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Travel Day 2

Finished the second half of our trip to Granite Falls trip. It involved a quick stop at our favorite Oregon beach and 2 ferry crossings, one of which we have never been on before.

We got out of the car and walked along Cannon Beach for all of a hundred yards or so before turning right around to get back in the car. It was in the low sixties, 12 mph west winds and sprinkling lightly.

Instead of crossing the Columbia River at Astoria as we typically do, or driving practically to I-5, we opted to try a river ferry halfway between. There is a small ferry1 that runs from Westport, OR to Cathlamet, WA. We pulled into the ferry waiting line and thought, “Hey, wait a minute, we’ve been here before.” We think we were going to ride the ferry, but we just missed it and didn’t want to wait another hour, so we just got back on the road and kept driving.

The other ferry was one we have ridden several times before, and in both directions. This time we traveled east from Kingston to Edmonds. We have a newer Garmin car GPS and are finally getting used to how to search for things. To find our way to the ferry terminal, I started typing and when I finished the word Kingston in the search box, it offered the suggestions of KINGSTON, JAM and KINGSTON, WA. Why on earth would it even offer directions to Jamaica? Can’t drive there … or is there a secret tunnel under the Caribbean Sea.

Travel Day

Today we left behind Klamath Falls on our way to Granite Falls (not to be confused with Frostbite Falls) and we are about halfway there. Tonight we are in Tillamook, home of Big Cheese and even bigger blimp hangers. Even though about a 1/3 of our route was along the coast, most of it was a bit inland, so that there are no Pacific ocean photos. As a matter of fact I didn’t take a single scenic shot all day.

This photo, taken a week ago, is of our transportation appliance for this trip, a 2019 Chevrolet Malibu in refrigerator white. I’m not sure which model it is, might be the top of the line as it has key-less entry and the dual pane sunroof. The seats aren’t that great, but all in all it not too bad a ride. It had a mere 8400 miles on it when we picked it up at the Portland airport and so far we have added around 1300 more miles on it and we’ll probably tack on another thousand before we are through.

Three Sisters

3 Sisters

Today we packed up the car and drove to Henry Higgins Boiled Bagels in Southeast Portland for breakfast. Then continued generally southeast, leaving the city and following some scenic byway roads Donna found in an Oregon Guide Book. Lunch in Sisters, Oregon which is named for the nearby Three Sisters Mountains and is a busy little mountain town on a summer Sunday afternoon2.

From Sisters it was a simple matter of driving right through Bend and then barreling south on US97 for a hundred miles to reach our home base for the next week, Klamath Falls, Oregon’s City of Sunshine.

Do You Ever Feel Like You Are Swimming Upstream?

The first day of vacation was spent flying and losing 3 hours to time zone hopping leaving no time to blog. So I wrote about the first day on the second day. Now it is the third day and I need to write about the second day. It will be kind of like these fish swimming up the ladder at the Boneville Dam on the Columbia River. Tomorrow I’ll still be behind a day.I guess I’ll have to post about both days today by short changing the content of them.

Saturday we walked the mile and a half back to the airport to pick up our rental car. The Emerald Aisle was nearly bare. We had a choice of 2 Toyota Carollas, a Chevrolet Malibu and a couple Toyota Crew Cab Tundras.  We took the Chevy. Drove a loop east along the Columbia River, to Cascade Locks, OR, then across the Bridge of the Gods and back to the hotel via the Washington state side. Lunch. Afternoon nap. Walk to dinner. Took an evening ride into downtown Portland on the light rail line and back.

First Class Ride

For only the second time ever, we have flown somewhere 1st Class. The first was 40 years ago and the only reason we had the privilege then was because we were flying from Guam to Connecticut because my Mom was very sick and that was the first flight out. This time it was intentional.

And for the first time in a long time we opted to fly out of Augusta instead of Atlanta or Charlotte. This was intentional too, as the additional cost of the extra hop was a lot cheaper than the cost of gas for the drive, the 2 weeks of parking and the hotel stay near the airport at the bigger city.

The experience didn’t start out too first class though. When we scanned Donna’s boarding pass for seat 2D, the gate agent said hold on, we have to move you, that seat is broken. So we stood around for about 15 minutes while most of the rest of the passengers loaded. Finally, her seat was changed to 3C which was right behind my 2C. When we boarded, she said, “You take 3 and I’ll sit in 2.” I guess she figured, that way she wouldn’t have to sit next to some stranger. Turns out, she needn’t have worried, seat 3D was broken too. While not ideal, we both did get a little extra room to stretch out on the 1-1/2 hour flight. The 1st class pluses were both the seats and snacks were a lot nicer than coach, also your drink came in an actual glass instead of plastic. No real minuses except for the broken seat snafu.

