Motel Max

At what point is a motel over the top when it comes to customer satisfaction and presentation? When does it become ridiculous? Are they really that competitive?  I'm sure a lot of people out there have much higher standards than we do when it comes to our expectations of a motel room. They are the ones that will pick up the phone to gripe about the tiniest little thing--too lazy to even go to the lobby in person.

We are not like that.

Because we are not lavish, money-spending people, we are a bit taken aback when we are experiencing something that is way, way over the top. Opulence is something we don't experience on a regular basis. Sometimes we shake our heads in wonder at how ridiculous certain things we see are. The Best Western motel we stayed at in Seaside, Oregon on Saturday night is one of those places.

We knew it wouldn't be cheap because we were buying a room that was right on the beach, but it's an extravagance that we will sometimes bestow upon ourselves for one reason or another. In other words, it's a rarity.  We knew we walked into another level of motel room this time though. The signs were all around us.  When it comes right down to it, it's just a motel room. Its not overly large. It has all the things your usual motel room has. It's clean, has clean towels, all the usual soap, shampoo, fridge, and microwave.  It's the other things that I'm talking about.

Let's start with the kitchenette. On the counter top sat a kitchen towel--fan-folded.  It was saying, "Welcome!  See how fancy we are?"  It had a dishwasher too. I guess we should have taken some dishes, silverware, and pots & pans with us. No wait--they were already there! Okay, there were no pots or pans, but everything else was there. Even a corkscrew.   But then, that goes without saying, right? After all, what good is a fireplace without wine?  And you need a corkscrew to open your wine.  Wait a minute--fireplace?! Yep. Not real of course... That would be a liability. No, this one was naught more than a light switch on the wall. It looks real though, doesn't it?

The stuff in the bathroom was a whole category of its own. Washcloths that were folded into fans and placed carefully in a visually-appealing way.  The toiletry products that were placed in a nice pattern were also very visually appealing.  There was even a Kleenex that was fan-folded and greeting us.  Both of us were afraid to disturb it when we needed to blow our nose, and reached for a fresh one in the box instead.   There was a fancy shower head that was bent upward in a graceful way, and finished with an above average shower head on it. That's not all folks. How about a wall phone right between the toilet and the shower? Yep. Apparently, that's so when you're sitting there on the toilet and you feel the need to complain about the quality of the toilet paper, or maybe the shower water is 2° too cool to be satisfactory. Crazy.  I was tempted to call them and tell them how disappointed I was that the light green soap box in the toiletry presentation was upside down but I refrained. Also, the light over the bathroom sink was a little overdone. Why do you need a 4-lamp fixture in a motel room anyway? I'll tell you why: Because it's extravagant!

Lots of other things that were 'above and beyond' were crammed into that motel room too.  Things like the ceiling fan over the bed, a reading chair with a footstool, a pull-down Murphy bed with a couch, and a 37" (What? Only 37?!) Visio flat screen TV and a DVD player. Speaking of TV's... This is also the first place I have ever stayed that has "clean" remotes. I guess it caters to those of of us that make sure to use an sanitary wipekin on our grocery carts before pushing them through a store.

Yeah, I make fun, but it was probably the nicest customer service and stuff I've ever gotten at a motel.  The bed was the nicest I've ever slept in at a motel.  As many of us know, a lot of the motels that have a 'lock' on a particular location will just give you the minimum standard, knowing you'll pay regardless because of its particular location.  Kudos to the staff and management at the Ocean View Resort.  They treat people pretty well.

Three-Wheeled Thunder

Most people have never been inside of a Boeing factory.  In the buildings inhabited by Boeing employees you will hardly ever see anything that even remotely looks like a part of an airplane.  Why?  Because they are just tiny parts of the total picture that makes up the final product.  Yeah, there are some weird-looking parts and things out there in the aircraft manufacturing world.

But never mind that--that's not what this blog is about.  It's about the ubiquitous Boeing tricycle.

If you've ever been around a retirement community you've probably seen them before in the 'non-Boeing' version. The Boeing variety is virtually identical to the trikes that I used to occasionally see seniors struggling to pedal. The difference is that the yellow ones that Boeing buys are all 'heavy-duty' tricycles. They're manly, macho, and beefy tricycles.  Don't try to pigeonhole these trikes in with the garden variety ones that the oldsters ride. These babies have heavy-duty axles and hubs. Even their spokes are heavy duty--I'd say twice the thickness of the spokes found on a typical AARP-approved civilian tricycle. These babies are made to haul airplane parts.  Those childhood years of riding plastic Big Wheel trikes was in preparation of riding a real tricycle in adulthood.  A Boeing factory tricycle.

First of all, you can tell by watching them that they are not easy to ride.  I first noticed that years and years ago when I first saw senior citizens pedaling them.  They apparently only come in one gear: Too high.  Maybe it's for simplicity (less things to go wrong and less potential confusion from shifting).  All I know is that when you watch someone start to pedal away on one they really have to lean into it.  It takes a lot of power to get anything rolling when it's geared too high.  I don't know why they are geared that way to begin with.  Old people don't want to ride fast, and industrial plant workers can't ride fast.  It's against the rules.

