The year in review
I’ve been getting things ready for winter, so that’s made me reflect on my year. The end of October is still a long way from New Years Day, but it signals the end of my good weather activities, meaning outdoor, and the switch to my indoor phase. Hopefully, back to writing. Here’s my recap of
2010 in mostly chronological order.
Early this spring, I drove down to Farmington, New Mexico, in the Government truck. I went down the “Million Dollar Highway”, a road so dangerous it was on a TV show (Dangerous Drives). I had theadded thrill of towing an overloaded trailer with no brakes and old tires, as well as the occasional spot covered with black ice. It was interesting to me that I felt perfectly at home in conditions like that, clearly not how everybody felt since the car in front of me came to a complete stop when we came to a place where the road had a 1000 foot drop-off 4 inches past the white line and no guardrail.
There were two more TV show references while I was down there. Another episode of Dangerous Drives, this time about logging trucks in the mountains, a venue that just seems normal to me. Having to back up half a mile when you meet another vehicle, mud, snow, nothing out of the ordinary there.
The next was a show about giant fish, and it was about sturgeon that live in Lake Iliamna up in Alaska. I worked there 20 years ago and drove a Zodiac inflatable boat on the lake. I just find the idea that my normal is (apparently) worthy of a TV show very strange. Since it seems normal to me, I can only assume it means that most people have very boring lives, and that leads me to wonder why. Just go do something interesting!
I saw part of the movie “The Bucket List” and that got me thinking about that, so I found a website called “Bucketlist dot org”. A lot of the items people had on their lists were very sedate, and again, I wonder if I’m missing something. Shouldn’t a bucket list be things out of the ordinary and spectacular like seeing the pyramids or something? When we first watched that movie, I said to Yvonne “I don’t really have a bucket list”. Her reply was “of course you don’t, honey, you just do whatever you want all the time”. I thought that a little unfair, but I see her point. Maybe some people make their list, while
others just do their list. I might work on a list of the things I have already done sometime.
When I was in Farmington, the only interesting thing was the Navajo presence. There were Navajos working in all different types of jobs, but a disproportionate amount seemed to be working low pay jobs, or no job at all. There were some guys working at the mine on a gob vent borehole, and they spoke to each other in Navajo. That was different.
I went to the grocery store to stock up on drinks and snacks, and when I got to the checkout, the Navajo cashier asked me if I had a club card. The answer to that is always no because the whole concept of charging me more than the quoted price unless I know the secret handshake just pisses me off, so I don’t ordinarily shop in stores that jerk me around. She took the card of the guy behind me, also a
Navajo, and ran my purchase on his without asking him or me. I told the guy “thanks, not that she gave you much choice”. He said, “Well, you have to help your neighbors”. I didn’t feel like pointing out that I wasn’t his neighbor, so I went outside. When he came out, he went over to the side of the store to eat his sandwich, and I realized the guy was homeless. Then I felt really weird about him saving me money. Ithought I should do something, but what?
While I was in Farmington, I read about a big water line project that was about to start, and the story pointed out that over ten thousand Navajo lived on the reservation without running water. Can you imagine that scenario in any eastern state?
The senior geologist took me out to a place where some dinosaur bones where working their way out of the soil. I don’t consider this to have satisfied my bucket list bullet point of finding a fossil, because it was a bone, not an imprint, and I had help.
On the drive back to Colorado it was snowing, so I went a different route. It was very pretty with lots of different types of terrain, I went through Telluride and I knew there was something about it I wanted to check out but couldn’t remember what. Much later it came to me that was where Nicola Tesla did a bunch of his experiments.
As I continued north and west back to Spokane, I finally saw some trees, a river, and some elk, all at the same time not too far from Missoula, and I finally felt at home. It brought home to me that I could never live in the brown southwest.
I made several more trips to Colorado this year, I can’t remember how many or whether I flew or drove. Mostly, I drove. One of the trips I went and picked up a brand new truck with 16 miles on it, thendrove it a thousand miles the next day. That seemed weird. I also crashed it into the ditch trying to come down the mountain after it got muddy, I was very frustrated that all my skills could not make up for the fact that it had tires totally inappropriate for the conditions. That same trip, one of the guys from work,
Andrew, who is from South Africa and Australia, was with us. He told me “I never thought I was afraid of heights, but I think now I am!” The roads there are carved into the side of the mountain like any other, but because of the lack of trees, you can see all the way to the bottom, which is like a thousand feet, and since there are no trees or anything else to stop you, you know you will be going all the way down. I leave my seatbelt off so I have the option of jumping out of the truck should the need arise.
