Adventure 148: Grandparent's Weekend/Portland, OR/Post A

Home Sweet Chad

Blessed by traveling mercies, we traveled to Portland under bright blue skies and mild winds through the glorious scenery of the Columbia River gorge. Few places in America offer such grandeur, especially when the sun glitters off the water, gaggles of fishing boats lay in wait for prehistoric sturgeon, and the magnificence of Mt. Hood lords over the land. The only dampening note was the drubbing I took in the morning game. The Wily Cager is ahead 23 dollars after two games, but not to worry; I'm as patient as the Chinese. Today, her shenanigans included a hand where she tried to keep all six cards instead of throwing two to the crib. I guess she thought that part was optional. No matter, we were on the road by ten and traffic was light, another bonus. After a bit of a turnaround (We took I-84 instead of the correct I-205) we arrived at the home of Chad Gearin, our grandson's father around 1 P.M.. Chad was busy grouting the new tile in his master bathroom. Besides working as a full time contractor, he works regularly remodeling his house. It's fun to see the changes every time we visit. After nestling Frac into a space in front of the house, we were off to pick up Sawyer  at his bus stop. Those of you who are a certain age can understand the glow that comes over a grandma when she's around her grandchildren, and the rest of you will get your turn soon enough. The first thing he did was show us his midterm report card, which is stuffed with four A's and two B's. He seems to be adjusting to middle school quite well, and he graciously endured a barrage of question as two former educators grilled him like a witness on the stand. Back at the trailer, Mimi (Alias, the Wily Cager) fixed him a snack and then helped him with his homework. I added the finishing touches on his writing assignment, but he actually didn't need much help from me. In fact, I complimented him on his perfect technique for citing a quotation. It's always good to see the kids grin. Then, we were off to dinner and ice cream (Ain't it great to spoil the children!). The finale was a twenty minute concert by Sawyer on his saxophone, which he began playing for the first time this year. As anyone can see, life is good, especially today.

Chad's house looks better every time we come.

Frac nestled in his camp site. We love the price!

Mimi and Sawyer.

Homework time in the trailer.

Sawyer rocking "Mary had a Little Lamb".

Already with the good finger technique.

Inspired by the watchful eye of Mimi. 

Blow wind blow.

Adventure 147: Stage One Rocket: Maryhill Revisited

Riding High.

"On the road again, I guess I'll just get on the road again..." Thanks Willie, I think we will. The Wily Cager, alias Stumpy, who through the miraculous regeneration of recreated facts now has a full complement of toes and fingers, and I left Spokane this morning about 9:40. After bucking a headwind (9 MPG), we arrived at MaryHill State Park around 2:30 P.M. As is customary this time of year, the park is about a fifth full. After setting up, we wandered down the road to the Maryhill Fruit stand where we bought two just off the tree Red Delicious apples, two soon to be ripe peaches, a sweet onion, an acorn squash, and a couple of fresh peppers. The wind was howling loud enough to flap the Cager's pants. If she would have had ear protection, she would have looked like a flight line sailor directing F-16s  on an aircraft carrier. So we didn't ride. Instead, we watched the episode of NCIS we missed last night because of Soup Night. For the uninitiated, Soup Night is something we've done for over a decade. I make soup (Potato/Kale last night), Judy makes bread (Rosemary Walnut), and we invite the neighborhood. We started Soup Night to get to know our neighbors, and it's been wildly successful. Last night we had about forty people. A restaurant sized pot of soup was consumed, along with a bit of wine, and several sweet treats, which the neighbors brought. For tonight's dinner, we had the last batch of our favorite summer meal: Cherry Tomato Pasta. We love the dish, which is made especially good with garden tomatoes, fresh basil, and a Walla Walla Sweet onion. For  dessert, we shared one of the made from scratch chocolate cupcakes that managed to hide itself inside our cupboard last night.  And woe is me, the Cager beat me by one point in the opening game of this year's cribbage series. I think I lost on a scurrilous move when she took two points for a thirty-one plus another for last card (That's the way the Cager rolls). To make it interesting, we're playing for $$$$ this trip (One dollar a point; Five dollars a game). I currently owe her $6. This is the first night of stage one of our three week trip, which will end with us storing Fric and Frac in San Jose, California until we return in mid January of 2015. Needless to say, life is good, especially today.

 Who knew oil could flow up hill? Warren Buffet!