On the Dallas to Portland leg there were no seat issues, so we did get to sit next to each other this time. Because of the longer trip and larger cities served the plane was substantially larger, so the seats were larger and nicer. Our included meal service was served in real dishes with real metal utensils. While the food wasn’t restaurant quality it was pretty good. The pre-meal snack was a serving of mixed-nuts, but not just a little foil packet of them, it was a small ceramic dish of heated ones.

The nicest thing about 1st Class experience is the boarding. It is great that you get on first, but the only having to wait for like maybe 6 other people to move before you are on the jet way heading into the terminal is the bomb.

So, all in all, was spending 1.7 times the cost of a coach ticket to get nicer boarding, snacks and seats worth it …. maybe.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Tuesday night we were sitting in our usual spot, the two chairs on the screened porch facing the backyard doing the usual thing, listening to the FRS on the “radio”3 when it started to rain. This was not unexpected because the weather folks told us is was going to happen. And there is nothing better than a nice rain storm on a summer4 evening. The flashes of lightning in the distance, the muted booms of thunder, the sound of water drops crashing through the surrounding trees and, of course, the 20 degree drop in temperature.

About 9:30 there was a very bright flash that was followed almost immediately by a boom that sounded like a 155mm howitzer firing in our backyard. After nearly crushing my hand in hers because the close-by noise, Donna suggested, “Let’s go inside.” So we gathered our stuff, unplugged the small fountain, shut off the fairy light LEDs, turned the ceiling fans to low and decamped to the living room.

Twenty-five minutes later the whole house A/C shut off. Donna asked, “Why’d it do that?” I replied, “Maybe because it is down to the temperature the thermostat is set to.” “No,” she said, “it is still 2 degrees warmer in here than the thermostat setting.” Oh boy. I turned the thermostat off, then on. I lowered the temperature. I swapped the fan from Auto to On. Nothing. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside to check the breaker. It wasn’t tripped, but I cycled it anyway. Still nothing. Guess we’ll call the repair people in the morning.

We pay a fee each year to a local place so that we can get priority service appointments, free troubleshooting, a discount on parts and a free yearly check-up. I called at 8:00 AM and by 10:30 I was being told we need a new controller board. The fuse had blown, but apparently not fast enough as the heating section had failed (which also controls the blower motor.) Cost, around $500, but he’d have to check. In the meantime he had worked some jumper magic to ensure the A/C part would work.

In the last 4 years, every time they have done the check-up they they tell us that we should think of changing our unit out for something newer because it is getting close to the top of its average lifespan range and it would be more energy efficient. In those 4 years we have had to have two motor capacitors replaced, another controller board go bad and a gas fitting replaced on the furnace side of things. Maybe it is time to replace. We are getting ready to go on another west coast vacation soon, so with the A/C working, we told them to hold off on ordering the board, we’d worry about it all when we got back.

Trumpifier

If you’re like me, you just can’t enough listening/reading/seeing our current President speak. Well, today is your lucky day because I have found just the right browser extension for you, the Trump Alternative Reality Extension. Below is a copy of a paragraph from a Slate article entitled Hell Is High Water on New Orleans and the Mississippi River:

Crawford, the pilot, told me that taking a big ship down the Mississippi at high water around Algiers Point is like driving a truck down a road of ice. Taking it up the river might take twice as long as it did this time last year, when the river was 8 feet lower. Right now, everyday river operations are tense. One deckhand likened the situation to a five-alarm fire. There are no barges resting on the riverbanks, because there’s not much levee left above the waterline. Anchors won’t hold in the river bottom. On Wednesday morning, a barge hit the shore in Algiers, knocking over a utility pole and causing a power outage for 5,000 people. Then again, at least things are still moving here: Further north, the Arkansas and Illinois rivers have been closed to commercial traffic entirely due to high water, choking off shipments of corn and soybeans.

Now what it looks like using the Trumifier:

We’re doing very well on trade, we’re doing very well – our companies are very strong. Don’t forget, we’re still up from when I came in, 38 percent or something. I’m not playing by the same rules as Obama. Obama had zero interest to worry about; we’re paying interest, a lot of interest. He wasn’t paying down – we’re talking about $50 billion lots of different times, paying down and knocking out liquidity. Well, Obama didn’t do that. And just so you understand, I’m playing a normalization economy, whereas he’s playing a free economy. Wacky Omarosa You know, normally I could do other things tonight. I like you. I love this state. I figured, hey, it’s a Monday. Who the hell wants to sit around doing nothing on Monday night? Right? We fell in love. We are securing our Borders, making great new Trade Deals, and bringing our Troops Back Home.