too big for the screen and you'll have to scroll around a bit to catch everything, but some of them really are worth seeing in their bigger versions.)

The game begins. I don't know why Coach Gary Viggers has his head in his hands, but I assure you that didn't last. Viggers had a lot to be happy about in this final game of his coaching career at Winlock. The boys did him proud. Just as a side note, Tyler Hertz walked by my husband and me after the game. He's number three in the Cardinal jersey. Ked noted, "Wow. You look a lot smaller on the court!" That's because Tyler is 6'2". He's something of a tree in his own right, but when the average height of your starting line-up is 6'5", even Tyler starts looking petite!

The guys fought tough right from the beginning. Jake works hard the whole time he's on the court, as this Naches Ranger is finding out.

Those legs may be long, but Jake can get low when he needs to. Look at the concentration on that face!

I'm bummed I cut the top of the ball off in this shot, but look at that form!! Two of his fourteen points are on their way.

Winlock is always tough on the boards. Here's one of Jake's 10 rebounds. Ked and I watched Naches Valley win their match on Friday and were impressed with how well Naches shot from the outside, especially number 33 (whose name I do not know and am too lazy to Google). We were afraid that hot shooting might give Winlock some trouble, but the Cardinals shut them down pretty effectively. Naches only shot 33 percent for the game, making 13 of 40 attempts at the basket. Winlock cleaned up at the boards in the process.

I don't remember Jake being born with springs in his legs, but they must have been there, because the evidence is all over the place when he's on the court.

Winlock's solid performance included a good showing from the line. Jake made all 4 of his free throws. Here, Jordan Davis takes his best shot, although, I confess, I don't know if this one went down. I was too busy trying to follow Jake with the camera to see if he pulled down a rebound! Sorry, Jordan. You're important, too. Honest!

Nothing particular to say for this one. Just catching a little nice ball handling. Basketball really is a great game.

And the crowd goes wild!! Jake slammed this ball home with authority. I had been listening to the crowd behind me for much of the fourth quarter as the expectant fans kept asking themselves, "When's Jake going to dunk the ball? When's he gonna put on a show?" Well, Jake delivered. Look at those guys in the bleachers. The one in the dark shirt is the fellow who is now walking around with Jake's name written on his chest in sharpie marker! I'd say he looks pretty happy, wouldn't you?

This whole team of boys are so good together. From what I am told, even the young ones get treated like family. You gotta love this. This is why interscholastic sports exist. These boys have spent years together learning hard work, and sportsmanship, and team over self. The whole town of Winlock is proud of them, and rightly so. Way to go Cardinals! Congratulations!!

Being Winlock's tallest player, a high scorer, rebounding machine and general all-around stud, Jake often gets interviewed after a game. This is the first time I've seen the headphones and mic routine, though. Would have liked to have caught this radio interview, but I was 75' away taking pictures with my telephoto lens. Caught a few really good ones, but I'll only show you one. The rest are for his Mom and grandparents. They'll want to seen all 544 of them!! (Kidding. I think there are only 523.)

I did have to throw in one more interview shot. I couldn't resist this one of Jake towering over his coach and the interviewer. I've got to ask Sheila what she feeds this kid!



Here is the moment you've all been waiting for. Sharpie meets flesh. I told Jake if he's ever famous I'm selling this one on EBay.

I'll finish up with a cheerful family photo. That's Ked on the left, and the 6'6" bear of a man with him on the right is Jake's extremely happy brother Josh. Josh played in this same game, at this same tournament, a number of years ago, but his team came up just a little short and took home the eighth place trophy. Josh was thrilled to see his brother win this game. The glow on his face says it all. I don't think a brother or uncle could be prouder than these two. The whole family, in fact, was about as happy as I've ever seen them. We're all sorry it's over for the year, but we're looking forward to seeing where Jake goes to college and learning to love whatever team he becomes a part of. There will probably be some nostalgia for this special hometown team, but if Jake's a part of it, the new one will be special too. Congratulations again Jake. Your family loves you. Congratulations again, too, to the Winlock Cardinals Boys Basketball Team. You guys are awesome!