One of the trips when I flew, I had to fly on Podunk airlines out of Denver and that is an experience I don’t want to repeat. First of all, they sold more seats than they had, so they said someone was getting left behind. What the hell is that? I didn’t get left behind, so I got on this little 2 engine plane which is obviously completely loaded, probably over weight, and the pilot and copilot have neither reached the age where they need to shave. The copilot turns to us and says “Everybody on board? Okay,
let’s go, cool.”
Now in airplane lingo, hot day Denver means the worst case scenario for takeoff. Hot thin air provides minimal lift to the wings, and minimal horsepower for the engines. He ran that thing up to full throttle and never backed off the whole flight. The whole plane was shaking and vibrating.
Right after that I saw a TV show about how those little airlines have a terrible safety record because they sub contract to the major carriers, but don’t have to follow the same rules.
June-ish
A Marmot got displaced from his home down by the river due to the bridge construction and decided to live in my woodpile. I doubt that was his first choice, but this area is pretty suburban and nearly every yard has a dog, so where was he going to go? Our dogs were going crazy about it, Weasel started to dismantle the woodpile, so I tried to catch him in a trap I had used previously for a troublesome cat. But what to bait a Marmot with? I decided to put dog food in there, but Yvonne wouldn’t let me because she thought her dog would get her head stuck in there. That dog is just dumb enough to do it too. So we tried lettuce, that didn’t work. Eventually I just tore the pile apart till he had to make a break for it. He ran right into my shop. I figured I would close the door and let him calm down,
maybe then he would go into the trap. No. He tried to get out of the shop by going through the wall, which is steel. He tore the hell out of the insulation, so I tried to get him OUT of the shop. Couldn’t reach him behind the workbench. Eventually, he went somewhere.
This year was the 26th and last Bugfair. With all the different things I’ve done and places I’ve been, I somehow managed to attend every single Bugfair. Unless I remember wrong. I am saddened and disheartened by the fact that no one from the generation after mine seems to have the motivation or responsibility to take over running this event. We gave them 5 years to step up, I wanted to quit doing the show after 20 years. What a bunch of losers.
Speaking of losers, I made a Facebook account. I knew it would be stupid, but since you can’t look at other accounts unless you join, I finally made a fake one. E. Normus Johnson, in case you want to know. I honestly wonder if people in their twenties know the difference between the Internet and reality.
July-ish
I didn’t ride my Moto Guzzi much because I only want to do it when it’s pleasant, and we had a very rainy spring. One evening my buddy Randy called me to go riding, so I went, but I wasn’t very enthusiastic. A pretty big group arrived, like 6 or 8 guys, one dude on a Harley who looked like a
stereotype biker. I thought our group was for everybody but Harleys. Anyway, we went for a ride around some local lakes, and when we got to the twisty Newman Lake road, we were going pretty fast. The guy in front of me appeared to be some sort of pro rider on a hopped up KTM with race tires. He didn’t know it, but I was racing him! I was a little more cautious in the corners, but every straight I was full throttle, right at the engines happy place. The sound it made was glorious, like a Ferrari. The air in the
trees smelled great, the temperature was just right, I was having a blast. It felt like there was something wrong with my face, and I reached through my visor to rub my chin. It was a grin! My face was stuck in a perma-grin, and it wasn’t used to that. I remembered then why I bought that bike, even I only get one ride a year like that, it is worth it.
There were 3 interesting kayak stories from this year. We went to Fishtrap Lake and took stuff for a picnic, the first place we stopped I noticed what I thought was coyote poop and it had some white stuff in it. I didn’t think anything of it until we went to another place that just had piles of it. When I looked closer I figured out it was full of crayfish. I started trying to figure out how a coyote could catch crayfish, it just didn’t make sense. It struck me later that it was a raccoon, not a coyote, but that still
didn’t really explain it. The lake has pretty steep banks, so the area shallow enough for the raccoon to wade around in is pretty small, there’s no way you could catch that many crayfish in that small interface.
