Eastward Ho

After breakfast, John and I got back on I-5, heading toward Sacramento, where we'd pick up I-80 East. We decided it might be more fun to take some state highways and byways to I-80, rather than get tangled up in the traffic around Sacramento, so we jumped off the interstate at a town called Williams and bore east through the California farmlands. It was actually restful to have something else to look at, and the time passed quickly. We stopped at a roadside fruit stand and bought locally-grown plums, cherries and pistachios (they were delicious; I wish I'd bought more). Eventually we picked up I-80, but jumped off it again when we got into the vicinity of Lake Tahoe.

John had seen Tahoe before, but I had never been there, so we cruised around the northern part of the lake for a bit, then stopped for lunch, then found a place where we could get down to the lake itself. We'd tried at other parks, but discovered that they were private parks and not for the likes of us, so we were grateful to finally stumble on a public park around the east side of the lake. There were a lot of big boulders to climb down, and the weather was bright and beautiful, with a nice breeze coming off the lake.

The downside was afterward, when we got into the car and I discovered that my left ankle was bruised and swollen. I don't know what I did to it or when (I only had a twinge from one knee when climbing on the boulders), and it didn't really hurt, but it was disconcerting all the same. After we got into Nevada, we stopped to get some ice and I traveled the rest of the day with my foot elevated on the dash and an ice pack on my ankle. Nevada was not terribly exciting to look at, and we were glad to stop for the night in Elko.

In the morning we continued on into Utah, and after a wrong turn or two, found ourselves on the road to the Bonneville Speedway. John is a racing buff and was very interested in seeing the place where so many land speed records have been set; I found the area to be just plain unearthly. I guess it would have been plenty weird if the Salt Flats had been its usual dry self, but apparently the area had just had a good bit of rain, so there was a thin film of water across this very flat and salty area. The sky was blue and cloudless and there was not a lot of wind, so the water reflected the nearby crags and jags in a very weird, otherworldly way:


Had there not been water on the Flats, I believe I would have been hard-pressed to keep John from racing the truck across the Speedway, which we really didn't need for him to do, it being full of our luggage, traveling accoutrement and a lot of Oregon wine. We found a spot that was mostly dry, and he walked out a good ways to get a feel for it. Even so, he said there were moments where his feet broke through the damp salt layer, and I was glad that we didn't drive on it.

From the Salt Flats we continued east into the Salt Lake City area. I really didn't care anything about stopping in Salt Lake City, but we knew we HAD to stop and see the Great Salt Lake. Now, we'd SEEN the GSL on our way west, when we picked up I-84 near Ogden, but we hadn't actually VISITED it, and certainly had not paddled in it. Swollen ankle or not, I was going to paddle in it. As we approached Salt Lake City, I kept getting fooled into thinking we had reached the Lake by the same kind of standing water we'd seen on the Bonneville Speedway. Eventually, though, we saw the Lake to our left, took an exit just past a marina to have a look, and stumbled on a very strange-looking edifice.

It was a rectangular box of a building, with Moorish "onion bulb" towers at the corners and gateway. We found it quite peculiar - nothing seemed to "fit," and it seemed to be abandoned, although there were signs directing the way to an indoor gift shop. We opted to check it out after walking down to the edge of the Lake, which shimmered in the distance about a quarter mile away.

The Lake had salt flats of its own, covered with a scummy film of water and mud, and this made walking a little dicey. I kept slipping, which was no fun with the messed-up ankle. We passed little wads of what looked like bunches of bleached grass, but on closer inspection turned out to be bird carcasses. It was fairly disconcerting, and the smell wasn't much to write home about, either. Things got a little better as we neared the shoreline, and I pulled off my shoes, rolled up my pants legs and had myself a little paddle. Other people passed me, heading out to deeper waters for a float:

I liked that guy's stylin' headgear.

After my paddle, we went back toward the oddball building, which turned out not to be abandoned after all, as there was a young man mowing the lawn. We found our way inside to the gift shop and discovered that the building is a fairly famous one, or at least, the rebuilt version of one: The Great Saltair. This was a turn-of-the-century resort, and as was often the case with resorts of that era, it burned down more than once. The current Saltair is located a little ways from the site of the original, and its Frankenstein-like appearance is due to the building actually being an airplane hanger in its previous life, with the onion bulb decorations planted incongruously on top.

Due to the capricious nature of the Great Salt Lake, the current Saltair was flooded shortly after it opened. Several years passed and the waters receded, but retreated so far that the Saltair now sits in its high and dry position. Given time, I guess, it might find itself flooded again; meanwhile, it's home to rock concerts on a semi-regular basis. It's a bizarre sight, all the same - and just a wee bit depressing.

We got hung up in highway construction traffic as we headed out of Utah into Wyoming, but eventually we were backtracking the very path we'd taken when we'd headed west. We stopped for the night again in Rawlins and stayed the next night with my sister and her family in Nebraska. Our final night on the road was in Greenfield, Indiana, and we reached our home on Monday the 22nd at about 9:30 PM. Unlike the conclusion of our cross-country trip two years ago, we did not have any disasters waiting to greet us. The A/C had moved out of its vacation programming and the house was nice and cool. Our neighbor had mowed the grass. The garden was growing nicely and the potted plants in the house and on the deck were doing just fine. We were home again, home again, jiggety jog.