Down In The Valley

I have a little road trip report for you this evening. Ked and I drove from Portland to the Yakima Valley in central Washington today, so we can watch our nephew Jake play in the Washington State 1A Boys Basketball Tournament. Much of the family is here to cheer our boy on (if you can call a 6'9", 240 lb. rock of a human specimen a boy), and we're all getting a kick out of having someone we love to root for in what would be a fun event even if we didn't have a horse in the race. The whole tournament atmosphere is exciting, and it's always a pleasure to see athletes who have worked their way to the top of their divisions go at it, knowing that this is the moment they have been working towards all year. We all love basketball anyway, and it's even more enjoyable when family and hometown both get a bit of an ego-stroking. Jake plays for the same Winlock Cardinals that Ked and his brother played for 25 years ago. They got to see their nephew help lead that school to its first ever district championship last week, and now we get to see them give it their all at State.

We didn't get to be here for the first couple days of the tourney, so we missed the Cards first two games--one a loss, and the other a victory. The loss means they won't be playing for the State title, but the victory means they're still in it for fifth, so we're happy to still have the chance to watch 'em play and hope to cheer them on to more Winlock wins over the next two days. Ked's caught the fever something fierce, and the only prescription (besides more cowbell) is more basketball!! He's talking about coming back next year, when Jake's off playing college ball, just so he can revel in the joy of high-level high school hoops. We'll see what happens then, but being the sports fan that I am, I won't be the one to discourage him...

This is a basketball flashback for Ked, but it's a bit of a trip down memory lane for me too. When I was in fourth and fifth grade I lived in the Yakima Valley, in a little town called Granger (also represented in this year's tournament). My Mom bought a farm that she had lived on years before, but kept the house in Portland, where my step-dad continued to live, since his job was based in town. We made that four hour drive more times than I can count, and it is always nostalgic for me now, on those few occasions when I travel the same path as an adult. If we take the I-84 route, past The Dalles on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge, we pass many a childhood memory. There's Spooky's, the pizza parlor where we always begged Mom to stop if we had time, and were annoyingly persistent about it even if we didn't--still open 35 years later. There's Biggs Junction, the tiny little hamlet that we always called "Dinty's Town" because so many businesses were named after someone with that moniker. I didn't learn its official name until many years into adulthood. In my heart, I still like Dinty's Town better. There is also the climb up towards Goldendale, on the Washington side, stark and bare, and oddly beautiful, although I never appreciated it properly as a child impatient to be home.

Now, of course, there have been some changes, new things built, and old things fallen down along that old familiar path. It's nice to pass that way again, just to glimpse the passage of time in the imagery of the landscape. I have just a few pictures to share with you from the journey. I didn't plan on taking them, but the scenes called out to me. So, here they are... (Click to enlarge.)



This is the Washington side of the Columbia River, after the crossing at Biggs Junction, right before Highway 97 turns north off the road that leads to the Maryhill Museum. I loved the way the shadows from the clouds danced across the windy hills, and the river played in the sunlight that insisted that winter not be gloomy. A little farther down the road the clouds got thicker, and even offered us a little snow to make the drive interesting, but here it was all shining clouds, dancing shadows and the beautiful ribbon of bright blue river.

Those windy hills are taking on a new purpose, as windmills have begun to dot the landscape throughout the region. We thought that seeing these windmills-in-the-making was pretty cool. I couldn't believe the size of those blades that are laying at the base of the tower in the center of the photo. If you take a look at the crane on the left, you can get a sense of how big it is. That crane was tall, and the blades looked awfully large behind it as we drove by. (Definitely click on this one.)

Well, the windmills are new, but here is something definitely old. The field has been plowed, but, unless they are awfully hardy souls, I don't think it was by residents of this house. Needs a bit of repair work, wouldn't you say?

I couldn't resist taking a closer look--with my camera at least. The place just looks so desolate, that for some reason it made me think of the Great Depression, and the Oklahoma Dust-bowl. Hmm, that's not really the place I want my mind going these days. Moving on...

Here's another of the local relics. We called this one The Skeleton Barn. Looks very wild west to me.

Once we got to Yakima we sought out a little color and life. We met Ked's folks at El Mirador for some terrific Mexican food. I know this shot of Ked is a little grainy, but I thought it was such a nice picture of him that I'm willing to put up with the flaws in photography.

Here are Mom and Pop, cheerful after a fine meal, and the recent Winlock victory, ready to head back to the Sun Dome for the last game of the evening. Ked and I were not so ambitious. We headed back to our hotel to check our email, download pictures and get some rest. Ked is snoozing even as I type, and I'll be joining him soon. We've got basketball to watch in the morning. Winlock plays at 11! Go Cards!!