I was supposed to fly from Portland to Las Vegas on Tuesday morning, but with the government shutdown and its effect on air travel, I’m now driving to Las Vegas.
The Flying Pig
Because tonight is the time change, before I left home I set all the clocks back an hour, so I wouldn’t have to worry about that when I get back.
Kingsley Field Mural 3
One of the cooler backdrops for Miata photos in Klamath Falls is in front of this mural on the side wall of the VFW, so naturally I got a shot of Buckey there this past weekend. Below are the previous ones; the Car To Be Named Later’s was taken in April 2020, and the Blue ND’s was taken in the same month 5 years later.
If haven’t already seen today’s Insta post, I was able to earn the coveted, Brevada Brewhouse supplied, Mixed Berry Smoothie Bowl. Damn, worth every mile. It was just as I remembered.
The first part of the journey home was all gray clouds and random sprinkles. As soon as we hit the mountains the gray clouds disappeared behind a thick mist and enough rains drops to simulate a milky shower curtain. Inexplicably, in one valley between the peaks the downpour stopped for 2 or 3 miles before coming back with a vengeance. Back at a couple hundred feet above sea level it went to broken clouds with some sprinkles.
Here are a couple of today’s Miata photos. First up, is a reminder how prevalent wildfires are in Oregon.
And secondly, a picture of how fertile the Willamette Valley is.
I am back again for the second time in the span of a week for one thing, a Breakfast Smoothie Bowl from Brevada Brewhouse tomorrow morning. That is the reason why I came last weekend too, but Brevada is closed Sunday, so I was going get it on Monday morning, but the impending snow in the mountains made me leave early. I feel like this smoothie bowl has became a Quixotic Quest.
Because when Donna and I left Klamath Falls for Fairview, I sold the CBTNL to David, the co-owner of Brevada, he had promised me a free smoothie bowl whenever the next time I got to Klamath Falls. So, by my reckoning, this free treat will have set me back approximately $460. Three hotel rooms at $100, only 2 of which I will have used, and 4 full tanks of gas at around $40 each.
But it isn’t really about the money because I would have had to cross the Eastern Cascades a few times anyway for taking the post office photos I’ve taken while coming here twice. There were 6 last weekend and I picked up 8 on the way over today. With a chance at 5 more on the way back.
P.S. The Sisters Post Office (lower left) officially put me over the halfway point of the other Quixotic Quest I’m on, taking a picture of every Post Office in Oregon.
I got up early and went downstairs at the Shilo Inn for breakfast and boy what a disappointment. The only thing I got was small pre-packaged container of Honey Nut Cheerios and an 8oz container of 2% milk. I went back to the room and ate. I wanted to get this hanging Post Office in New Pine Creek (see above photo) so I drove the 112 miles one way to get it. I stopped in Lakeview on the way back to get something really worth eating.
When I arrived back to the hotel around noon, it was just in time to watch the Red Sox lose their game against the Texas Rangers. Boston won the first game of the series last Thursday, but promptly lost the next three to Texas, so their 2025 W/L record so far is 1-3.
Also, when I got back to the hotel, I wasn’t hungry for lunch because of the homemade biscuit with egg, sausage & cheese I had at The Bottom of the Barrel Bakery was twice the size of a normal Carl’s Jr biscuit. I figured I’d get back on track with a good dinner. Never happened.
When I checked the weather for the day in Klamath Falls it mentioned that there might be some snow in the early morning hours of Monday. Hmmm, there wasn’t any mention of snow earlier in the week. Around three this afternoon I looked again, now they were saying an inch or more of accumulation at lower altitudes, but there might be several inches above 5,000 feet. That would be a problem, any route I would take from Klamath Falls to home would include at least one pass that was higher than five thousand. I was willing to stay another day, but changed my mind when snow was forecast for the next 3 days.
I stuffed all my things back into their respective bags, checked out of the hotel, threw the bags in the trunk and headed north. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. At about 5:30 I would normally be thinking about getting din-din, but by then I was long past civilization. I kept thinking I’d see something I wanted in those small towns on this side of the Cascades, but didn’t. I got on I-5 just south of Eugene and really didn’t want to get right back off, so I was going to wait until I got north of town. Then with all the traffic I missed the only exit that had food listed on the sign. I had to stop and gas in Salem and by that time it quarter after seven and too late to eat a meal. I ate the second bag of a half apple I had brought along for afternoon snack.
I figure between the Lakeview round trip and the dash home I drove over 500 miles for the day. With Saturday’s 300-ish mile drive down to K-Falls it was certainly good practice for my upcoming Jumbo Road Trip.
On my morning cannabis run last month, because I was unsupervised, I decided to stop and take a Miata picture for Instagramming. There is this cute little one lane tunnel under some railroad tracks a short detour off the way home that I thought might be nice. In all the times I have passed by on the road perpendicular to the tunnel I have never seen anyone use it.
HA! I pulled in and stopped and hopped out to take a photo. When I moved a little closer to take a photo from a different angle I could see someone trying to come through from the direction I entered, so I just hopped in the car and moved forward to let them by.
I did a K-turn and headed into the tunnel to take one from the other direction. Sure enough, the same thing happened again. I got one photo and had to move the car for a whole different vehicle coming in opposite direction.
When I previewed the photos it really wasn’t that scenic, so I just went home.
Today was both the big downtown show for the Kruise of Klamath and the Klamath Kinetic Challenge along the Link River Trail. I only took a few photos of the cars in downtown because it was hard to capture nice pictures of the cars as they were jammed in, in the intense sunlight or half in and half in deep shadow, plus lots of people.
Its summer so the Miata is getting a “workout. Last night we went over to Moore Park to see some of the cars from the Kruise for 11.1 miles and today we went 8.6 miles to downtown to see the car show and up to the lake to watch Kinetic fun.
Tomorrow we’ll probably take the Mini because the Kinetic folks do their water course just before lunch and by then it will be very warm out.