Memorial Day Weekend

I won't tell you at first where we went for Memorial Day Weekend. Eventually, I think it will be obvious, because of some of the names.

PLEASE CLICK ON THE PICTURES - SOME OF THEM GET CROPPED IN THE NORMAL VIEW WITH MOZILLA 4.X

It is amazing out west how many linear miles of barbed wire fence there is. I could barely take a picture without having to climb over it or just accept the fact that I would have a fence in the shot somewhere. In addition to making picture taking a little more challenging, the amount of fenced off land speaks volumes about the land-grabbing by "ranchers" in the western states. Some of the fenced of land we passed was probably never used for anything more than a buffer zone between someone with lots of cash and John Q Public.

Anyway, we started off the trip with a view of farm land and green energy. Those units are pretty loud. Crazy low-pitch rumble that sounds pretty foreboding.



We were trying to get access to the John Day River valley. We really wanted to camp on its shore for a couple of days. It is BLM managed land and as a US Citizen and a legal resident alien, Akiko and I have the right to spend up to 15 nights there. Except for the fact that between the river and us was hundreds of thousands of acres of private land that was surrounded by -you guessed it- barbed wire. The river is over there...in the bottom of that canyon out at the horizon.



Old international truck on the side of the road. What a shame. Even now it has less rust than my scout had.



Not the greatest picture, but it was pretty wild to see this field full of collapsed pylons. I guess it gets windy up here...thus the wind generators...aha!



Well we finally gave up on camping by the river. In fact, we could not find a legal place to camp at all. Barbed wire and posted signs are going to be an integral part of my next business venture. Who wants in? So we camped here. Completely and 100% illegally on land that belongs to tax payers.



Kaibu, the newest member of the pack, resting on Akiko's sleeping bag.


The ladies on our way to the river, finally. We had to walk about 5 miles to get to the river and back, which was not a big deal - really, it was pretty flat. It still would have been nicer to camp on the river legally. Yeah, we could have packed our stuff down to the river and camped illegally there too. Unfortunately, this was intended to be a car-camping trip and we weren't really prepared (no packs) to haul our gear that far.


Here is a view back up the river valley that we camped illegally in, the Hay River Canyon. The colors were great, but the lighting sucked. I tried to use the color adjustment on my new camera and I think the results are a little funky. Without the color adjust colors are too flat, but with it they are to burnt / hot. I need to find a middle grown. The rye (I think it is rye) really was that red / violet color, though. Oh yeah, there is some more fence...


After our walk down Hay River Canyon to the John Day River Canyon, we loaded up the Trooper and headed to our next stop. Along the way we passed Six Springs Canyon. That road also leads to public land, but it was gated and surrounded by a half dozen "Posted" signs as well. Nice view though.



We arrived in Larno for some Wild Flower viewing. We were hoping to see catus flowers, but we were too early! Spring is so far behind here. This is BLM land too. There is a public access road that borders the BLM land, crosses private property for 10 miles and then enters BLM land. Where the road enters BLM land the gate was open, but a 10 foot by 10 foot signed informed us that we would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law if we continued driving onto BLM land. Another smaller sign indicated that vehicles parked at or near the gate on the private property side would be towed. We eventually parked and camped on the BLM land before the private property.



Finally, some wild flowers. Akiko taking them in.



Fran enjoying the flowers too.



Two versions of the same view. This one without the special color enhance feature. The overcast but very bright sky just blanches out the colors.



Same shot,but with the auto-color adjust. Seems too fake to me.




A couple of faces that only a mother could love - really, they don't always look thaaat stoopid. Franny and Kaibu playing on the rocks.



Kaibu is worn out from two long hikes and a couple of hours driving.



Camping spot for night two in the "desert."



Akiko doing the prep work in the kitchen.



The Trooper loaded up with our gear the morning of Day three. To me that seems like a ridiculous amount of junk for a couple of days. Akiko and I have spent 3 times as long underway in the mtns with just our packs, but we have 400 lbs of gear for labor day weekend. Seriously? I guess it comes down to: if it fits in the car and makes life easier, why not bring it. That is, however, a slippery slope. Next it'll be a DVD player and before I know it there'll be damned land-yacht parked next to the house. Moderation never was strongest point.



So, we saw badgers doing something on our way out of the BLM land. Not sure if they were fighting, playing, mating or what, but there were three of them. I never saw a badger this close before...I mean, I think that's a badger.




Fossil National Monument was where we stopped on Day Three. Kaibu got some leash time, which did not please her at first, but she got it figured out.