I'm pretty sure I saw my first Boeing factory cruiser well before I ever went to work in the Everett plant back in 1998. I was a regular shopper at the now-defunct Boeing Surplus store.  Boeing Surplus had a long-running history in our area and had achieved a somewhat 'cult status' as a place you just had to visit if you're ever in the Pacific Northwest.  I don't recall ever seeing a trike for sale in there but I do remember these kind of bicycles for sale from time to time when they had exceeded their useful life.  They all had the same extra-heavy spokes, they were all yellow (with various custom tidbits like tape, stickers, and gadgetry brackets added), and they all had that gaudy, heavy steel plate attached in the center.  The plate had the organization or 'owner' welded onto it.  Yes, welded wording.  How macho is that?

What made me think about writing about the Boeing tricycle are my observations of the riders while I'm at work.  If it were legal to take pictures inside of a Boeing plant I would have some video or snaps of them, but that sort of thing is strictly verboten.  I'm not about to jeopardize my job over something stupid like taking pictures when I'm not supposed to.  (The pictures in this blog post were gleaned from the internet.)

There's probably a rule somewhere about people painting them because I only see them in yellow as I've said already.  One area I do see a lot of variation is in the cargo area of the trike.  Some have baskets on the front, some on the rear, and some have both.  Some have platforms, some have a mounted large, wooden box resembling a pickup truck.  I think they all have thumb bells (you know, the 'ching-ching' kind) on the handlebars.  There is one of them here that has a flashlight mounted on the handlebars.  I've seen them with number plates on the front--apparently pretending they are riding their racing motorcycle.

How cool can a full-grown person look while riding a tricycle?  The riders come in all sizes, shapes, and manner of dress.  After all, take a large assortment of people, each with their own 'brand' of fashion, their own unique body shape, or their own individual 'look' and put them on a Boeing tricycle.  They all look the same: Out of place.  Picture a guy with a gray ponytail, Harley-Davidson t-shirt (also ubiquitous at Boeing), and work boots struggling to pedal one of those bright yellow babies.  Then you have the opposite end of the spectrum.  I little-bitty lady sitting astride one and trying to get it moving.

What really clinched me wanting to pen this phenomenon was watching what they do while riding them.  Their body language.  Their interactions with their fellow workers.

The other day I watched, amused, as a couple of trikers going opposite directions stopped next to each other.  You could tell they were trying to 'work' it.  In their minds they were astride rumbling Harleys or sitting in bright, shiny, classic convertibles talking to each other.  Their body language had that cocky one-handed lean on the handlebars with the body shrug going on.  I wasn't close enough to hear what they were saying, but they had that, "Whassup  Howzit goin' Yo" thing going on.  I could tell.  It was an interaction of vehicle cool.  It was like a Fonzie thing.  You could see them change modes as soon as they were within eyesight of each other.  Another time I watched a guy do a cool U-turn maneuver   While there is really nothing cool about making a U-turn in general, the way he coolly whipped his body and leaned in while he did it portrayed a very high level of 'check me out' cool.  I was instantly jealous.  It was masterful.

Culinary Abstract

Here in the US we lead a sheltered life.  We don't seem to care where our food comes from.  We only care that it's in a nice, clean, see-through package with nutritional information on it.  We don't stray too far off the beaten path when it comes to our ingredients either.  We like our predictable, ordinary vegetables, our ordinary meats, and everything else that same way:  Ordinary.

What about what's ordinary for other people that live in the US?  People that came from somewhere else?  If you want to experience such a thing, just take a leisurely stroll through an Asian food store.  Pick any of them:  Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese--it doesn't matter.  They are an adventure.

I recently spent some time in a market in Kent, called the Hong Kong Market.

You can find a lot of cool stuff, interesting stuff, weird stuff, even good deals.  For example, if you use a lot of crushed red peppers (the kind you sprinkle on your pizza for all you ordinary people) you can buy a huge bag the size of a small pillow for only $3.99.  If you thought you knew about seafood--think again.  There had to be 30+ varieties of fish and other seafood there--many of them still alive and swimming in big tanks.  I recognized maybe 3 or 4 of them.  What's impressive is that they don't come from anywhere near here and yet here they are, all gathered together for your shopping enjoyment.

Want a snack?  How about lobster-flavored chips, or shrimp chips?  No?  Maybe octopus instead?

Have you ever wondered if you're getting enough protein in your diet?  Maybe you need some insect supplements.  Cooked to keep them from running off your plate.



The produce section held some real wonders of the vegetation world.  Actually, they looked more like arts than eats.  Some of the shapes, sizes, textures, and coverings that I found were very confusing to me.  Do you eat the outside?  The inside?  Do you bake it?  Blanche it?  Skin it?  Maybe you dice or julienne pieces of it to put in your bug stew.  I dunno.  I only know that they were pretty interesting-looking.

The variation and complexity of those plant products will keep you puzzled.  I admire the people that first learned of such products.  Can you imagine?  You're walking through the woods or whatever--and you find the weirdest-looking thing you've ever seen growing on a tree or a vine.  What's the first thing you're going to think?

"Hmm... I wonder what this tastes like."

Maybe it was a dare between two guys.

"I'll give you two muskrat skins and a half a coconut if you eat this."

Then if the guy didn't die it was probably okay.  If he did die, you learned what not to eat, and you got to keep your muskrat skins and coconut.  Win-win!