Oh, and John creamed me in Punch Bug again - 168 to 111.

Heading Back

On Wednesday the 17th, we reluctantly checked out of the Elizabeth Street Inn to start our homeward journey. My heart always hurts a little bit when we leave Oregon - it's a wonderful place, whether you're on the coast or in the high desert. Or anywhere, for that matter.

We made a brief side trip back to the town of Seal Rock, which we'd passed on our way south two days before. We'd noticed a woodcarving shop with a big sign that said BEARS there. John and I have always wanted a wooden bear. Not a big bear, like the eight-footer that stands outside our local Famous Dave's BBQ joint, but a wooden bear that could, perhaps, sit outside on our front stoop, or maybe on our deck. Anyway, we decided to duck back down to Yachats and see what we could find.

We parked in the gravel lot by the woodcarver's shop and had a look at the bears outside (all too large) before moving into the shop itself. We could hear an electric saw running somewhere nearby but there was no one in the shop, although there were plenty of smaller bears. Many were the size we wanted, but we really wanted a bear with its paw raised in greeting, and these bears were doing everything else. After a bit the saw sounds stopped, and we were joined by Karl Kowalski, who had been working on a sculpture in the back. He and I chatted about his work, and John wandered off. After a minute he called me outside, where a new sculpture had been added to the ones outside.

"I just finished carving him and put him outside to dry," Mr. Kowalski said. The bear was about a foot and a half tall, carved of red cedar, with a winsome expression and the all-important raised paw. In other words, he was perfect. The bear wasn't finished yet (he would still have to dry before getting a finishing coat and some eyes), but we bought him anyway, and Mr. Kowalski says he'll be shipped to us in early July. So we'll have a little piece of the Oregon coast in a few weeks.

The receipt from our bear purchase tucked away securely, we took a few moments for a quick farewell paddle in the ocean, then pointed the car to I-5 South. Our ultimate destination for the day was Redding, California, with a stop at what we were sure would be the cheesiest of tourist traps - The Oregon Vortex and House of Mystery.

It took a while to get there. We had to get off I-5 between Grants Pass and Medford and make our way down some narrow backwoods roads that finally ended in the parking lot of the attraction. We were surprised to find quite a few cars there. We parked, paid our admission and were invited to join a tour that had just started. Now, all of us at one time or another have been in "mysterious" crooked houses, where the laws of gravity seem to go awry. There was a great one at the now-defunct Opryland theme park called The Angler's Inn (my youngest sister Joan worked there way back when, as did fellow actress Sherri Edelen). But the people who work at the Oregon Vortex sort of pooh-pooh the House of Mystery. They remind you frequently that the House is not the Vortex; it just happens to be in the Vortex. According to the guides, the House was an mining office built in the early 1900s, which slid off its foundations a few years after its construction. The Vortex, however, has been here for a much longer time.

Our guide was a college-aged girl who was clearly new on the job; she didn't quite have the patter or the display routine down, but this gave the experience a sort of raw credence. If someone had given us a slick line of talk, I would have been more skeptical than I was. According to the literature available at the site, The Oregon Vortex is a spherical field of force, half above the ground and half below the ground. It is an area of naturally occurring visual and perceptual phenomena. Right. I did the Angler's Inn tour with my sister; I know that a building that's on a tilt is going to make you feel like gravity has gone awry. And indeed, our guide had all the usual props that go with these kinds of attractions: billiard balls that run uphill, a plumb line that hangs at a angle, a broom you can stand on end. But let me show you the weird part:

This is John and me, standing between two posts on the site:


And this is John and me in the same spot, but after changing places:



See what's happened? I should note that we took this with the timer on our camera, and the camera was in the same pace for both shots.

Now I know someone is going to come along and debunk this with physics and perspective and talk of Ames Rooms, but all I can tell you is that it's super weird. It would have been fun, too, except that almost immediately upon entering the area I got a headache and felt slightly nauseated. I don't know what that was all about, but about half an hour down the road after we departed, I felt better. All the same, it was a funky good time.

Before long we saw Mount Shasta looming in the distance, and we crossed into California. We passed Shasta Lake, which seemed very, very dry (I found out later that the water level is, indeed, quite low). Eventually we pulled into our hotel in Redding, an old-fashioned two-level motor lodge with an outdoor swimming pool. We hadn't been there an hour when the power went out. Appparently a bird had flown into a nearby transformer. It was hot outside and without air conditioning, it rapidly grew hot inside as well. People propped open the doors and windows of the room; men took off their shirts and stood outside smoking by their trucks. It looked like a scene from My Name Is Earl. I didn't help matters by standing barefoot in the doorway of our room, filing my nails (the outage occurred when I was in mid-manicure). Eventually it got so dark outside that there was nothing to do but lie in bed and hope for a breeze. Fortunately the power kicked back on after an hour and a half, and we cranked the A/C down and went to sleep, dreaming of the ocean breezes we'd left behind.