Here are the ladies hanging out in the bottom of what is probably a waterfall when it rains.



We headed back toward home via the Deschutes River Valley. Pretty incredible and my pictures do it no justice.



More Deschutes scenery.



Still more Deschutes views. I knew that eastern Oregon was dry, but I was really surprised by how much it reminded me of Colorado and Utah. The big difference to me seemed to be that the sand stone out here is a lot older based on how broken down and roundedit is. Maybe it is just softer. If you could blind fold someone and just drop them off out here and then ask them to look around and guess where they were, I do not think that many people's first guess would be Oregon!



More pics here if you want:

More Fun in the Snow

I decided to take a day off last week and play in the snow. Tuesday night I loaded up the super trooper with winter weather gear, boots, goretex bib, snow shoes, gaiters, etc. I always feel a little silly loading up all of this cold weather gear into my car when it is 50F and raining, but I do it in the garage anyway. That helps me stay dry and conceal from the neighbors how much a of a gear freak I am. Sad.

Maxwell Butte, a measly 6250 feet though it may be, turned me back twice before. So, I decided to make it up this time come hell or high water. Wednesday morning, I left for the mtns as Akiko was heading off to work. She was not happy about that.

On the drive up I started to get worried, because there was a lot less snow in the mtns and the temps were a lot warmer than in previous weeks. I did not want to march through slush. 100 miles later I was pulling into the Sno-Park parking lot still not convinced that I wasn't going to be walking in corn mush all day.

People who have ridden in my old Scout or traveled across the country with me in my VW will appreciate this part of the story. At the trailhead parking lot, which is about an eight of a mile long, the restrooms are on one side of the lot by the entrance exit to the highway and the trailhead is at the other. I parked the super trooper near the potties for a quick pee-break. When I got back in to drive across the lot to the trailhead, I turned the key and got little more than a quiet "click" from the starter.

I got out and started pushing, once I had enough speed, I hopped in and popped the clutch to get it started. No problem. When I parked it on the trailhead side of the lot, I made sure I had pointing downhill...easier to pop start using gravity.

At the trailhead we were alone with the blue skies and a balmy but strong wind. It was about 40F with lots of big tall grey clouds on the horizon to the south. Franny and I headed up the trail at a quick, but not crazy pace. We made it to the trail junction at the lake (see previous entry) in a little over an hour. I stopped to check out the summit, which you can see from the lake. I feel silly calling it a summit, but that doesn't matter, because I couldn't see it anyway.


The "top" of Maxwell hidden by clouds. That thing you can't see in the center of the picture is the top.

Up to the lake the trail had been pretty well packed out, but it was warm, the snow on the ground was sticky, and the snow in the trees was melting and chunking off. Kinda crappy conditions. That is, as far as walking around in the mtns in the snow on a Wednesday morning can be called crappy. Luckily the temps started getting colder and the snow "dryer" as we climbed further. At about 6000 feet there was 18 or so inches of new snow on top of a 10 foot-ish base. I turned around to snap this picture just before the clouds completely engulfed us.



Clouds moving in quick. This was the last time I saw the other side of the valley during this walk.

Up to this point I had been wearing shorts, long thermal underwear and my gaiters. It probably looks as bad as it sounds, but luckily there are no mirrors out there and Franny is not very judgmental as far as fashion faux pas go. I changed into my bib snow pants, because ahead of us was a labyrinth of snow ghosts and tall drifts. At this point in the climb the pitch was steep enough that I was kicking steps into the snow to make forward progress. I figured I might need a little more than shorts to keep the snow out.


The entrance to the labyrinth of snow ghosts and drifts that I had to navigate. It was a blast.


It took a while to get through the trees and the drifts, but we made it just as the snow kicked in.

There was no view from the top. So, I put on an extra layer found some shelter from the wind and ate lunch in the hopes that the wind would blow the clouds off and I could get a decent picture. After a half hour of waiting and walking around up on the top, there was still no visibility. So, we headed down.


Here is the little bit we could see to the southwest. All the other directions looked the same...


And here we are heading back down. Right about in the middle of the screen, where my tracks are no longer visible, is where I had to kick steps into the snow. The whole way down I was thinking about how much fun it would be to snowboard down this and wondering how badly I would mangle myself trying to ski down it.

Franny and I took our time heading back. All together it took us about 7 hours for the whole walk. I was pretty tired, but Franny was ready for more.

The super trooper fired right-up on the first try.

