Camp Firewood

Kids and a dog! Boy does that bring back memories. But then, my dog, Bear was not your ordinary dog. Bear would do anything I wanted him to do. He would have killed himself to do things my daughters dreamed up for him to do.
As a young family, we often went camping. It is no different today that firewood is very expensive if you wait to buy it at the campground. To save that expense, I would always haul a supply with me in the back of the pickup. I pulled a travel trailer and Kathy followed with the car and boat. We liked to launch the boat with the pickup, so as soon as we got to our camping site, we would unload all the stuff from the back of the pickup.
I was amazed at how the two daughters could con Bear into carrying all the firewood from the pickup to their chosen spot to pile the wood. His tail would wag like it was the best thing ever. One daughter would be in the back of the pickup and the other at the wood pile. Bear would run to the back of the pickup and put his paws up on the tailgate. He would accept the wood in his mouth, turn and trot to the wood pile and drop the wood onto the ground. This played out until all the pieces were in the stack of wood.
Recently, I suggested that one of my daughters should write about this memory. I was surprised that they do not remember this story. Stephanie accused me of early stages of dementia in a recent blog, so I could be off. I think it makes a great story even if my memory is over active. I think both girls will acknowledge that Bear was a willing helper and a wonderful dog.
Kayak Bandit

Gas Prices

Has everyone had enough of the high price of gas yet? I have. It is getting in the way of seeing my grandkids.
Steph called today saying she had been trying to arrange a surprise trip to visit me with her four kids. When it came right down to deciding she had to side with frugality. It is just under four hundred miles and the cost of fuel alone would have been close to two hundred dollars. When you add in all the other costs of traveling it put it over the top.
I hope we are not forever hostage to these prices. I still have a nice pickup and camper that I am not using at all this year. When I haul the camper and tow my boat, the pickup only gets about seven miles to the gallon. That mean a trip of eight hundred miles would cost around four hundred and fifty dollars in fuel alone.
So the next thought is to sell the truck. The truth is that you cannot even give the truck away. So I am stuck.
I hope we have the political will to find better ways to supply our energy needs for the long term while drilling to supply our needs for the short term. I suspect the urgency is helping to find alternatives. There will be some breakthroughs when someone sees a way to profit from their effort. Let's be grateful to that person.
Steph, I hope we can get together soon.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Long, Long Ride

My daughters love to help tell this story. It seems my perspective selectively dismisses some of my guilt in the good parent category. Their version always paints me as a slightly bad parent.
We had this very reliable older 1962 Chevrolet pickup. It had a shell canopy. I built a shelf at the front of the pickup bed as well as seats along each side of the bed. I upholstered them so they would be comfortable for sleeping or sitting. When we went camping, I would pull our trailer house with the pickup, and Kathy would pull the boat.
On this particular trip, we were camped at Pelton Dam, or Lake Simtustus. Lake Simtustus is created by Pelton Dam. The entire lake is very pristine. There are no homes along the edges of the lake. The fishing is fabulous at times and the rest of the time it is pretty good.
Shortly after this trip some of the campsites slipped into the lake. And for many years afterward, they canceled all camping at the lake. I see that they now have 71 camp sites. So, they must have resolved the problem.
Well, one nice day we decided to go for a drive. Kathy and I rode up front. Steph and Jenny always wanted to ride on the bed in the back. So after a little debate about the safety of that, it was decided we would only drive on secondary roads. No fast highways for us. Oh, and Bear would also ride in the back with the two girls.
So we set off, enjoying the view of the central Oregon desert overlooking the deep chasm of the Crooked River. Here is where the recounting of the story is tricky. It seems the girls were trying to get our attention. I suspect that we saw them waving their arms and interpreted there gesturing as appreciation for the fine ride. They contend that they were desperate to get our attention because Bear was having a fart attack. According to our indignant young girls, the farts were borderline lethal. And they agree that the frequency between farts was intolerable.
Well, if this was not bad enough for my little darlings, Kathy read the map and suggested a route that was long. We rode for much of an afternoon. My memory is all positive. It was a magnificent day. We crossed a bridge that I did not previously know about. Fun for everyone? Not quite.
If the situation with Bear's farts was not bad enough, the longer the trip went, the rougher the road got. So, these two girls, that were eager to start the trip were even more eager for it to end. I can only imagine how rough the road must have felt to those two very full bladders.
I have to ask. Girls, was the pain worth the memory? I sure hope so.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'

Truckin

Oregon gets a lot of credit for the copious amount of rain that falls there every year. While the coastal area west of the Coast Mountain Range, live up to this belief, not all of Oregon is deluged. Truth be known, the eastern half of the state is a high desert.
My brother, Andy, lived in Clatskanie when we were young men. Let me assure you that Clatskanie is not high desert. No way, It is about as rainy as any place. The constant rain helps grow some mighty trees. Much of the timber for our nation comes from this part of the country. Everyone knows about Douglass Fir.
Another tree that is highly sought after is the Western Cedar. Cedar grows in the very bottom of canyons in the wettest places. Like I said, it is very wet around Clatskanie. You can well imagine that the surrounding canyon bottoms are even more wet. Yep, there are places that you must walk carefully across the tree roots and down trees to navigate these swamplands.
When the forests were first logged many years ago, the cedar trees were not wanted like they are today. Mostly they cut the very large Douglass Fir and left the cedar standing. If the cedar was cut down or knocked down accidentally, it was left where it landed.
Some years ago people started using cedar for fencing, decks and increased the use of cedar for roofing. This increased demand for the cedar trees and the fact that cedar grows slowly, caused a shortage of cedar. Well, the very quality that cedar is known for (slow to rot) also kept the left behind logs in pretty good shape. Mind you, these logs are in that very swampy area at the very bottom of some very big canyons. Oh, and did I say already that the canyons themselves are very wet. I did? Eh, sorry for repeating myself.
Well, Andy was building a home for his family. He needed roofing material. He needed beams for the living room. He needed paneling for the home. In other words, he needed the cedar from these canyon swamps.
Whenever we came across a good log that had been left behind, we would make a mental note where it was. Then when we had the time, we would figure out how to retrieve the brute. Sometimes we could get a four wheel drive pickup into the area. This took a lot of skill to navigate between trees, rocks, old stumps, fences and other obstacles. We would help each other by standing nearby and indicating how close the driver was to something. Inside the heart of whoever the spotter was, is up for discussion. Even though we were truthful about the closeness of a tree, or whatever, we were always hoping the other would get his pickup trapped. Oh, the bragging rights that come with Steve towing Andy! I suppose there were the times that Andy towed Steve, but I can think of none.
Along with brother competing with brother, was Chevy vs Ford. Some times, when not using the pickups for useful tasks, one of us would find a spot that we thought our particular pickup could conquer, but our brother's Ford or Chevy could not. We would argue long and hard about such a spot. Usually we would challenge the other to go first. But, the person that came up with the cockamamie idea would have to relent and go first or even worse, admit that the challenge was not doable.
Andy's Ford was taller than my Chevy. Andy would usually win the competition where it required going in and out of a steep ditch. My pickup's bumper would impede me. I would usually win when it was a steep side hill. My pickup's lower center of gravity would be the winning difference. We made the hard work of retrieving those cedar logs into a lot of fun. Thanks for the memories, Andy.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'