In Vino Veritas

In reviewing the photos I took on June 16, I find that there are - none. This is not surprising, as this is the day John and I drove from Newport up into the Willamette Valley region of Oregon. We went there to sample wines, specifically pinot noir. We are big fans of Oregon pinot noir.

I do believe we took the camera, but be honest: who really wants to see pictures of people sampling wines? A lot of people treat a tasting as a pub crawl, but John and I were really tasting - swirling the wine in the glass, taking a big ol' sniff of the contents, sipping a bit and swilling it around our palates and then - I know, it's kind of horrible - spitting the wine out.

My guess is that a lot of people who visit the vineyards to taste the wine are actually drinking it, because a a couple of the tasting rooms we had to ask for a dump bucket, and at least once got an odd look for doing so (and at another, were complimented on our "restraint"). But we visited about ten vineyards/tasting rooms and sampled between two and six wines in each of them. The average-sized pour when you're sampling is about an ounce. If we drank every pour we got, we'd have been legless within two hours.

So anyway - no pictures of that day. We had an 11:00 AM appointment at
Adelsheim, an old favorite that never disappoints, but we arrived in the area half an hour early, so we went up the hill to Bergstrom Winery, which was already open, and sampled their wines. Then we backtracked to Adelsheim and spent a good hour there. Many of the wineries in the area do tastings only by appointment, and still others are not open during the week (we were there on a Tuesday, which is definitely an off-day), so our tasting selections were largely based on which places were open. Other than a break for a leisurely lunch, we tasted from about 10:30 AM to 5 PM, when most of the tasting rooms closed. We tasted a lot of wine: Ponzi, Sokol Blosser, August Cellars, Rex Hill, Hip Chicks, Fox Farm and another old favorite, Erath, plus some others I can't remember. On our way back to Newport, we stopped at another favorite, Flying Dutchman, which is located on the coast, right by the Devil's Punchbowl.

And yes, we bought a LOT of wine.

More Westerly

John and I slept in the morning after the MGM 3-Gun match. After repacking everything and grabbing some breakfast, we jumped back on I-84 and headed westward into Oregon.

We have visited Oregon twice before, but this was the first time we'd been in this particular part of the state. Our original plan was to make a side trip into the Wallowa Valley, but it would have taken us several hours out of our way. Because of our late start, we had to scotch that plan and instead, allowed ourselves the luxury of getting off the interstate whenever we saw something interesting. Hence, when we saw signs to "Oregon Trail Interpretive Site," we jumped off the interstate and took a couple miles worth of back roads to have a look.

One of the interesting things about Oregon is its honor system for state park usage. There's a nominal fee for entering the parks; envelopes are provided and it's up to you to put in the correct amount and deposit it in the fee box. The fee for the Oregon Trail Interpretive Site was $5.00, but we only had a $10 bill. We took the envelope along with us, hoping for a chance to make change.

The site itself was self-guided, and the first thing we saw was another couple looking through binoculars. "What do you see?" I asked, and they pointed out a doe with two tiny spotted fawns, right at the edge of some nearby woods. We got a glimpse of them before the doe spooked and herded her two tottering infants into the trees. We wandered on, down a trail that meandered for a half mile through trees and meadows. We met up with a volunteer guide who pointed out ruts left by the wagon wheels of the Oregon Trail pioneers so many years ago, and we visited a mock campsite (where I took this photo of a reproduction wagon). In all, it was a pleasant break from our highway travels, and we ended up leaving the $10 bill in the fee box.

We continued up I-84, traveling through the Columbia Gorge and alongside the Columbia River for quite a few miles. If there was a scenic turnout, we took it. We stopped at a restaurant near the river's edge and had a leisurely lunch. We got into the vicinity of Portland and jumped onto I-5 South, and by the time we turned off the interstate to head to the coast and Newport, it was already starting to get dark. We arrived at the Elizabeth Street Inn around 9:30 and checked in. We've stayed at the Inn before and I knew there was a laundry room on premises; I asked the nice lady if there was a cut-off time for using it in the evenings and she said no. We went up to our room and immediately opened the doors onto our balcony to enjoy the ocean breeze, even though it was too dark to see the water. I ran a couple of loads of wash and made us a quick dinner, then John and I collapsed for a good night's sleep, with the beating of the waves providing a pleasant lullaby.

In the morning we had some breakfast, then took Highway 101 (the coastal highway) south. In our 2007 visit to the Oregon coast, we had spent most of our time headed north; this time we wanted to see what lay in the opposite direction. Our ultimate goal was the Sea Lions Caves near Florence, a couple hours south. We had expected the typical cool, damp and overcast day that you get on the Oregon coast at this time of year, but it stayed sunny and pleasant all day.