I'm not sure if this "seaweed salad" is something that I'd ever even try.  Something about the color and translucency of it remind me of something that should be in a fish tank at the pet store.  It does not look like salad to me:

And now, if all of the weird stuff you found in the store weren't enough, and you still wanted that perfect "something" to go with your fermented snail nectar, how about this?  At least it's truthful labeling!

Bon Appetit!

Black Bart: Part 2

First of all, read the previous post if you haven't already.  It introduces you to Black Bart and chronicles my drive to Oklahoma City.

Unfortunately, due to my neglect and recklessness, Oklahoma City turned out to be Black Bart final resting place.

Like many people that join the military, I was feeling my oats and I was aching to get out on my own.  I was tired of being under the rule of my parents.  I longed for the day when I could do anything I wanted to do with no grow ups watching over me.  I was longing for some 'get into trouble' time I guess. You know--teenage boy time.  Sometimes I'm surprised I survived.

It seems like I have had always gotten into trouble with cars.  In my first two years of driving I got stopped by police quite often.  I never seemed to get a ticket though.  It may have had a little to do with the size of the town, or maybe it was because whichever cop that pulled me over happened to know my dad.  I don't know.  My job at Karl's Chevron in Auburn may have helped too because they had the contract to service the Auburn police cars.  Whatever the reason, that luck didn't follow me when I left town.  Within the first month of my arrival at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City I had gotten one ticket for speeding and one for reckless driving--both on base.  Those two tickets totaled 9 points, putting me 3 points over the line and placing me into mandatory remedial driving class.  The reckless driving ticket was kind of funny really because I got it while stopped.  I was cruising through a housing area on base (20 mph speed limit) and for whatever reason a little puddle of water in an intersection caught my eye.  I must have been really bored.  I stopped with my rear tires in it and started doing a power-brake burnout.  The tires had just started smoking good when I heard woop woop.  I looked in the rear-view mirror and there was a cop--sitting right behind me with his lights on.  I was busted at that point, so I just let off the brake and finished the burnout, rolling to a stop a little ways ahead.  I must have been a pretty oblivious kid back then.  He was probably behind me the whole time.

There is something about driving that always clicked with me. I have always been one of those guys that, when behind the wheel of a car, almost had a sort of symbiosis with it.  When I am driving a car, it's like I feel the car. I notice the way it feels when I corner or brake or accelerate.  I feel the little things about the road surface and the car both.  Some of the moves I make tend to seem reckless to other people.  When I was younger my driving skills were constantly being tweaked and improved. I wasn't content to take a corner fast and call it good--I wanted to know how fast I could take the corner.  I wanted to know my limits, and I wanted to know my car's limits.  I was learning laws of physics (inertia, momentum, gravity, etc) by the seat of my pants.  Trial and error.  I had my share of spin outs and other boo-boos but they just added to my experience.  I like to think I might have had enough ability to have been good at racing, but I know I lacked the focus and determination that such a thing requires.  Oh, and money--there was none of that either.  I was in it for fun.  Most of what I learned about aggressive driving was learned while driving Black Bart.

The car was powerful, it was fast, and for a big car handled great. After all, it was a cop car, right? Sure, it didn't handle as well as something newer and designed for handling would have, but I think it's safe to say that it probably handled better than most cars did in its 1961 model year. It was a cop car. It had to.  I learned to do 4-wheel drifts through corners. I learned how to do a reverse turn (when you go fast backward and spin the car around without stopping).  Black Bart taught me how to steer with the gas pedal.  I pushed the car far enough into (and past) its limitations that I learned what I could and could not get away with. I did things with that car that many young men (okay--boys) only dream of doing. Many of the things I did were not very conducive to keeping the car healthy either. Slightly airborne while racing on dirt roads for instance.  (By the way, the picture above shows the left rear damage that was caused when I lost the wheel on the freeway in Part 1.)  I managed to blow yet another rear end out of it during my time in Oklahoma, but that might have more to do with the first replacement being an unknown junkyard item.

I didn't have a huge circle of friends there at Tinker Air Force Base, but the ones I did have were pretty good ones. Not many were good drivers though. Tom had a white 65 Mustang. It was a quick enough car all right, but Tom was no driver. He eventually ended up buying a screaming fast Plymouth Duster and sold his Mustang to me, but that's another story.  Wendell had a 67 Corvair with a 327 V8 in the back seat. While it was seriously fast (it hardly weighed anything), it was fraught with problems and treated a little more respectfully. In other words, it was not a "daily driver".  I believe it was Wendell who first coined the name 'Black Bart'.  There were plenty of guys with fast cars but not many that really put them through the paces like I did. The only one of my friends that ever gave me any serious competition was Ken Shelly in his 68 Pontiac GTO. He had a lot more muscle in his car than I did, but my low-slung cop car could easily out-maneuver him. He was also a good driver.

Some of my fondest experiences where playing "cat & mouse" with friends. All it took was for someone to decide (for whatever reason) that we were collectively going somewhere else. It didn't matter where we currently were or where we were going--we just loved to turn it into a competition.  It was one of those 'last one is a rotten egg' things. You know, "Race ya!" To the cars we'd run. Most times there were at least two of us in each car. That's just the way things always seemed to be.  I remember one time when I was getting off a highway cloverleaf, going from the upper roadway down to the lower one. Ken was behind me, and as usual we were playing.  To aid in my eluding him I cranked the wheel hard and took the car off the road and down the grassy slope--seriously cutting the curve and putting me inside the loop of the cloverleaf. I knew he would never take his car off the road and into the grass like that.  I was wrong.  To my surprise he didn't bat an eye and stuck behind me the whole way.  Sometimes nothing but driving skill or luck would lose him.

