Pendleton-Maupin

After a nice leisurely morning at the park and lunching in downtown Pendleton, we headed toward Maupin. The big RendezVW wasn't scheduled to start until Friday, but we wanted to have some down time to settle into our campsite before the festivities really got started.

On I-84 we saw a tree farm that totally took us by surprise. None of us, Esmé included, had ever seen a tree farm like this before. It was sort of eerie how the trees were so nicely growing in rows. Some plots had massive trees, and some were only saplings. They were just so...uniform. And the farms went on and on as far as we could see over the hills south of the interstate. 

Perfectly spaced, see? I wonder how those trees are planted. By hand? How big are they when they're planted? Do the saplings require a lot of care so they don't die? Do insects ever just wipe these monocultures right out? Intellectually, I know it's reasonable, it just seems so much stranger to me than food crops we grew up seeing in Nebraska. 

The Columbia River Gorge with Mount Hood as the backdrop. So so scenic. And it's nice to see river traffic. It's sort of reminiscent of the container ships I remember seeing between the Channel Islands and Ellwood Beach coast when we lived in California.

Mitch drove the gorge this year, and we had a headwind the entire time. This Bud Light truck was the only one I was able to draft to cut the edge on that damn wind. That's Mt. Hood in the distance on the right. It last erupted in 1907. Look out, Portland.

Tater Tot enjoyed listening to Here Come the ABCs by They Might Be Giants on this trip. She still sings parts of "Go for G!" even though we haven't listened to the album again since we've been back from the trip. I think we also spent a fair amount of time singing some songs from the Missoula Public Library's Tiny Tales.

Doesn't it look like Ludwig is parked way out in front of everyone else? He was. I was somewhat...encouraging...about having a perfectly level spot since I knew we'd be sleeping in Ludwig for 3 nights. 

(miles 220,824-220,991)

Missoula-Pendleton

(We're (finally?) getting around to posts about our trip to the Deschutes River RendezVW in Maupin Oregon over Father's Day weekend.)

After the success of the wagon at Beavertail Hill, we thought it'd be a good idea to take it along on our second trip to Maupin. I'll bet we lost nearly a mile per gallon with that thing up there. Maybe next year we'll tow it?

At mile 123 on US 12 in Idaho we stopped for a break and found all these butterflies (Tiger and Zebra Swallowtails) sucking water from the wet gravel. Esmé was kind of impressed, impressed enough to count them ("noin-ty, noin-ty", the way she counts everything). She thought it was interesting how close she could get to them, but was easily distracted by rocks and ants. She did not like it when I got the butterflies to climb onto my fingers.

Still hanging out with the butterflies and ants

We took Alpowa Summit from the West last time and I didn't think much of it. This time, from the East, Ludwig found it more laborious. A bit shy of the top Tater Tot wanted a break, and I think Ludwig was thankful.

By the time we got to Pendleton it was late late late. I guess I didn't figure in all the Tater breaks and the extreme winding-ness (sample here) of US 12 through Idaho, and it ended up taking eleven hours from Missoula. There were a couple construction delays which cost us too. It ended up being the longest travel day of Esmé's life, and she took it really well.

Pendleton is home to Maura and Scott, who graciously lent us their guest room for the night. The next morning Maura showed us around the town, including a really nice playground that E went nuts for. Back at their place Maura read Esmé some books in Ludwig.

Mitch's birthday present to me this year was yarn shopping during our trip. (Although yarn and knitting aren't the main topics of this blog, enough knitters read this that I'm including this part of the trip here anyway.) We thought surely Pendleton Oregon, home of Pendleton Woolen Mills, was a sure bet for a local yarn shop gold mine. Wrong, wrong, wrong. There were no yarn shops in Pendleton. A sad day for yarn shopping, and even more sad for Maura, knitter extroidanaire. The quest for yarn continued on...

(miles 220,455-220,824)

Air-Cooled and Itinerant 2009

The subject: Gertrude Butterblume

The culprits: Colin (the one with the legs), whc03grady

The issue: making a 38 year-old car our daily driver 

We found out a few interesting things about Gertie when Colin was here a couple weeks ago. For instance, though she herself is a 1971 model (built in October 1970), she has a 1972 engine. Also, an owner in the distant past had replaced the fuel damper with an inline fuel filter. This singular genius at some point also decided to forgo the stock fuel pump mounts in favor of bungee-cording the pump to the front beam. Above, Colin and I curse him and his sons and his sons' sons.

Ludwig kept Colin's bus--583,000 miles and counting--company out on the street. Did I mention that his bus has 583,000 miles on it and is still on its original CV joints?

All told, Gertie runs somewhat better (a lot better, according to Melissa) now. She steers better (a lot better, according to Melissa) after we tightened up the front end, and doesn't leak gas into the crankcase, since we put in four new fuel injectors; this was also partly the source of the dirty engine Melissa mentioned in an earlier post. We also diagnosed a failing manifold pressure sensor, which will be replaced as toot sweet as possible. Later, he gave us a lot to think about as concerns her rust and our stash of free parts. 

After Colin drove her he said "she has a good spirit, but has to try so hard to rise above the neglect and abuse dished out by [her] previous owners." That part got Melissa a little misty-eyed.

Thanks Colin, and we'll see you in 2010!

Addendum: I'd like to note that none of the scorn I've heaped upon Gertie's previous owners applies to Gertie's immediate previous owner, a very nice guy whom I'm certain did nothing untoward to the car in the very brief time he had her.