First we visited the Devil's Churn:

From there we continued to Cape Perpetua and took the scenic drive up to the summit. It was a truly spectacular view - a coastal panorama encompassing approximately 150 miles from north to south. We looked for whales but didn't see any, and a kind gentleman took our photo:

Upon our descent from Cape Perpetua, we continued to Heceta Head Lighthouse. I decided I'd rather not travel up to the lighthouse, but was content to look at it from the beach below, particularly after John asked if I wouldn't like to spend some time looking at the tidal pools. Now this was a great thing - during our 2007 visit, I really wanted to poke around the tidal pools on the various beaches we passed, but that sort of thing bores John to death, and I only got a few minutes of tidal-pool-poking. I think he felt guilty about it then, and as I'd been such an Exemplary Spouse during the 3-Gun match, I guess he figured he owed me. He even found me a Poking Stick to enhance the experience. The tide was coming in rather quickly but I still had time to play with a few crabs and snails and to find an enormous dead sea star - it must have been nearly a foot across. I toyed with the idea of taking it home to dry out, but was afraid it would stink too much. Now I wish I had it.

Oddly, the best find of the tidal pool was John's. While I was playing with a crab, he noticed these purple sea stars and pointed them out to me. They were really quite pretty - about five inches across, a lovely pale lilac color and stuck firmly onto their rocks (yes, I Poked them - gently). I looked them up on the Internet later and discovered that they are Ochre Stars, and like to dine on mussels and snails, via the charming starfish method of turning their tummies inside out.

From Heceta Head we went to the Sea Lions Caves, just north of the town of Florence. It was a bit touristy, but the owners of the site seem to be going out of their way to provide sightseers with a good look at the Steller sea lions' hangout and breeding site, and at the same time give the sea lions themselves plenty of space. You can watch the sea lions from a cliff lookout far overhead, then take an elevator down a couple hundred feet into the cave itself. The observation area is fenced off from where the sea lions like to hang out, and you're not allowed to use flash photography in the cave.

Those slug-looking things are the sea lions hanging out on the rock. There were about fifty of them in the cave, and another hundred and fifty or so on the rock ledges outside the cave. The cheeping sounds you hear on the video are swallows, which were swooping all over the interior of the cave.

From the Sea Lion Caves, we went to Florence and had a late lunch of chowder at Mo's, a well-known seafood place (well, places - there are five Mo's on the Oregon coastline). Then we had a little ice cream, bought some salt water taffy and headed back to Newport. It was a really satisfying day, but when John asked me if I'd had enough tidal pool time, I had to confess that there will never be enough tidal pool time. Particularly when I have a good Poking stick.

(Heceta Head Light, on the right)

Manly Men Doing Manly Things - Day 3

The final day of the MGM 3 Gun was supposed to be a shorter day than the previous two, with John's squad scheduled to shoot only their remaining three stages. It ended up being surprisingly long, but some interesting things went on.

The gentlemen of John's squad were excited to shoot Stage 5, as it included a machine gun and a lot of running. Stage 6 had even more running, as well as the job of having to carry a 90-lb dummy through part of it. Much huffing and puffing ensued. The squad broke for lunch before its final stage, and just as well, since there was quite a delay getting into Stage 7 - a "secret stage."

Let me tell you: the MGM 3-Gun folks were serious about that secret stage. The entrance to the stage was cordoned off and you were not allowed to enter the area until it was your turn to shoot. There was a big sign proclaiming the penalties for unauthorized entry into the stage, not the least of which was receiving a DQ (or disqualification) for the match. It was also a long stage - I'm guessing that, between the actual running of the stage and the setup for the next shooter, it was probably 15-20 minutes between shooters. The previous squad was still on the stage when we assembled after lunch, so we had to wait.

By that time I'd read two and a half books and looked at all the birds on the range, so I was getting fairly bored. I amused myself by annoying a colony of antlions, or as they are more familiarly called, doodlebugs:

Eventually the previous squad finished with Stage 7 and one by one, members of John's squad were called into the secret stage. Once a shooter disappeared into the stage, they didn't come back - they stayed to assist with the stage reset. Even if they came back, they didn't talk about the stage, as there were serious penalties for doing that, as well. Eventually John's turn came and off he went. Before too long, we heard the shooting begin inside the stage, and about that time, this dopey-looking dog came loping down the range, his tongue hanging out and his tail a-wag. Before anyone could do anything, the dog disappeared inside the secret stage. We were still wondering what was going on when the shooting stopped, and after a moment John came out of the stage and informed us that he would get a re-shoot, as they'd had to stop the shooting when the dog got into the line of fire. About that time the dog was shooed out of the stage, and John went back in.

Unfortunately the dog had no collar and apparently no owner on premises, so there was no way to control it. Back it went into the stage, and this time the shooting continued. I was standing on high ground with some of the other members of John's squad, and at one point we were able to see John popping up to shoot at distant targets. The whole time the dog was running in and out of the line of fire. Apparently it was hunting the ground squirrel population, and it even caught one and ran around merrily with the carcass dangling from its mouth for a while. Eventually it ran off into a nearby field, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

All during this episode, the skies had been turning dark and forbidding, and the wind picked up considerably, bringing with it an absolutely indescribable stench. One of the other shooters informed me that a cattle feedlot was upwind of the range. It was so bad that the nearby port-a-potty smelled good by comparison. John's squad was fortunate in that they were waiting under cover, but most of the nearby squads were not so fortunate. When the downpour began, some of the shooters at other stages retreated beneath the stage sun screen, but those were rapidly uprooted by the wind and had to be collapsed down.