 A view of our new bedroom in Frac 2.0.

 The dining area seen from the new bedroom.

 Fric and Frac (2.0) snuggling into site #10 at Maryhill State Park.

 The rear bedroom as seen from outside.

 A view of the hills as they rise from the Columbia River to create the gorge. Stunning!

 The local apple/peach orchard is less than a mile away.

  Cherry Tomato Pasta and our frivolous game.

Bonus Coverage: I spent last week riding a bicycle in Vermont with my buddy, Ed. This was my sixth trip to Vermont, which is a special place. Judy usually comes with me, but she attended her fiftieth high school reunion instead. I missed her, but the Vermont countryside helped distract me. See for yourself.

Vermont ain't flat.

 White churches anchor each tiny village.

 Covered bridges dot the countryside.

And tiny schoolhouses hide amid the dells, like this one in Pettengill, circa 1869.

Vermont 2014 as seen through my prism (Go there as soon as you can!). 

My buddy, Ed Drouin's mantra is that everyone sees life through their own prism. Touring on a bicycle affords me time to gaze through mine. I like to think, and Vermont makes me think like an existentialist. I get all myopic like Henry David Thoreau watching an ant hill, all cosmic like Ralph Waldo Emerson preaching ‘Oversoul’, and all mystical like Emily Dickinson contemplating “…great pain.” Vermont cleanses my heart as if I am cleaning my closet of unused clothes-clothes that no longer fit or clothes no longer in style. Vermont frees me to shed layers of myself. I let every ray of light see me, every floating leaf caress me, every colorful hillside entice me, every arduous ascent encourage me, and every rapid downhill thrill me. Vermont also gives me a sense of the natural world. It centers me. I remember part of a quote I read on a poster on the wall of some country store somewhere. It suggested that Vermonters are caught by miraculous surprise every fall when the colors suddenly burst from the hillside. I get it. I’m constantly stunned by the array of ever changing color as the shifting light chases through the trees, and the ghostly presence of the nineteenth century lurking beneath the eaves, and the sweet and not so sweet smells of the forest and the dairy farms. There are quaint homes, dilapidated barns, country stores, and white churches. There are creeks, rocks, the sky, and the hills. But there are also the small sights like a solid shard of granite poking its speckled gray nose up through the hard packed dirt. Like a sentinel, it’s there to fight for its place, ever ready to bend its snout into a tire just to educate an inattentive cyclist. It flatly states,  “I, too, am a part of the land; respect me.” Vermont is rugged land, a glorious land that affirms the wonder of creation and the glory of America. It holds itself apart, resisting the scars of urban blight, thereby respecting the miracles of nature. Vermonters guard their rural sanctuary zealously. I’m glad they do because my spirit is refreshed every time I visit. In his famous poem, Robert Frost noted that life is uncertain, that choices matter, that the road diverges into the equally fair, and like Ed says, we look down the path into the underbrush as far as we can. When I press my own prism to my eye, I see the comfort of friendship (Thanks, Ed), the power of self, and that life is good, especially today. TW

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...

Adventure 146: Heyburn Shakedown

S**t eating grin

Miraculous things are happening in the world of Fric and Frac. On the moderately miraculous side (since all it took was money), Frac grew two feet right before our very eyes. The longer version gives us a standup shower, a spacious water closet, a bit more counter space in the kitchen, and a walk around bed. More miraculous than that was that Stumpy (The Wily Cager) regenerated her entire array of digits: feet and toes. I'm entirely grateful for the miracle because it was becoming quite onerous to drag her everywhere we went. It's all good, though because we're on the eve of this year's adventure, and we'll need her at full strength. We plan to travel for three weeks from mid October to the first week of November in order to get Fric and Frac below the snow line. We'll store the rigs in San Jose, California and fly home for the holidays as well as Judy's knee replacement surgery. After the holidays ( and depending on Judy's recovery), we'll fly back to California, pick up Fric and Frac and begin our 2015 adventure  down the California coast below San Francisco. This past weekend was a shakedown of the new trailer. It's not only longer, but a bit wider and a bit heavier. We had to test it. Everything works well. The extra space is delicious, the extra light is delightful, and the new smell wafts luxury like warm semel baking in the oven. So far, so good. There is some news on the cribbage front. Because of her miraculous digit regeneration, Judy is back to being known as the Wily Cager (She's still capable of some pretty bold maneuvers, after all), and we've decided to play for money. We're going to play for a penny a point plus a nickel a game. We'll pay up the night before we get home from this year's long adventure. Right now the Wily Cager up $.75. We've shared this shakedown weekend with our friends, the Ulmens who also enjoy tandem riding. Yesterday, we rode along the south end of Coeur 'd alene Lake on the area's fabulous rail trail of the same name. From Heyburn State Park to Harrison is about twenty miles round trip. It was very pleasant as we are enjoyed one of the Pacific Northwest's best features: Indian Summer. Almost yearly, after our long hot summers, we enjoy a period in September where the daytime temperatures warm to the mid seventies with clear skies and gentle breezes and the night time temperatures fall to the mid fifties. It's absolutely stunning to be in the woods this time of year to watch the last wisps of summer turn into orange and yellow as the chemical processes of dying leaves produce the beautiful fall colors. It's not as stunning as the East coast because we have more pines than deciduous trees, but nonetheless, our Larches, Aspens, and Bitter bushes put on a nice show. As always, life is good, especially today.