Actually, one of the funnest experiences I ever had in that car had nothing whatsoever to do with speed or recklessness.

There were four of us out this one particular day. We had left the base to go out to John's place and catch a little buzz after lunch. Afterwards, we were headed back towards Oklahoma City when one of the guys in the back seat started whipping his upper body forward and backward in a straight line as far as he could. Then the guy next to him joined in--both in perfect unison. They got the two of us in the front seat to join in, and pretty soon the four of us were in perfect sync, bobbing our upper bodies forward and backward wildly as we drove down the road. The street was a 35mph main drag that consisted of two lanes going in either direction with a turn lane in the center. I was driving, so that made it a little harder because of the steering wheel. Actually, the very act of driving while all this was taking place was hard.  Imagine the looks we got. Here were four guys wearing matching Air Force fatigues and hats, doing this wild, forward & back motion while going down the road in a resurrected 15 year-old cop car with huge windows. All the while we wore expressionless, deadpan looks on our faces and stared straight ahead. We could see the stares out of the corner of our eyes though, and there were plenty of them. We even kept it going when we were stopped at traffic lights. Great fun! That was one of Black Bart's best moments.  I wish we had YouTube then!

One time four of us were headed out to the northeast corner of the state for a weekend canoeing trip and we got pulled over for speeding. (Imagine that!)  I was sitting in the front seat of the state trooper's car while he wrote me a ticket. He was making comments about my beloved black cop car as he wrote.
"Is that thing even safe to be on the road?" he asked as he looked up at it momentarily then looked back down and continued writing in the ticket book.
"It'll probably outrun this Plymouth." I said, not caring what he thought about it.  I was already in trouble.
"Maybe."

Another example of blatant vehicle abuse came one day when me and Ken decided to have a pushing contest with our cars out in the middle of the barracks parking lot. I carefully eased Black Bart up against the rubberized nose of Ken's GTO. When we got the signal from whoever it was that was there with us, we both floored it. Amid screaming engines and smoking tires, Black Bart steadily pushed Ken's car backward. When we let off the gas I found my throttle to be stuck and had to shut the key off to stop it. Ken parked his car and got out laughing his ass off.  When I got out and opened the hood to unstick the throttle I was surprised to find the engine sitting at a slant! Obviously, my antics caused the motor mounts, already weakened from age, to break completely apart.  With nothing to hold the engine in place, the torque took over and tried to spin it.  I'll bet it would have been interesting to see while it was happening.  After I freed up the throttle linkage the best I could I started the engine back up. With me gently playing the gas pedal while in reverse and a friend prying with a 2x4, we got the engine popped back into position.

I started to neglect Bart and it slowly spiraled downhill.  The wheel covers were probably the earliest casualties.  Over time they ended up coming off during driving stunts, and at some point I removed the remaining ones.  Although that made the car start to look a little more like a beater, it also had a kind of a stealth car look to it.  It had an almost evil "Get out of my way... I've got nothing to lose" look to it.  The paint ended up getting touched up with spray cans here and there, and wherever that happened the gloss was gone.  The fact that I lived in a barracks building didn't help either because there were limited places anyone could wash a car.  Over time I ended up adding to the cars that I owned, and that caused Bart to get more idle time and sit in the parking lot collecting road dust from passing traffic.

One day I came back to the barracks after being out partying with friends.  At that time I had four cars, and the three that weren't being driven were always parked on the outermost row of the parking lot, facing the street so they were out of the way.  I don't remember if I went to swap cars or went to get something out of one of the other cars, but I saw something was in the windshield of Black Bart.  I got in the car and across the whole top of the dash was a long piece of cardboard with a scrawled message across it that read, "Why not stick around?"  Apparently, my parents had dropped in during a vacation trip.  Remember, that was before cell phones.  I had no idea they were there.  I contacted the motel they were staying at, but they had already checked out and gone the day before.  That was strange to think that my parents had driven there from Washington state to visit me in Oklahoma City and never saw them.

One night I had driven Black Bart to a party at someone's house off-base.  I don't know what exactly (or how much of it) clouded my judgement, but Tom asked to borrow my car to go get some beer or something and I mistakenly let him take it.  Someone else went with him, but who it was isn't important.  A couple hours went by.  Tom finally showed up--without my car.  He said he got stuck or something out at Draper Lake.  I was mad obviously, because he was going to a store.  Draper Lake was a man-made reservoir that was surrounded by miles of fun, curvy dirt roads.  We liked to race and have fun on them and we all knew them well.  The next day a couple of us went out to retrieve my car.  When Tom led us to it, I found it straddling a 3-foot deep ditch with its oil pan bashed in.  It started right up, but sounded bad for obvious reasons.  After all, the crankshaft was spinning against the oil pan.  It also had no oil pressure--again no surprise.  In retrospect, I should have towed it.  I could have taken off the oil pan and fixed it right where it was.  No, I was stupid.  I jockeyed it off the ditch and drove it all the way back to the base.  I don't remember how far it actually was, but 'm surprised it made it.  It was sounding pretty bad and starting to overheat.  When I shut it off it stopped turning instantly.  No wind-down.  I basically killed my beloved Black Bart by stupidity on multiple levels.  Yes, I could have fixed it, but I had other cars to drive.  Instead, I called a roll-truck to come and get it.