Was the shooting postponed while the storm came through, you may ask? The answer is NO. The shooting went on apace. Even the zip line stage, which we could see from our shelter, was still running. Apparently the rule at the MGM 3-Gun is: "If it starts to rain, keep shooting. If it starts to rain hard, shoot faster."

After about twenty minutes the rain let up, and by 5 PM John's squad and most of the other squads had completed their final stage. Estimates were that it would take roughly an hour to an hour and a half for the last shooters to finish up and for the scores to be compiled, so John and I went back to the hotel, had a shower, changed clothes and returned to the range. We were anticipating going out for a nice dinner after the awards ceremony.

Well, of course, things ran late. In fact, they ran REALLY late. It was close to 7 PM before the awards in John's class were announced, and right away it was apparent that there had been some kind of scoring error. John and all the other shooters in his class converged on the scoring table to sort things out, and I retreated to the car as it was starting to rain yet again. I read for a while, shook the Idaho dust out of the car floormats, fidgeted and got hungrier and hungrier. At about 9 PM John arrived back at the car, plenty steamed. He'd ended up finishing tenth in his class, which was good. The bad part was that the organizers of the event hadn't made the class wait until the scoring was corrected before starting the prize tent - which meant that lower-scoring shooters than John had been allowed into the tent before him and made off with the good prizes. (Here's how a prize tent works: vendors who sponsor the match donate products - guns, gun parts, gun bags, gun supplies and gift certificates, etc. - which are put on display on tables in the prize tent. Shooters enter the tent in the order in which they finished the match, first to last, and have just a few minutes to choose a prize and then leave the tent, after which many of them depart the match.)

In addition, the top ten finishers in John's class had received plaques, but because of the scoring snafu, someone else got the plaque John should have received. To add insult to injury, it was so late by the time we left the match that all the local restaurants had stopped serving, so our "nice dinner" ended up being at a nearby Denny's. Much to my surprise, however, they served liquor, so at least we were able to have a drink to celebrate the end of the MGM 3-Gun. John and his buddies are eager to attend next year's match - so in spite of the scoring issues, I guess they had fun all the same.

Manly Men Doing Manly Things - Day 2

The second day of the MGM Iron Man dawned much like its predecessor - a bit misty and damp, but clearing off by mid-afternoon. Once again, John hauled his firepower and accessories back to the range; his Dutiful Wife hauled her sleepy butt and a book or two.

Since John's squad had finished with Stage 11 the previous day, they began with Stage 1, which featured a maze which had to be passed through (with pistol) at a crouch, followed by a belly-crawl (with rifle) beneath some netting. Stage 2 involved shooting from a large swinging platform, which made the shooters appear as if they were firing from the deck of a ship in choppy seas. No one fell down, which was a relief. Lunch followed, and this time the lunch folks seemed to have a better handle on things - John's squad also ate earlier in the day than previously, for which I was grateful. We usually didn't have breakfast before the start of each day's shooting, and Jack Link beef jerky doesn't really do much to fill you up, although it does give your jaws a workout.

The post-prandial stages were REALLY interesting. Stage 3 featured a steep slide that must have been at least 20 feet tall. The shooters began at the top of this slide with their rifles, and after completing that part of the stage, slid down the slide, landed at the bottom and continued with the balance of the course. The slide was so steep that a large, fat rope was provided to slow one's progress coming down; some shooters opted not to use it, and consequently the stage was the site of several visits from the local EMS teams. One shooter slid down so fast that he tripped at the bottom and did a face-plant into the sand; another shooter shot off the bottom of the slide, bounced on his backside a couple of times and had to be carted away by ambulance. Did I mention that the ambulance was a frequent visitor to the range?

We had a long wait before getting onto Stage 4, which was a two-parter. 4A involved shooting at clays with rifle and shotgun, then in 4B you strapped on your pistol and a harness and climbed to the top of a 40-foot tower, where they hitched your harness onto a zip line and sent you careening down toward a bunch of targets. Oh, hell - let me just show you what it looked like:

John was so entranced with the zip line and so eager to share the experience with me that he convinced the kindly R.O.s of 4B to let me do it after shooting was finished for the day (sans weaponry, of course). Even though it lengthened our day by another hour, it was worth it:

Manly Men Doing Manly Things - Day 1

Ah, the smell of testosterone in the morning. The air was fairly crackling with it the first morning of the MGM Three-Gun competition in Parma, Idaho. Butch guys loaded down with weaponry were everywhere, talking incomprehensible shooting talk, grinning and shaking hands, earnestly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance ("amen," someone said at the conclusion) and in general, being Manly Men. The fact that most of these Manly Men tote their firepower in little red wagons (such as John, here) or more popularly, in converted baby jogging strollers, is a dichotomy that I find particularly endearing. (There are Extremely Manly Men who compete in a class called "Super Troopers," and they have to hump all their stuff on their backs, without benefit of stroller or little red wagon - but I think they're a little loopy.)