 The soft light of Indian Summer as seen from our front window.

 Our new Frac nestled safely in its first camping spot.

 Fric will carry just the tandem this year. We didn't really ride our singles last year.

 The rear windows provide the view from our bedroom.

 The Ulmen tandem eager to hit the trail.

 Mr. Ulmen setting up his trailer. Easy duty for an experienced hand like him.

 It is fitting that the best sites at Heyburn are the tent sites down by the lake.

 Summer beauty yet to fade into fall.

 Warm, calm, beautiful.

 And reflective: We've much to be thankful for.

 Dinner party one: guests are always welcome.

Sweet treats!

 It's getting dark: Good night, Cager.

Summary Map of 2013-14 Adventure

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?hl=en&authuser=0&mid=zQEBrCrlt76I.kHokcULt5EVs

Adventure 145: Stumpy Celebrates Sixty-Eight on the Joe

Birthday Cedars

From last we met, life and cribbage have continued. We have enjoyed a glorious summer filled with gardening, biking, sailing, and general "laking". At one point, the Wily Cager, who remains a profoundly successful card shark, had a match with Douglissimo at Priest Lake. She was up to her usual tricks, and then some. After one deal, Douglissimo was over celebrating a fortuitous hand when amazingly, the Cager reached over and picked up his uncounted crib. What happened next should be cause for sending the children to safety. After much noise and confusion and at least one reloading, the Cager was a stumpy mess. All ten of her toes and eight of her fingers were picked off as Douglissimo expertly fired one round after another. When the smoke cleared and the acrid smell of gun powder settled, the scene was a bloody carnage of severed toes and fingers. The bottom line is that the Cager has a new name: Stumpy. Undaunted, Stumpy settled in for the beginning of birthday month in a little grove of cedars along the St. Joe river. Though damp the first night, the remainder of the stay was punctuated by clear skies and warm temps. The only other guests along the river were  fly fishermen and a lone bald eagle that flew upstream about twenty feet off the ground following the contours of the river. I don't imagine he had a catch and release policy in mind. During our three day stay, Stumpy was on fire (I'm not sure she even cheated) as she tallied one double figure hand after another. She was so cute, holding her cards between her thumbs and her single remaining digits. Cute quickly changed to killer as she spanked me 8-2. I'm as generous as the next guy on birthdays, but this is carrying it a bit far. The purpose of our trip to the Joe was to shake down Fric and Frac after a dormant summer in preparation for this winter's return to the wilds of the Southwest. Beginning mid October, we plan to travel for three weeks far enough to get below the snow line. We'll store the truck and trailer somewhere near San Jose until January. Mid November, Stumpy will have knee replacement surgery, and as soon after the new year that she is ready, we'll return to Fric and Frac to begin our second season of winter traveling. For now, remember that life is good, especially today.


 Stumpy can "hold" a book, but page turning is more difficult.

 Frac shedding water like a silver water bird.

 Damp and gray, but also fresh and clean.

 The first night we enjoyed the rain pecking steadily on the trailer.

 The next morning brought the sun.

 Frac in his glory.

 Not too bad after sixty-eight years.

 Frac's tailgate provided a nice painting spot.

 The shadowy St. Joe as interpreted in 2014.

 The gallery from inside the front window.

 Stumpy, her sly grin showing, but notice--no hands.

 Her weapon.

This gentleman said he has fished this spot for twenty years.