I argued with the guy that picked it up and managed to get $35 cash out of him.  Regretfully, I watched my poor car go down the road.  I had let him down.

Black Bart had personality.  Black Bart was one-of-a-kind.  And his spot light even still worked.

Black Bart: Part 1

I have had a lot of vehicles in my life.  This is the story of one of them.

Just Bought

It was 1975 when I first saw Black Bart, although he had yet to be named.  May or June I think it was.  I had just completed my 8 months of Air Force electronics training in Biloxi, Mississippi and was home in Auburn for a visit before going to my first real assignment at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City.  I was sitting on the front steps of my parents' house, drinking a beer and pretending to look cool.  Because Auburn High School is practically across the street from their house there is constant activity to keep your attention.  Anyway, I was watching people and cars go by, when all of a sudden a beautiful older black & white Ford Galaxie drove by with a 'For Sale' sign in its window.  I raced into action, grabbing the keys to whichever of the cars I had nearby at my disposal, and raced after it.  Maybe it was the 20mph school zone or maybe it was the heavy traffic in general, but whatever the reason I did manage to get a glimpse of it while it was still visible way up the road.  It was one of those things like you see on TV where every time I turned the corner I could just see my prey turning a corner onto another street way up ahead of me.  After playing that game for several turns I gained on it enough to see which alley it drove into, and I drove up behind it just as the guy was getting out of the car behind his house.  It turns out it was only $150!  What?!  SOLD!

Exploded Differential

It was beautiful.  It was a 1961 Ford Police Interceptor--exactly like the one they used in The Andy Griffith Show in 1961 (their show was sponsored by Ford so every year they got a new model).  The car had no dents or problems of any kind.  It had a 390 engine and 3-speed automatic and ran smooth as silk.  The spotlight even still worked!  The doors were not as shiny as the rest of the car.  They were originally white and had been painted black to match the rest of the car when it was sold to the public and they had oxidized somewhat.  It had a slightly stained area on the roof where the red "gumball" cop light spent its useful life too.  True to form (for me anyway) I broke the car right away.  I blew the rear end out of it not two hours after I bought it.  It may have had something to do with me doing a burnout at the gas station I used to work at (being a guy = showing off).  I put a junkyard replacement in it the next day and a few days later headed down the road for Oklahoma.

Rest Stop

I've always loved driving, but I really didn't know what to expect when I hit the pavement on my first ever solo road trip.  I took freeways when I had to, but for the most part I stuck to the old concrete highways of yesteryear.  I still love those roads!  At one point on my trip (somewhere in remote Colorado I think) I ran out of gas.  I was young and hadn't yet learned the 'when the gas gauge hits the 1/4 point start looking for a gas station' rule.  I ran out just shy (maybe a quarter mile) of the top of a mountain pass.  I remember that because I was high enough that the road was enveloped by clouds.  I immediately shut it off and coasted to a stop.  I let it sit for about a half hour, knowing that usually you can get an engine to fire back up after it sits like that.  When I decided enough time had passed I put it in neutral, turned the key, and slapped it into drive the instant the engine caught.  I think I just managed to clear the top before it died, and I coasted.  And coasted.  And coasted.  It was a long, long downhill, and believe it or not I finally coasted to a stop several miles later on the turnoff to a gas station, stopping about 100 yards from it.  Can you say lucky?

I wasn't so lucky the next day when I lost a wheel.

The old cop car had a "poor man's cruise control" under the dash, consisting of a t-handle that was hooked to the throttle linkage.  When you were going the speed you wanted, you simply pulled it out to take up the slack then turned it to lock it.  I was on a freeway heading east outside of Amarillo, Texas.  I had the "cruise" pulled out and was running about 85.  I was sitting with both feet across the seat like you would lay sideways on a couch and was leaning against the door, steering with one hand.  Suddenly, I felt an odd wobble.  I quickly swung my feet back to the floor and released the throttle lock, taking full control back.  I had no sooner did that when it wobbled hard and--BANG--the left rear wheel went flying past me, bouncing and rolling at 70+ mph.  The jolting bang was instantly followed by a nasty grinding noise as the part of the car that was previously filled with left rear wheel only a moment before tried to cut a groove into the asphalt.  When I tried to stop, the brake pedal went all the way to the floor.  I knew at that point that the brake drum was still attached to the wheel.  With no brake drum for shoes to contact they just expanded all the way out when I pressed the brake pedal.    Nothing to do but let it come to a stop all by itself.  When it finally did stop and I could survey the damage I was a little upset.  Not that the wheel had come off, but that in doing so it bent the whole left rear quarter panel of an otherwise pristine car outward while it was making its exit.  What had actually happened?  The axle literally broke off flush with the housing, and the wheel and brake drum were propelled forward like a slingshot by the weight of the car rolling over it.  Like I said--the wheel actually passed me when it launched.