I always feel a bit odd at these events, but I attend because I am (a) A Good Wife On Occasion, and (b) they're always interesting, if only to watch the goings-on. If the goings-on get dull or tedious, they always take place out in some field somewhere, so there's usually wildlife to watch. With my chair, a book or two, a pair of binoculars and my trusty Audubon guidebooks, I can be happy just about everywhere. The only downside is that I have to wear eye and ear protection whenever I'm on the range, which are ever so stylin' but uncomfortable after a while. And no, I am not wearing the ear protection properly in this photo; there was no shooting going on at the time so I have the earmuffs parked at the back of my head, which makes me look a bit like a mutated Minnie Mouse.

Lest you think that there could be nothing more boring than watching a bunch of guys plinking at targets, let me assure you that the MGM Iron Man was a lot more than that. In the first place, the style of shooting is what's called "practical shooting," and I can't give a better definition than the one supplied by the U.S. Practical Shooting Association's website, which states: Practical Shooting attempts to measure the ability to shoot rapidly and accurately with a full power handgun, rifle, and/or shotgun. Those three elements - speed, accuracy, and power - form the three sides of the practical shooting triangle. By design, each match will measure a shooter's ability in all three areas. To do this, shooters take on obstacle-laden shooting courses (called stages) requiring anywhere from six to 30+ shots to complete. The scoring system measures points scored per second, then weights the score to compensate for the number of shots fired. If they miss a target, or shoot inaccurately, points are deducted, lowering that all-important points-per-second score. If shooting has an "extreme" sport, USPSA-sanctioned practical shooting is it.

I've sat in on a lot of these matches over the years, but the MGM Iron Man is a whole 'nother ball game. Here's the description from their website: The match includes 10 stages, an 1100 round count (if the shooter doesn't miss), and EVERY stage requires the use of all 3 guns...Over 3 days, the participants will shoot from the back of a moving vehicle, while driving a golf cart, from the top of a 20 ft tower, and while carrying a dummy. Every stage has a 10 minute time limit and the average time spent shooting on EACH stage is about 7 minutes.

What this translates to is three days, each roughly 12 hours long, of hauling a lot of heavy guns, ammo and other shooting equipment over a couple miles of dusty Idaho back country. If you're not actively shooting a stage, you're helping reset the stage for the next shooter, assisting with scoring, or helping the Range Officer in charge of the stage. Everyone helps, and I do mean EVERYONE. At the end of the day, you go back to your hotel room and clean your guns and get ready for the next day, so on average these guys get about four to five hours of sleep. And yes, folks, they do it for FUN.

The match ran from Thursday to Saturday. Thursday morning was the orientation, which meant we were at the range before sunup. It was cold, and it stayed cold until mid-afternoon, so I was actually grateful for the earmuffs. John shot four stages the first day. The first stage was relatively uncomplicated (compared to the majority of the Iron Man stages). I've posted the video here so you can see what it looks like. This is just the first part of the stage; later on he runs to the back part of the stage and shoots at a lot of metal targets, so quickly that it sounds like bells chiming - but this part is just to give you a flavor. The tall guy in the fluorescent yellow shirt is Andy, the Range Officer (or R.O.) for the stage.

The second stage was a mystery stage, which meant that I couldn't see anything of what was going on (although I was told a wheelbarrow was involved). A golf cart was featured on the third stage, and the final stage of the day was on the most far-flung of the stages and, according to John, "all uphill." A lot of the day was spent sitting around waiting. The downside of the day was lunch; John's squad was one of the last to break for lunch, and due to some miscommunication the lunch folks hadn't prepared enough food, so we had to make do with burgers and chips, missing out on the cole slaw, potato salad and BBQ. There was surprisingly little grumbling (well, I grumbled a bit). Then it was back out onto the range. During the downtime I did a little binocular work: saw a lot of Western Kingbirds, scared up some California Quail, and watched a pair of peeved-looking Red-Tailed Hawks standing guard over their nest. There were also a number of Townsend's Ground Squirrels at the range, which live in prairie dog-like villages. They disappear into their holes if you approach, but whistle to each other, managing to sound like they're right under your feet.

Because of a delay on Stage 9, John's squad was backed up for the balance of the day. They finished shooting Stage 11 at about 8:15 PM, so after getting dinner, returning to the hotel room, cleaning the guns and tumbling into bed, both of us were pretty tired. But once things warmed up, you couldn't have asked for prettier weather, better fellowship and a more beautiful sight than the Idaho high desert.

Way Out West

Well, we are finally landed up in south-western Idaho, or northeastern Oregon, depending on what time of day it is and what the heck we're doing. We are staying in Ontario, Oregon but going back and forth between Parma, Idaho, so if I seem a little confused, that's why. If we jogged much further west or north we would be crossing back and forth between Mountain and Pacific time, so I should be glad we're at where we're at.

