This has never happened to me before...

(Deep, gravelly Rod Serling voice) Picture a man on a journey through time and space...

(flashback) His trusty steed, his Diamondback mountain bike, has carried him many miles through broiling summer heat and freezing autumn fog, with nary a complaint or flat tire...

(fade to recent past) On Wednesday, our intrepid hero mounted his trusty steed for a ride, trying to get in some miles before he embarks on Cycle Oregon in September. He had no idea how the ride would end...

(Serling fades quietly into the background)...

So. I left mom in law's place about 4:15 on my mountain bike. The reason I rode it is that I didn't feel like taking my road bike off the trainer the night before, and with the mountain bike I don't have any qualms about just laying it in the back of the pickup. The down side of that bike is that it has Specialized Armadillo kevlar belted tires and tubes filled with Slime, which makes the rolling weight a bit on the hefty side. Character building, right? The wind, as usual for this time of year, was essentially howling, blowing small pets and patio furniture across the ground. And also as generally seems to be the usual when I go abiking, it was a headwind. Not to worry, though. I've been told over and over that riding into the wind is also character building as well as good training.

I gave myself a time limit, because I had a meeting to go to later in the evening. I turned around exactly at the appointed time (well almost), snarfed down a "Sweet and Salty Peanut Bar", and began to pedal back toward mom in law's. Did I mention that the trip out was generally uphill? It was. I was pretty happy with myself, because I found myself up on the pedals on most of the hills instead of spinning along. That at least tells me that I'm not totally unprepared for CO.

Of course going back downhill was bonus. At one point I was tucked down on my bar extensions and looked down at my computer and was told that I was doing 40+. Cool!

Now, picture this chubby body pedaling merrily along chased by the wind. I've managed to get up enough speed to have a breeze in my face, so I'm a happy camper. Suddenly there's a juicy farting sound and my rear tire goes flat. Instantaneous departure of the inflationary medium (the air) to another location. This is not a good thing, as I'm somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5 miles from my starting location.

I lay the bike on its side and make an attempt to pump up the tire, reasoning that with the amount of Slime in the tire, if I can get some air in it, I may be able to finish the ride, albeit slower. Pump, pump, pump. The tire appears to be accepting the air. Eureka!

Mounted once again, I try a few pedal strokes. In less than 20 yards, the tire is flat again. I instantly brake and look down just in time to see the valve stem make an unsuccessful attempt to travel into a different space/time continuum. It's laying on the asphalt alongside the tire. It now resides somewhere in a clump of grass alongside US 30...I had a nice walk, and finished the day with 24.5 pedaling miles, which is better than nothing, I suppose...

This has never happened to me before...

The first round of haying is about to be finished...

It's been a hectic few weeks. We've had two swathers going full blast, the baler going from early in the AM until things get too hot and dry, and the loader tractors pushing bales, loading bales, unloading bales, all that sort of thing, and the first crop alfalfa, such as it was, and the meadow hay is all cut and baled and most of it's stacked. Then it's a short break until the second alfalfa crop comes on...

Last Saturday we went to a wedding in Boise. Interesting wedding, actually. The background music while we were waiting in the sun for the bride to get herself together was pretty much wedding standard. The "bring in the bridesmaids" song was "Puttin' on the Ritz" which was definitely different. I don't remember what the groomsmen's song was, but it was contempo also. The happy couple's vows were a departure from what I think of when I think wedding. I generally think of God, and pledging to honor Him, and so on and so forth. This didn't happen this time. Maybe I'm just old fashioned...

Of course any trip to Boise is an excuse to get in some shopping at Costco on the way over. Since they put the new Costco in Nampa, it's nice because now we don't have to go clear out the other side of Boise to get there. And the Nampa Costco is right across the street from the new Sportsman's Warehouse, too. I went there while Cheryl and her mom and sis were at Costco. Amazingly enough, I went to SW for two specific things, and found one of them. This is somewhat unusual...

Life is moving along. I need to get parts for one of Clint's pistols and have Bowen Valley Kid (Keith) look at the other one before the 26th, which I'm assuming is the annual night shoot at Virtue Flat. I need to get ahold of Lever Action Louie and see for sure. With the price of fuel, he may decide it costs too much to run the generator. I hope not. I've got some shotshells loaded up with real black powder that should put out some pretty good fireballs. Hopefully we can get some pictures to post...

So that's about how life is going on Sisley Creek at the moment. Remember, boring can be our friend...

Training in the hot, hot, hot sun...