So, do they dive down? I tried to research it, but couldn’t find anything, so it’s still a mystery to me.
We went to Horseshoe Lake when it got really hot, and we took a cooler, lawn chairs, and books, all strapped to our kayaks. Then we found a good spot in the shade, set up camp, read our books, and nibbled our snacks. We jumped in the lake every once in a while to cool off. Kayak camping.
July was a year since Shitbird died, I still can’t think about her without crying, she was the most amazing dog I ever knew, and I have known some special dogs.
I know that I was traumatized by the deaths of my other dogs, and I don’t wish to minimize them in any way, but Bird was so focused on pleasing her people, you could not help but feel the same way in return.
I have been trying to write a story about her, but like I said, I can’t work on it very long before I have to quit.
Weaser has stepped up to take on a bigger role in Bird’s absence. In August I got volunteered to help put on a motorcycle trials event not far from here up past Newman Lake. I went up there one day with Weasel, and took my chainsaw and machete, I cleared out paths in the woods to make some new places to ride while Weasel played with the blue heeler who belonged to the property owner. On the way home, she just lay down on the seat of the truck. Well, she never does that, she always bounces back and forth and watches out the window. I was afraid she had eaten some poisonous thing, or had some injury. I finally figured out she was just tired. That sounds stupid until I explain that SHE HAS NEVER BEEN TIRED BEFORE! Seriously, this was the first time. She had earlier also acted a little stiff after
taking her to the river to swim and tear around. So, she is showing her age now. I can’t deal with the idea of her mortality when I’m not over Bird’s demise. Weaser’s very character is defined by her energy, I just can’t picture a sedate Weaser.
September
We went kayaking in the Spokane River down by Plantes Ferry Park, we have been there before, and the geology under the water is really cool. This time, it was quite cool out and there was a little breeze, the water felt freezing. We came to these little rapids, like only a foot high, and I decided I didn’t want to go down them. I was ashamed to be such a weiner, especially in the context of how I had been
thinking about Lewis and Clark so much.
September 18th
Because Kay couldn’t get away from school, we had to make my Lewis and Clark memorial camping trip very brief. We left Saturday morning and drove almost all the way to Lolo Pass, then up the mountain to the Lolo Motorway. The Motorway was built in the fifties and essentially follows the same path that the Native Americans, and therefore Lewis and Clark, used to come into Idaho. There are some
camp sites that are unquestionably the spots where Lewis and Clark stayed. I have thought for several years now that it would be really cool to camp within a few feet of where they stayed, and do it on the same day. So the 18th was when they stayed at the Sinkhole, a little pond in the saddle of a ridge. The Motorway turned out to be pretty rough, not appropriate for my station wagon, so the drive on that part was very slow. I love my wagon, and had no interest in banging up the underside. The Sinkhole turned out to be way too far from the road to reach on foot with all the gear we had. So, I essentially admitted defeat, and didn’t really care where we stayed that night. On the way out we stopped to check out a little camp area you could drive right to at a different saddle. It was super cool, so we stayed. We set up the tent and the EZ up, built a fire, got out our chairs, used a plastic bin as a table, and had drinks and snacks. We talked about how different the world is since 205 years ago. It’s mind boggling.
That night, Kay took a sleeping pill, so she is out cold, but the 2 dogs and I heard a weird noise in the middle of the night. It was like half bird half dog. I sat up, and the 3 of us all looked at each other. The big dumb dog tried to bolt out the tent door, which was zipped up. I managed to catch her and make her lie back down. My dog dove for the covers between Kay and I, and then just shook from a combination of worry and cold. I covered her up with my jacket and went back to sleep, the noise turned out to be a fox, I had never heard one before. In the morning, I snuggled in the tent until the sun had been up a while, then I went out to a rock outcrop where I could face the sun, arms outstretched, and warm up. What a great way to greet the morning. I decided I would have another go at trying to find the actual foot trail, so I left Kay and her
stupid dog behind, and went down the road on my motorcycle with my dog chasing me. I hadn’t gone very far when I saw a little wooden sign we had not noticed before. There it was. Once on the trail there was another sign stating the distance to the sinkhole, ½ mile I think it was. We walked up there and found it. I guess I don’t know what I expected to find, but there was nothing there. I thought there
would be some evidence of people camping there, not from L&C of course, but some recent campers. Nothing. I sat and thought about where I would camp, the area around the sinkhole itself was marshy and below the trail maybe 50 feet in elevation, no reason to stay down there. Just above was rocky, so not very comfortable. I picked the spot I would use, and decided the trees looked like they lived to be 50 or 60 years old and then died, to be replaced by new ones. The trees I was looking at were not the same trees as L&C, but the area probably looked the same. I realized it was one of those “you can’t go home again” type of things, there’s no going back in time. But nevertheless, walking on that trail, where my feet literally fell in the same place, was pretty close.