It took us four days to get here. Fortunately they were relatively easy travel days; about nine hours in the car per day. That is not as awful as it sounds. John's Honda Ridgeline truck is exceedingly comfortable - leather seats, plenty of legroom, storage for everything, XM/Sirius satellite radio, six-disc CD player - and we manage to keep each other occupied as we drive along. The first day out is always kind of dull. We didn't get going until nearly noon, and didn't stop for anything except gas once along the way before we ended up in Brownsburg, Indiana (just west of Indianapolis) for the night.

The next morning we got an earlier start, after a quick compli-mentary breakfast at our Hampton Inn motel which, coinci-dentally, was pretty nice. In spite of the breakfast, John had to stop at the local White Castle and get himself some sliders. Longtime readers of this blog will remember two years back, when we made a similar trek west and also stopped in Brownsburg for the night, and also got White Castle burgers the next morning on the way out. In fact, this photo is a lot like the one I took of John on June 5, 2007 (you can look at it if you want by clicking on the June 2007 archives to the right).

Personally, I don't get the attraction of White Castle burgers - to me, they taste like meat-and-onion flavored sponges. I took one bite and that was enough. But John always has to have them. It's a tradition when we're out in this part of the country.

Continuing westward through Illinois, we lost an hour as we passed into Central Time. Things got flatter and flatter as we drove through Iowa. We pulled into a rest stop for a quick break as we drew closer to the Nebraska state line, and upon coming out of the restrooms, were startled to hear an alarm bell going off. There were no signs explaining the alarm, and other travelers were standing around in puzzlement. Someone wondered aloud if the alarm was a tornado warning. John and I shrugged it off, got back in the car and continued west on I-80. We hadn't traveled more than a few miles when the sky began to look reeeeeally ominous:

We could see lightning striking the distance. Before long, big fat drops of rain began spatting against the windshield - hard. We kept on going. The sky got darker and the rain got heavier and harder, eventually coming down so hard that we could barely see the road ahead. We pulled onto the shoulder and hit our emergency flashers (many other drivers were doing the same) and waited. After a bit the rain seemed to let up, so we got back on the road. I don't think we went more than a couple of miles when the big fat rain turned into penny-sized hail. Again, we pulled onto the shoulder. If there had been any substantial wind I would have been nervous. Eventually the hail tapered off and became rain, and we started off once again, eventually driving out of the storm.

We crossed into Nebraska, checked into our motel, got a bite to eat and then went to visit my sister Anneliese and her family. Niece Johanna had just graduated from high school the day before, and Niece Eileen from college the previous month. All four Kennedy girls were home for the summer. This photo is of Johanna, Amanda and Caitlin; Eileen was otherwise engaged with her beau, Steve. We shared the remnants of Johanna's graduation cake and generally whooped it up for a couple of hours, then went outside to show off John's truck and say our farewells. The "saying of the farewells" always takes at least another half hour. This is Liese and Craig, looking like they're giving John a hard time (they weren't), but what's fun is Eileen and Steve in the background. They had been snuggling on the hood of the red car, and appear to be smiling sheepishly after coming up for air. We'll be stopping with the Kennedys again on the return trip, and will, I hope, have pictures that are actually taken in daylight.

The next morning we continued west on I-80, traversing Nebraska, which is pretty darned flat until you get into the westernmost portion, where things start looking a bit more interesting. John and I stopped at the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument, which is a big arched thing that stretches across I-80 near Kearney, Nebraska. We passed under the arch but had to continue several miles down I-80 before we got to the exit ramp - and then had to double back down a service road before we pulled into the parking lot. We got out of the car and I had a brief cuddle with a big fiberglass bison before heading toward the monument entrance.

We were greeted by extremely friendly "pioneer" folk as soon as we got near the door - but the $10 admission fee was off-putting, so we opted out of touring the monument. Instead, I bought a refrigerator magnet and squished a souvenir penny for our collections, then John and I went outside where there was a bridge across a nearby canal. The canal has been stocked with giant black Japanese koi, which is, of course, very Nebraska. It was a little surreal. However, there was a handy machine on the bridge stocked with koi food, and for 25 cents you got about a dozen pea-sized nuggets. We spent about 75 cents on fish food, which we then doled out to the grateful koi. I was interested to see one fish lurking near the bank that was clearly not a koi, and clearly not interested in the koi food. The koi, however, went nuts for the stuff. This is John feeding the koi (the north end of the Archway Monument is visible behind him), and these are the koi having a koi feeding frenzy:



We fed ourselves on sandwiches from the cooler, then got back on I-80, passing into Wyoming and stopping for the night in Rawlins, about halfway across the state. The next morning we continued west, amusing ourselves by learning Italian from a CD program ("Vedo una macchina bianca!"), listening to an audio version of Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, and playing Punch Bug. (I have decided I suck at Punch Bug. Our current score is 64 to 33, favor of John - of course.) As we approached Green River, Wyoming, we picked up a stone chip in the windshield courtesy of a passing truck. From Wyoming we moved briefly into Utah and picked up I-84 east of Salt Lake City. As we traveled north of Ogden, yet another angry sky loomed up on the horizon:

Fortunately, this storm simply contained rain and no hail, but there was a LOT of rain. As the storm passed by, we saw cars coming to a stop ahead of us on both sides of I-84. Water was boiling down the hill on the far side of the highway, filling the culvert and ponding across the eastbound lanes, the median and the westbound lanes. The culvert on our side of the highway was also filled to the brim and spilling into the fields beyond. There had been a collision between a small car and a large truck, but fortunately everyone seemed okay. I'm guessing the flash flood was at fault.