But not on a bike, or at least not a pedal powered one. Saturday morning somewhere in the vicinity of 9:30ish Cheryl, Clint and I headed upcountry on a pair of fourwheelers for a thrilling day of fence repair. In the lower country it was hot and dry. Higher up and on the other side of a ridge, it was hot and green. Hot and green remained the order of the day right up until I started working my way uphill following the fence.

At the corner at the top of the first hill I actually got to sidehill for a ways. Of course part of the sidehilling was through a couple of brushy swales, which for some unknown reason were the focal points for fence breakage, and in both cases it was all four wires. Got those fixed and went on. It was now back to hot and dry. Then I got to the corner on the top of the next hill. At this point I was wishing I had the camera I bought because it was small enough to take with me when I'm wandering around. The view down the canyon was phenomenal. Sunflowers, lupine, mallow, Indian paintbrush, all were blooming around me, and the air was quite redolent of flower fragrances. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera, so I had to get back to work and I started down into the canyon.

At the bottom of the canyon, where according to Cheryl the fence is usually bad, the tiny creek was chuckling and gurgling over the rocks and the breeze was rustling the cottonwood leaves. It was really hard to make myself leave the inviting shade and start back up to, yes, hot and dry. The fence was good there besides, which made it even harder to leave.

At the top of the first climb out of the creek I could see Clint at the top of the ultimate ridge, but I still had another down, then a climb, to get there. I could also see some of the cows that were supposed to be in the rented pasture next door in our rented pasture. I counted noses so I could tell somebody how many there were. I made it to the bottom of the down and while crossing the relatively flat bottom of the draw a blue grouse jumped out almost under my feet and nearly stopped my heart. Fortunately the fence was good there.

The climb to the top of that last ridge was, shall we say, interesting. I was extremely glad that I have been climbing tons of stairs lately. Occasionally a small breeze would meander through and cool me enough to let me crawl up some more sagebrush hill. Then, finally, the summit and the bikes. And the cooler. And a cell phone call from Cheryl for help on another part of the fence that a herd of elk had apparently drug for a goodly distance down the slope at some time in the relatively recent past. Clint and I did some rockhopping with the fourwheelers and finally got to where she was, helped her get that hole fixed enough to confuse the cows and hopefully keep them in, then she went on and we went back and around to the top to pick her up...

I got home finally about 6:30 to the shower. When I got out of the shower and stepped on the scales I weighed five pounds less than I did a couple of weeks ago which is the last time I checked...

The new reloading press works great...

As I mentioned earlier, my new Dillon 550 reloading press showed up a week ago last Friday. I was spraying weeds at the time, which it seems like I've been doing since the dawn of time, so I just packed the boxes into the reloading room and left them on a chair for the moment.

My fourwheeler has been having issues with the heat the engine generates when I'm spraying, mainly I'm sure because of the slow speeds I'm moving at which aren't especially conducive to much cooling. It could have something to do with the fact that the pump on the spray tank sucks enough juice from the battery that it's running almost on a direct feed from the alternator. As opposed to walking back to the house every so often because the beast dies and won't start until it's had some cooling time, I've started a routine of spraying out one load of chemical then parking the bike at the house for twenty minutes or so before I start mixing the next load. That seems to be working. So far I haven't had to walk back to the house once since I started doing that.

What does this have to do with me getting my new press, you might ask? Everything or nothing, depending on your point of view. What this routine does is give me time to work on setting up the press, etc. while the bike is cooling off.

So, this last Friday I finally had both toolheads (.45 Colt and .357) set up, the dies adjusted, and so on and so forth. That shiny blue piece of machinery was sitting there doing nothing so I decided, "What the hey, let's see how it works." And how does it work? It works extremely well. I had a box full of already primed .45 Colt cases sitting there and I've been wondering if the Dilloon powder measure would reliably feed the fake black powder I've been loading for cowboy. The stuff's pretty coarse.

Obviously there's no time like the present to answer one's own questions, so I got out the bottle of powder and dumped some in the measure. It took a couple of casefuls to get the powder bar adjusted to the right load, then away we went. In seemingly no time at all, I had half a binful of loaded shells and I didn't have to dip a single grain of powder. The measure did it all as long as I did my part. The learning curve is actually rather gentle with this press.

A couple of weeks in the life...

Of whom? you might ask. Well, of yours truly. Nothing earthshaking has occurred, but life does indeed go on. The weekend after Memorial Day was high school graduation in Baker. Of course, since we've known large numbers of the kids since they were munchkin sized, we got approximately a zillion graduation announcements. Enough so that we had to pick and choose whose we went to. On the other hand, neither Cheryl nor I had to cook dinner for about four days. That was kind of nice.