The last couple of years I have developed a superhuman ability. I can see the future.
But, here’s the problem, I can only see it a few seconds in advance, so I am impotent to change the future. The most significant example was when I crashed a motorcycle last year, it had a problem where the front brake would gradually come on by itself, and I was test driving it to see if I had fixed the problem. I had not, and when I could feel the brake dragging I thought “man, if I hit some gravel, I am in trouble”. Bam, down I went. There were other instances like when I would think, “this bolt seems like it will break”, yep, there it goes. I can’t remember the other examples, but that brings me to the next new
development.
I can’t remember stuff anymore.
It’s getting ridiculous. Here’s an example, the brake line rusted through on my old truck, and I was positive that the brakes where the only part of the truck that had not been modernized. I went to the store and bought all new everything. When I pulled off the wheels, guess what, all that stuff had been done recently. It was obvious I had done the work because I have certain ways of doing things that are a step above in quality from a normal shop.
Sometime this year I started referring to myself in third person, and I call myself “Daddy”. Daddy
likes that, or Daddy loves this beer. I have no idea why.
Last year, I won the motorcycle observed trials Novice class championship. It was mostly by showing up more often than the others, not through any real excess of talent. I felt like this year, I should step up a class to Intermediate. My first event, I think I made it through the first section OK, but in the second one I found myself inexplicably flying through the air and my face was on a collision course with a stump. I managed to miss the stump, but once I landed, I had several minor injuries. The most
painful and obvious was my left index finger, but I didn’t think too much about it. I will come back to that later. Somehow, the end of the handlebars had punched me in the very top of my thigh, it didn’t hurt much at the time, but later I got the biggest bruise I’ve ever had. It was like 6 inches across. I thought I should be a man about it, and the crash was probably just a fluke, so I continued on to the nextsection. I went over the bars again. Then I was done. I only ride Novice now, I am a little ashamed of it,
but I am just there to have fun, crashing is not fun.
I have decided that I am developing arthritis in my fingers, that’s not encouraging for the future.
This summer, Chumpcar came to Spokane. It’s a 24 hour endurance road race for cars that only cost $500. All my buddies were doing it, but most of them seemed too serious about it, so I wasn’t too keen on joining their teams. Then, when there wasn’t much time left, the same guy who initially got me interested in running at Bonneville, found an old Kharmann Ghia that was formally a circle track car.
I told everyone my only stipulation was that the damn thing not end up living at my house. We started working on it and everybody except the guy who’s idea it was helped. When I told him it would not get done in time unless he pitched in, he told me he had more important things to do.So it never got done. I went to the race in July and found out we were being quite naïve in our belief that we could have a dependable but slow car, and finish mid pack. None of these cars are $500 cars, there are little cars with V-8 engines, Miatas that are little different than a club racer, etc, etc. I had to raise the standards of the Ghia (Kharmann Electra is her name) considerably. I have almost reached the point where she will move under her own power, then she will need a high power cheater engine to be even remotely competitive. Our goal will still be mostly just to finish, but maybe we can be a little racy.
The car is fun to build because it was junk when I started, and will be junk when I’m done, meaning you can build things somewhat haphazardly, it’s almost like artwork, just whatever you feel like doing. When I built the front bumper, I didn’t even measure anything, just held up my thumb like DaVinci, and said “good enough”.
I didn’t work on my cookbook all summer, but I am back on that. I have several fiction stories I am working on, and 2 writing groups I attend. There’s a lot more to learn than I thought.
Happy New Year to all!