As we crossed into Idaho, most of the rain had cleared off. We passed through Boise and then over the state line into Ontario, Oregon, where we checked into our hotel and got a bite to eat. This morning, we drove back into Idaho to Parma, the location of the MGM Ironman Three-Gun match, which John will be shooting starting tomorrow. I waited patiently for a couple of hours while John wandered over the range, getting a look at some of the stages (I know, this is a lot of jargon - it will all be explained in a subsequent post). Then we took a drive around the Snake River Canyon area.

There are a lot of small towns, wide fields and spectacular scenery along the way, but we also saw an awful lot of closed businesses and empty houses for sale. We stopped for a late lunch at a place called Boy's Better Burger, where I saw this sign taped on the counter. It isn't the first sign of this type we've seen since arriving here. Its reluctant stinginess made a sobering contrast to the generous and sprawling landscape around us.

Westward Ho (Again)

That's right, we're heading west again. I'll be posting reports along the way. Y'all come back now, hear?

(turns and walks into the sunset, whistling a few bars of "Happy Trails")

Potting, Planting and the Anti-Squirrel Cage

Now that my time is my own and the weather has finally become more conducive to gardening, I've been outside getting my hands dirty.

John tilled up the garden for me some weeks back, but it was too wet and cold to do much planting until the middle of May. At last we had a couple consecutive days of warm, dry weather, and I was able to rake the earth into garden rows, cover everything with weed blocking fabric and put in my seedlings and support systems.

This year I decided against planting green beans and yellow wax beans. They've been big producers for me the past two years, but to be honest, after eating them two and three times a week last summer, John and I are sick to death of them. I also opted to plant potatoes in containers this year (see previous blog), so I had a lot of arable footage freed up. I put in seven tomato plants: four Romas and one Sweet 100s Cherry (I put these in every year), as well as a Black Krim and a Mortgage Lifter. The latter two are heirloom varieties which I haven't attempted before - I decided to give the Brandywines a rest this year and try something new.

I also put in a jalapeno pepper, sweet basil, two varieties of cucumber (Straight Eight and Bush Whopper). Last year I tried out a new kind of vegetable support called a cucumber trellis; the idea is to get the vines and their resultant produced up off the ground, and I was really happy with it. I bought a second one, and this year I'm using it to support two Sugar Baby watermelon plants (the melon seedlings are on the right in this photo; the second trellis arrived the day after I took the picture). It looks like there's an awful lot of room in the garden, but trust me: once the cukes and melons get going, they'll take over the joint.

The potatoes are doing quite well in their deck containers. They started sprouting within a week of planting and I've already had to unroll the planting bags almost completely in order to "hill up" the sprouts. I've potted up sage, cilantro, dill and lemon verbena and have those out on the deck, as well as most of the house plants.

Our big challenge this year was devising some way to keep the squirrels out of the tomatoes. Last year I lost roughly eighty percent of my crop to marauding gray squirrels and their little cousin the chipmunk. A late attempt at netting up the plants turned into a giant and ineffectual mess (see last year's blog here, so I knew if we were going to do it, we needed to have a plan and we needed to start early. I described what I wanted to John, and together we went shopping for nine-foot poles, deer netting, ground staples and zip ties.

We started by planting poles upright at each corner of the tomato patch, forming a rectangle. Then we laid perpendicular poles across the top of the rectangle and zip-tied them in place. We unrolled the deer-netting (it's ten feet wide) and zip-tied it around the perimeter of the rectangle, leaving a good four to six inches of excess at the bottom. While John worked securing the netting at the top, I went inside the cage, pulled up the weed-blocking fabric at the edges of the rectangle, drew the excess netting inside, then pinned the excess netting underneath the fabric. This way, if a critter tries to go underneath the netting, it'll be blocked by the fabric.

John placed two poles at right angles on top of the cage and zip-tied the resultant cross to the rectangle. We then spread more deer netting across those poles and zip-tied it down, creating a roof to the cage. On the off chance that a squirrel attempts to climb the netting, it still won't be able to get at the tomato plants.

For a doorway, we designed the cage so that the deer netting overlaps at the front, and at this overlap I didn't pin the netting into the ground. We wove some shorter poles into the netting at both vertical edges of the overlap. Using the two shorter poles like the edges of a bathrobe, we wrap the netting past itself and poke the shorter poles into the ground to hold it in place. This closes the "doorway" to the cage; to open it, we just "unwrap." Although a determined critter could burrow under the netting at this point, we think that the multiple layers of netting might be somewhat off-putting.

So that's our grand experiment for the garden this year. I'm hoping the Anti-Squirrel Cage will do its job and keep those bushy-tailed varmints out of the tomatoes, and that I'll reap the benefits of a bumper crop this year!