Last Tuesday, a week ago, we were revisited by winter. Winter? you ask. Yes, winter. I was in Baker picking up my totally nonstylish, frame type required by my employer new glasses. When I left the spectacle place and turned toward downtown it was raining. Then suddenly the rain drops had bones in them. By the time I made it to Safeway it was snowing hard. On June 10th. When I topped out on the hill west of Pleasant Valley, at about 6 PM, it was snowing so hard that I had my headlights on, the transfer case in 4HI, and was driving about 50 so I could make sure I stayed on the road. Interesting trip home.

I now have a Dillon reloading press sitting on my reloading bench in place of the two Lee presses that used to be there. I had originally planned to buy a new set of pistols for cowboy shooting with the money from the sale of a different pistol. This plan was about to come to fruition when I decided to load up some .357 shells. It then took me two hours to load 200 rounds on a progressive press. It should have taken about 45 minutes. At that point I started shopping for reloading presses.

I posted on the SASS wire asking for opinions on presses. I happened to mention that I was getting rid of two Lee's. Almost immediately I had an offer to buy one of the Lee's. A day later it took about twelve hours to sell the other one. That night I ordered the Dillon, which arrived last Friday. It's mostly set up, except for adjusting the .357 dies in the toolhead, then taking them back out and putting the .45 dies back in so I can load some .45's. I can hardly wait.

So, as I said, nothing earthshaking has been happening. I have gotten some writing done on the third book in the Deputies series, but not much else is happening. Cheryl started cutting hay this afternoon, so summer busyness is about to kick off...

Alias The CROC...

Pendleton Bicycle Club's Century Ride of the Centuries, otherwise known as "The CROC" with appropriate crocodile motifs everywhere took place this Memorial Day weekend, and it was a blast! It was headquartered at Wildhorse Resort, the local casino, and each day started at Tamastlikt Cultural Institute which is a pretty cool tribal interpretive center.

The whole party started out on Friday with check in and a reception at the Pendleton Convention Center. Nanci C., her friend Lynne, and I carpooled from the RV park at Wildhorse. I drove. When we got there, via the bypass road, Nanci was heard to say, "We didn't get here by the directions I got!" At check in we got a bag of "stuff", including orange Sock Guy socks with green toes and heels and crocs around the top. Pretty cool stuff there! Of course I wore mine for the first day of riding. They did clash just a skosh with my TBB jersey, but what the hey, anybody who's running around in bike shorts isn't exactly too fashion conscious anyway, right?

Several people from Baker City and the surrounding area were there, and we did a group munchout on Mexican food Friday night. We also included Nanci and Lynne, but I couldn't back up far enough to get them in the picture because there was a table in the way...

So, clockwise from the bottom left is Janie, Kim, Mike, Brian, Corrine, and Nanci's right hand...



Day one gave riders a choice: to ride to Echo and back or to ride to Echo then push on to Hat Rock and come back over the hills to Wildhorse. The Hat Rock part added enough to make the loop a century. The ride began in a drizzle, which made the trip down the hill on the paved bike path, which switches back and forth rather sharply in spots, somewhat interesting. Especially the horse apples at the bottom just before we turned onto the street.


The route led through the center of Pendleton until the Roundup grounds, then we took the new bypass to get to the old highway to Echo. This sign is at the city limits of Pendleton...



Once we got out of town, we gradually trended downhill, following the (I think) Umatilla River. One side was rock bluffs in a lot of places and the other side was irrigated fields. It made for quite a contrast. The tandem couple below just happened to pass me as I was juggling pedaling and picture taking at the same time...





Part of the terrain was sagebrush too. Quite an unusual sight in Eastern Oregon...Not.

There were flowers everywhere. Most of the yards of the houses we passed once we got out of town had irises and crocuses blooming everywhere. This house had lots more, but this was all I got as I coasted by. I almost forgot I had a camera with me...



All of the rest stops had themes. Apparently this is a tradition on this ride. The title of this one was Kamanawanaleiu, and all of the ladies were in grass skirts...

A comment must be made regarding the food on this ride. Not only were there bananas, fresh pineapple, bagels and peanut butter, etc., but there were hot baked potatoes, cookies, rice krispy treats with your choice of cranberries in them or chocolate and peanut butter on the top. And cookies. And Fiddle Faddle. If you went away hungry, it was your own fault. And this was just one rest stop. I have it on good authority that one of the stops on the Hat Rock part of the loop had hamburgers and hotdogs...


Also at this rest stop were Nanci and Lynne. They of course got there before I did, but we left together, and I managed to keep up with them until the first time the road went up, at which point they pulled steadily away. I'm used to that sort of thing, because I'm not much in the climbing department. But I don't mind spending time in my own little world. People know me there, and it's comfortable...
But I got back with them when Lynne had a flat, and I somehow managed to keep up with them the rest of the way back...