It took me a while to find the wheel.  The freeway was two-lanes in each direction, with wide shoulders, a wide grassy median, and no guardrails of any kind.  I was lucky the wheel didn't hit anybody, but traffic was pretty sparse if I remember correctly, so the odds were in my favor.  The car had gone quite a ways with nothing to slow it down but steel digging into roadway.  By the time it finally came to a grinding stop there was about an inch of steel gone from the bottom of the brake backing plate that the shoes are attached to.  The shoes were shot (more like half missing) also.  Not much to do but hitchhike.  A guy gave me a ride and I had him drop me about 2 miles up the road when a gas station came into view.  This was before the days of mini-marts--it was a real service station.  I went inside and explained my situation, throwing my usual humorous slant on things.

"This may sound funny, but do you know where I might find an axle for a 61 Ford?" I asked, fully expecting laughter.  After all, we were out in the middle of nowhere.  I don't think I got laughter though.  Instead, he pointed across the freeway.

"You might try [whatever his name was] place over there.  I think he's got an old Ford around there somewhere."

The gas station was on the corner of an actual intersection on the freeway--not an on-ramp.  Right across freeway, equally in the 'middle of nowhere' was some sort of repair garage.  Believe me, these two businesses were the only things for miles in any direction.

I made my way across the freeway.  I can't remember much about the place, but the guy had a tow truck and there were vehicles scattered here and there in various stages of repair and/or dis-assembly.  I walked up to the only guy I saw there, and hit him with pretty much the same thing as I did across the street.

"The guy across the way said you might know where a person might find an axle for a 61 Ford." I said, trying to sound both hopeful and sure of myself simultaneously.

"I think I got a 62 around back," he said, "Let's go take a look."

He was probably chewing on a piece of hay and wearing overalls (okay, probably not really--I can't remember that much).  We walked around back and it was literally a mini-junkyard.  Tall grass and nothing much had moved in or out in a long time.  When I saw that 62 sitting there in the weeds I was ecstatic.  I gave it a look over and told him it was indeed what I needed.  I explained my predicament to the good ol' boy.  He went out and fired up the tow truck.

"The inside dually on one side won't hold air no more, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem." he said.

I was fine with that... After all--I was already way ahead in the good luck department.  We hopped in and drove it up the freeway.  Because it was a freeway we had to go past it to circle back, and I remember seeing how forlorn it looked sitting there on the side of the road at a strange angle.  He hooked up to my car and towed it back to his shop--driving reasonably slow because of only having three of his four rear tires with air in them.  When we got back, he dropped it in front of his shop then went around back and lifted up the old 62.  Imagine his surprise when I popped the trunk of my car and I donned my personalized white coveralls!  On the back, in neon orange and outlined in black, I had airbrushed 'Willy', my nickname in high school auto shop.  I had all the tools I needed to do the job and got right to it.  I was able to remove all the parts I needed--both small and large.  When I was finished, he dropped it and drove back around front and picked my car back up.  Because the axle had broken off flush I couldn't get it out, but that's okay:  He knew just what do do.  He fired up his arc welder, got a good welding arc going on the broken end of the axle, then just stuffed the electrode (that's the stick that arc welders use that deposits the metal as it melts) right into it--extinguishing the arc.  For folks that don't know, what that does is basically fuse the electrode right into what ever you stuck it to.  He just casually unhooked the electrode holder from the end of the electrode that was stuck to my axle and turned off his welder.  He then bent the electrode and gave it a good yank.  The axle shaft popped right out.  Nice!  I installed all the transplanted parts from the 62 Ford (which were absolutely identical to the 61) and he set it down and unhooked me.  I asked him what I owed him--expecting the worst.  He was amused.  He made some comments about me having those custom coveralls and my own tools, and doing my own work.  He charged me $30!  I couldn't believe it.  I still can't--even now.  That was one nice guy.  In retrospect, I should have given him more, or at the very least, taken down his name and address.

The rest of my trip was uneventful.  Even given the time I lost running out of gas, the 6-hour breakdown when I lost my wheel, and two nights of sleep, I arrived at Tinker Air Force Base in record time.  I left Auburn, Washington, at 9am on Wednesday, and was in Oklahoma City somewhere around 11pm Friday night.

I must have not paid much attention to the speed limit signs...

Next:  Black Bart: Part 2

That Travelin' Bone

Sue saw this past weekend as sort of a 'last gasp' opportunity, so we just had to take it.

I'll be starting work this Friday, so who knows how my scheduling will go?  Plus, she had a green light to take Friday off.  Those two things together are a perfect excuse for a photography excursion.  The topic?  Fall colors.

The famous North Cascades Highway was our destination.  For traffic reasons (and the fact that I'm a contrarian) I opted to do the loop kind of backwards.  Most everyone (for whatever reason) always seems to do the loop clockwise.  Maybe it's because everyone seems to live along the I-5 corridor and they figure it's the logical choice.  Trouble is, for us to go up the freeways to our starting point on a Friday morning would have put us in pretty heavy traffic all the way up.  Instead we opted to go over Snoqualmie Pass and turn north.  In retrospect, it was a pretty good choice.  We had zero traffic issues at all anywhere we went.

The fall colors were rampant.  Our state isn't heavily into the red spectrum as far as tree varieties go but there were still quite a few of them among the yellow-colored ones that made up the majority.