This house was sitting beside the road covered in graffiti, the majority of which seemed to be promoting the joys of marijuana consumption...



I ended the day back at the RV park with 68.44 miles, and an average of 12.4 mph for the day. Not bad for my first road miles of the year, I thought. And especially considering that I had a dog in my backpack. A bulldog, that is. The Baker High School mascot is the bulldog, their colors are purple and gold, and the junior class was selling these a few years ago...


This is my mother in law's travel trailer. It made a nice "home away from home". And the overhang sheltered several bikes every night...


Day two I didn't take very many pictures, but I couldn't resist this one. One of the overall themes of the ride was to find the infamous Helix Hussy, who had poisoned the Gatorade. This was one of the casualties, who was sprawled alongside the road to the top of Emigrant Hill...


As I noted, I didn't take too many pictures on Day Two. The reason is that it was raining and I was totally concentrated on getting my little chubby body to the rest stop at Deadman's Pass. It rained all the way up, and just below the top I ran into the clouds. If you look behind Kim and Janie, you can see the fog. It reminded me more of the coast in the fall than Pendleton in the spring...

The actual turnaround point was a good distance beyond the rest stop, but I wussed out and went back down the mountain. I did manage to average 6.5 climbing, and 10.4 overall, with 38.4 miles for the day instead of the planned 72...

Another note regarding the fog: while we were at the rest stop, the fog/clouds lowered further down the mountain, making seeing the markings for the numerous potholes in the curves a trifle difficult. The fog lasted until essentially the last curve of the hill...


Day Three dawned cloudy, but turned out to be nice. Nice enough in fact that I found myself wondering at the Bar M Ranch rest stop what the glowing orb in the sky was...

Meanwhile, I tried an experiment. I wanted to see if I could get a picture of myself while pedaling. It worked, but I seem to be taking it way too seriously. My wife wanted to know why I didn't smile. I finally decided later that I didn't try to smile, pedal, and juggle the camera at the same time because I was afraid I would end up upside down in the ditch...



There were a number of picturesque sights along the way. This particular place had about a dozen army truck in various states of disrepair lined up in the bushes...

This is the Bar M Ranch driveway sign. It's proof that I was really there. You'll just have to take my word for how I got there...



An item of particular note: the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, had a number of people aboard who did the ride with us, but on spin bikes. I hope they didn't get rained on the way we did. The theme for this rest stop was one of thanks to and support for our troops. There was even a log we could write on and sign. It was pretty cool...


This picture is of a poster showing some of the people who were "riding" with us, including the ship's executive officer...

This is what it looked like back at the start when we got back. It was much nicer than the day before...

This day was interesting. I rode back with Nanci and Lynne, and we did some pacelining at least until we got to the first hill on the set of rollers leading back to the highway, at which point I dropped back. Not because I wanted to, but because, well, it was a hill. Then I figured out how many miles we had left and decided that I was going to hammer the rollers and if I fried my legs, I was driving home anyway so it was no big deal. So I did. I was happy with my performance...

This day was 52.8 miles, 13.3 mph average. Total miles for the weekend came out to roughly 159 miles, if I did the math right, which is always questionable...

Overall, this was a great ride with good food and a group of volunteers that went out of their way to make things entertaining. I think I'd like to do it again next year, to see if the weather's better if nothing else. Sunday night after dinner was a raffle with some pretty good prizes. I won a Pendleton wool blanket...

Reno, Nevada and Points West and South, Part 2

So in Part 1 we found ourselves in the amazing city of San Francisco. Of course since we were in SF only for the day, we had to do as much as possible in the shortest period of time. We didn't have time or it would have been cool to do the computer tour of the city via small three wheeled, two passenger, "vehicles" that were buzzing all over. Instead we went for a trolley ride.


It's easy to see that if one lived in San Francisco, one would want to either live and work close to where the trolley goes, or own a car with an automatic transmission. Those hills are steep!


But the view from the tops of the hills is really scenic. That's the Embarcadero (below) at the edge of the water...



The next few days were taken up with meetings (commonly known as the sensitive alternative to work) until Thursday. Originally the conference was supposed to last until noon on Thursday, but it ended Wednesday afternoon instead. The conference chairman had arranged for a luncheon cruise on Lake Tahoe for Thursday on the sternwheeler MS Dixie II. The food was good and the lake was as flat as a floor. It was quite a contrast from last Saturday (see Part 1). That's the MS Dixie on the right.




As we cruised across the lake, the robotic tour guide (prerecorded live) pointed out the state line between Nevada and California. It was the first time I've ever actually seen a state line. The slanting line to the left is a ski lift.



There is a bay on the far side of Lake Tahoe called Emerald Bay. The water in Lake Tahoe is like Ivory soap, it's 99 and 44/100th's percent pure, and it's incredibly clear and blue. Except in Emerald Bay. In Emerald Bay, the lake bottom comes close enough to the surface to turn the water to, yes, emerald green. Emerald Bay was once owned by a very rich lady who wanted a medieval style house, which was built in I believe 1924 and is called Viking House. It now belongs to the National Park Service, and can be toured.



As soon as we got back to the hotel, we had to catch a shuttle to the airport so we could wing our way home. We got home about midnight, and I had to be in Ellensburg, Washington by 11 the next day to go to a college rodeo, so it was a short night...

Reno, Nevada and points south and west

This isn't exactly in sequence temporally, but that's life, I suppose.

So anyway, back in the dark ages of mid-April Cheryl (my lovely wife) and I went to the ICMA conference in Reno, NV. We had to leave immediately after the conference so we went down a bit early. We got there on Friday night.

Saturday morning we were wandering through Eldorado when we were accosted by one of those "Get free shows and free food" types who promised us we would only have to listen for a little while. They were selling vacation rentals that actually sounded like a pretty good deal, if we had any extra money, which like most people who are "married with children" we don't. But it only cost us a couple of hours, and we got tickets to a really good show and two free buffet dinners, so it wasn't too bad of a deal.

Some friends from Missouri, Mike and Leann, got to Harrah's where we were staying about noon. We hooked up with them and drove up to Lake Tahoe, which was doing an excellent ocean imitation due to the wind stirring up three foot white-capped waves.






















After Lake Tahoe, we had to get back to the hotel so we could go to our free show, which was called "FloorPlay". It was a quite interesting take on ballroom dancing, with a very modern flair. As I told Cheryl at the time, "'Dancing With the Stars' it ain't!"

The next day we drove to San Francisco with Mike and Leann. Our first stop, being touri, was of course the Golden Gate Bridge, which we walked across and back. I took several pictures along the way, including one of a sign which is on a lot of the beams of the bridge structure regarding the consequences of launching oneself from the bridge.

Not to make light of the wording of the sign or of the reason for its being there, because suicide is a sad thing, but isn't it obvious that jumping from the Bridge would be fatal? And wouldn't that be the reason for jumping in the first place?

On a much less morbid note, the gardens at the south end of the Bridge were quite beautiful.


From the Bridge we went to Fisherman's Wharf for lunch, then wandered the Embarcadero. On the water side is a submarine which one can tour for $9, and a battleship which costs $8 for the tour. We declined to do both tours.

One can get an excellent view of the infamous Alcatraz Prison from the Wharf as well.


From Fisherman's Wharf we went to Ghiradelli Square for chocolate (of course) then rode the trolley cars. More pictures in Part 2...

Ah, rodeo...

I've been following, and usually hauling, my kids on the rodeo road for six years now. First it was high school rodeo, starting with Brett, then both kids, then Clint after Brett graduated. Then it was college rodeo, again starting with Brett doing college rodeo at the same time that Clint was in high school rodeo. Now it's just Clint. This weekend is Ellensburg...

Friday was the regional rodeo. His header, Cody, caught the steer but had a problem getting dallied, so they didn't get a time. Saturday they were the first team out and they caught! Clint slipped a foot, so they had a five second penalty, but they were leading the rodeo with a 16.4 second time until the last team made their run. That team got a 16.2, giving them the lead. Then it was time for the night performance.

The night was rough on the ten remaining teams. Only four teams had a time, and only one of those teams had a clean run. Clint and Cody finished the night in fifth, but that will take them to the short go this morning! They're both on cloud nine! Making the short go should guarantee them some season points. I don't know whether or not fifth place will get them a check, but the important thing is that they got a time. Clint hasn't had too much luck finding a partner and getting a chance to fling a rope, but it worked this time. And he's got an offer of a full time partner for next year.

Now we wait and see how today goes and hope that Cody doesn't let nerves blow him out of the saddle, so to speak...

Clint's the one on the white horse. That horse taught him to rope, you might say...

We made the final four!

So we went to the Ag Issues final after spending several hours in both research and rehearsals. The kids and I felt that they did about the best job they could do in the final, so then all we could do was wait. And wait. And wait. Until the session started, then we waited some more, until the announcement came that we had made the final four!

Baker ended up in fourth. The kids were disappointed, and so was I, but there's always next year, if anybody's interested. I know three of them are graduating this spring, but the others might want to work in Ag Issues again. If they do, I'm ready to help. We'll see...