Our 600+ mile trip took us on some pretty nice roads as well as some that were more suitable for a 4x4 truck.  It's not the first time and it won't be the last.  Some of the best photography roads are the least traveled ones after all.  We seemed a little more in tune this time than some during some of our other road trips.  Lots of times I get the "Never mind--it's too late now... You passed it" remark as as far as the repeated stopping for pictures.  This time we were both zeroing in on the same things for the most part.  Lots of stopping is our M.O. when we're out on these junkets.

Its kinda funny the things you see when you're out driving.  Like a giant, hand-scrawled sign next to the road inviting hunters to stop and remove the clothing from their deer.  Then, when you look down the road there's a nice vintage Ford truck repeating the message.

As per our usual experience when we're out on one of these photo trips, the "I wonder what's up this way?" roads we wander down turn out to be our favorites.  We find some of the most scenic stuff that way.  If nothing else, the roads are usually way less traveled, and in many cases, pristine.  This trip was no exception.  We really enjoy the "road less traveled" and we also look forward to those kind of pathways.

Sue always loves to make fun of me when we're in stores about how easily distracted I am.  "Ooo... Shiny things!" I'll say and wander off.  During one of our photo stops this weekend she wandered up the highway a little ways taking pictures.  I put on my long lens and managed to catch her having a 'shiny things' moment when she was on her way back.  Ha!

"Dum de dum..."

"Ooo... a piece of firewood!!"

"Oh shoot--he caught me."

Besides traveling well together, we also give each other the utmost respect when it comes to shooting.  I always give her lots of time to make the shot she's after, and if I see her shooting something really interesting, a lot of times I'll leave it be--sort of giving her an "exclusive" on the picture.  Likewise, she always gives me plenty of respect when I'm shooting too:

New Car Time!

I'm a little late with this blog because things have been so busy lately.  It actually happened back on August 3rd.  Yep, I bought myself a new car. Okay, not actually new, but new to me. I will never buy another new car in my lifetime unless I win the lottery, and there's not much chance of that happening.   I don't play the lottery.

It was a Craigslist deal. I generally like Craigslist deals, but not when they involve lots of money. It makes me nervous.  A person can only do so much inspection of what they're buying. The rest is left up to trust of the person selling it and your level of acceptance. I haven't had it long enough for anything wrong to surface, nor have I had it long enough to find that something was hidden or covered up by the seller. I hope there is nothing of course, but it always takes time to get to a level of relaxation with a used car. At least it does for me.

It's a 2003 Honda Civic LX. It's fully equipped, LX-wise, and completely beautiful condition. 132,000 miles on the body, and 80,000 on the engine. I bought the car from a young guy (I'm guessing 23-25 years old) that works at the Honda dealership. He put a warranted used engine in it after giving it a new timing belt, water pump, and other assorted replacement parts ("all genuine Honda parts" he assured me). He said it was his girlfriend's car and she ran the original engine out of oil. He was not a very good liar though--I think he just got a sweet deal on a trade-in because it had a bad engine. The car is virtually like new everywhere. The only signs of wear at all are a few spots on the removable floor mats. Under the car, the trunk, the interior--all in fantastic shape.

I hate buying cars.

The deal came close to not going down. The car was in Bellingham, and that's a two-hour drive north of here.  After many texts and a few emails, we arranged to meet at the Lowe's store near his place because it appeared that by the time we got there it would be nearly dark.  I don't like buying a car from a private party when I can't see their home, but I pushed that aside this time.  I had been looking for a new car for quite a while and wanted this one to be 'the one'.  I told the guy we should be there about 9pm at the latest.  When we went through Everett at about 7:30 (still about an hour from him) I texted him and told him so.  He replied with something like, "Oh, I didn't think you would be here until 9."  Hmm.  He knows damn well what transpired because it was all on his phone in the form of text messages.  I reminded him of all that.  When we were near his area I again texted him.  He replied with something like, "Ok, um, I just wanted you to be aware that I've got another guy interested in the car and he may be there when you arrive."  What the hell?  It was like his story kept changing.  Both me and Suz fussed and fumed over that as we neared the meeting place.  When we got there he was nowhere to be seen.  I texted him.  "Oh, I'll be there in five minutes."  Again, he story changed.  We waited there over 20 minutes for him to show up.  We texted him multiple times, one of which was to the point, "Is this deal going to happen?"  No reply.  Sue had already told me a couple times up to that point, "We've driven a long way--give him some more time."  After another 10 minutes I said, "Screw it, let's go."  We had been waiting 30 minutes at that point.  We we were just about to the freeway we got a text from him apologizing.  "I was halfway there and had forgotten the title" he said.

I liked the car.  It looked as good in person as it did in the ad pictures.  The interior color turned out to be a tan when I expected to see light gray.  The pictures in his ad sort of threw me the wrong direction I guess.  Still, I wasn't put off by that detail.  Anyway, I liked the car and bought it.  I spent the drive home just "feeling" the car out--checking anything and everything.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the gas gauge had barely moved after filling it up in Bellingham before heading south for the 2-hour drive home.

After owning the car for only a week and a half, what do we do?  What else?  Road trip!  Kind of a bold move for sure--especially given the nature of the trip.  Driving an "untested and unknown" car to Wendover, Utah in the middle of August was ballsy.  So we've returned from our trip and have put the car through its paces.  The results?  The mileage:  Phenomenal.  We got a couple of tanks in the high 30's, and two tanks that were over 42mpg!  The AC worked great and kept us comfy.  The cruise was so nice to have too.  The stock Honda sound system sucks pretty bad and let us down, but that wasn't much of a surprise.  The engine seemed to develop a little noise that made me nervous for a while.  It never got worse.  I get the impression that nothing new happened, but rather, possibly an additive that might have been masking the sound up until that time finally wore off.  It's a theory.  I changed its oil yesterday and put in full synthetic oil.  I've never put that in a car before because it's so expensive (and it makes leaky cars leak even more because it's so slippery) but I thought I'd go for it and see how it does.  Time will tell.

Was the car a good deal?  No.  It as a fair deal.  It was a great car for the money, but it was still a lot of money.  To me, a good deal is when I practically steal something.  It's just that cars of this type and year are hard to find in good shape, and this was was what I was looking for.  I hope it will serve me well and translate into a good deal.

It's safe to say it's the fanciest car I've ever owned in terms of options.  Power everything, AC, cruise control, and all--it's way more than I've ever had.  My cynical nature tells me, "It's just more to go wrong" while my optimist side (it's a much smaller side) tells me, "Shut up and enjoy it."

One thing is for sure:  I am loving the 40+ mpg!

Here are pictures from the guy's Craigslist ad.  Even though you can click them and view them full size, they're not very big.  Still, you can get an idea what it looks like.  You can also see what I meant when I mentioned the interior color in the ad pictures.

Stalwart No More

The vehicle previously known the "Famously worn (but stalwart) Neon" has been officially retired. It has weathered a lot of ups and downs in its life, but it's finally crossed over the line I have drawn in the sand. On one side of the line is "repair" and on the other side is "move on". The Neon left us a couple weeks ago, lovingly embraced (okay, pushed actually) by the whole family that came to check it out. It went for a whopping $300.

The bright red Neon was bought In June of 1994 to replace the bright red 1963 Ford Falcon Futura that my ex was driving as her daily driver at the time. The Falcon was a "one-owner" car I bought from a grandson that inherited it from his grandma. That is a car I wish I never sold, but then--isn't that always the way it goes?
"It hurts my back." she complained. (True, car seats were mushy ad non-supportive back then.)
"But its a classic. It's in great condition. It's beautiful!" I kept trying. Finally I gave in and started researching cars. The Neon was new on the scene and there was something about it that intrigued me. After much reading and investigating, we ended up buying one. Titled as a 1995, it was almost the exact same color as the Falcon: Bright red. The Neon was her car. It was bought to be her car. Sure, I got to drive when we as a family went anywhere, but it was hers.

That was 18 years ago. In its 148,000 or so (I forgot to look before it left) mile life with me and my family members it has been through a lot. It's been to California several times, Utah a couple times, and lots and lots of smaller trips and exploration. Yes, throughout the years the Neon has been to many, places. Look how nice and new it looked when I bought my Harley back in 2003.

Like any car, the Neon got a little tired over the years. At one point Teresa's parents gave her 20k to spend. It was both a gift and a way of reducing their taxes that year. I don't remember the details, but I do remember researching yet another car for her. This time she got a 2001 Nissan Altima. That meant the Neon was "mothballed" in the garage. I don't think it was driven for about six months. I was driving a Datsun 200SX commuter car I bought from a gal after she bought it back from the insurance company (it had been stolen and recovered). I paid $200 for it and drove it for over 100,000 miles before it started to suffer catastrophic degradation that made fixing it non-worthwhile. I sent it down the road (for $50 more than I paid for it!) and rolled the Neon out into the daylight. Admiring it with a fresh, new eye I gave it a fresh dose of pride and interest and made it my new car. I cleaned and scrubbed it and made it shine like the day it was bought--inside and out.

Over the years the Neon has been through a lot of health issues too. Some normal--some not. It was vandalized once as it sat sleeping in our driveway one night. The bored low-lifes shattered the windshield and drivers window by beating them with steel water meter cover from the sidewalk in front of our house. Another time it was tagged with a large "CK" spray painted across the entire hood. (We moved after the second episode.) It blew a head gasket one time, causing it to overheat on me in downtown Seattle. During its life it had gone through the usual tires, batteries, and other normal items, and like the head gasket/timing belt/water pump repair, I did them all myself. I even did a heater core replacement myself, and as you can see in this picture, it was not for the faint of heart.

The Neon even weathered the change in my marital status, and after I remarried the Neon carried us on many, many adventures. It was so good at showing up in pictures that we took as we explored the many roads of our state and country. It was hard to keep it out of the pictures because after all--it ferried us there. It was our dependable steed that took us everywhere.

The major event in its life occurred the time it got rear ended while sitting at a stop light a few years ago. That caused the insurance company to declare it totaled. They paid me handsomely for the car (about $2000), and then let me buy it back from them for about $80. The Neon was never quite the same after that though. It was plagued by a water leak somewhere up under the dash that proved near impossible to get stopped.

It's a sad thing when you go around your car of 18 years and remove your possessions from it. All the things that make it your own: stripped away with a sense of resignation and finality. I have no regrets about buying it way back then, but I don't think I ever really thought I would be signing its 'organ donor' card this far down the road in its life. Most people don't keep cars anywhere near that long.

The people that bought it led me to believe it would live again instead of being taken apart and sold off in pieces. I think they were somewhat surprised at the condition it was in given its age.

I hope it makes it's future owners as happy as it made its original owners.