Denied again

It is not really a big deal, but there is this little hill that will not let me climb it. It's name is Maxwell Butte. it is around 6600 feet high and it is in Oregon's central Cascades. Yesterday was my second try and my second failure. I may try again, but I may just go do something else instead. The big reason that I have been getting my ass handed to me is the amount of snow - about 4 feet at the trailhead and I don't even want to think about how much at the top. A somewhat smaller, but nonetheless contributing reason is that I am an old fat lazy bum.

Anyway, no big story. Tried to snowshoe up with Franny and only got to 5600' before hitting my pre-determined turnaround time of 2 pm. In the morning I followed ski tracks up. I met the two skiiers at lunch time and passed them. The skiers caught up to me again at my turnaround point and informed me that I was nuts for trying to walk up. "Try skiing it. Really."

Maybe next year I will try it on boards. It has been years, but I think I can still pull it off. My toy budget for Winter 2010/2011 is, however, already long gone.


Trail head markers. You can see the ski tracks in front of me. Out here there are signs at all the trailhead parking lots telling the low-life showshoers to stay the hell off the tracks made by the far superior race of skiers. I tried to do so as much as possible, but sometimes the trail was just too narrow. The guys I met today were cool about it and actually made fun of the silly parking lot signs, "it's snow for christsake!" I didn't ask to get a picture of them because they were enjoying a little mother nature while enjoying a little mother nature...


Fork in the road. This was the only other true trail marker all day.


If you look really closely you can see the unofficial trail markers that I was trying to follow. Once I could see the top, I luckily didn't need these.


A closer look. Think "Needle in a Haystack." You can also see Franny doing pretty well here. At times it way pretty tough for her and she could only walk in my tracks.


Here is Ms. Franny having a little tougher time of things.

Looking back across the valley (N Santiam Valley is what it is I think). I should look at the map and figure out which peaks those are. No the greatest picture either. In spite of the cloudy sky in the photo, the sun where I was standing was so bright that I could not see a damned thing on the viewfinder screen.

1000 feet left to go. Still breaking trail here. The snow is retardedly here. Judging by the maturity of those tree tops just poking through the snow, I would guess they are 8+ foot tall trees.

It was a fun walk even if I did not make the top. Maybe next time. One thing is for sure, Franny and I are tired today. I haven't been this worn out and sore in years. Awesome!

California Desert Racing Accident

The accident in the California desert has done a great job of dividing two communities that I consider myself a (more or less active) part of. In the off-highway-vehicle and mountain bike communities the debate that has come out of this tragedy is, surprisingly not event safety, but one that revolves around access and / or closure of public lands.

Save the planet. Kill yourself.

Perhaps the above is a bit absurd, but it is the answer if we take these arguments to the extreme. Denying access of any group(s) to deserts, forests, coasts, etc. is an extreme measure and as such should only be used in extreme cases. There are some resources that we need to protect at this level. However, not all nature falls into this category.

Jumping directions for a moment, we need to consider the implications of successful of OHV bans. To enact initial legislation to get public lands closed to any group is a large investment of time and money. However, once the process has been initiated -the precedent set- it becomes much easier to ban access to other groups. This means that just because an area is deemed too sensitive to vehicular traffic, does not mean that in five years someone won't deem it too sensitive for bike traffic and finally foot traffic.

Do we really want to limit access of natural lands and waters only to their government appointed guardians? Not me!

What can we do? Educate ourselves. Realize that there are sensitive areas and there are stable areas. In much the same way that there are sensible OHV users (and mtb-ers) as well as morons who live for the loud-pedal (skidiots in the mtb world). We need to be able to distinguish between the opposite poles of these two very inhomogeneous groups and the many shades of gray in between. Then we need to react to each accordingly, be it the guy who wanders off track due to lack of understanding the implications or the flora that is disappearing from an area as a result of something completely unrelated to human influences.

I would like to be able to recreate in the desert, mtns, etc. I hope my kids and their kids can too. Closing access at random because of incidents that are not environmentally relevant is not the answer. Tearing hell-bent through the crypto-biotic soils of Moab is also not the answer.

For the record, I sure hope desert racing is not done for. I have never seen one and I sure hope to someday see the Cali 200 or the KOH finals...from a safe distance. I also like to enjoy the wilderness without vehicles, which is pretty easy if you take the time to plan accordingly and realize that you have to share the planet.

It must run in the family

So, I finally went to DMV today to get my Oregon license. I showed the lady at the counter my passport, VA driver's license, birth certificate, SS card, two utility bills and the neatly "typed" out application for a license. She took my $5 check, entered a bunch of info into her terminal, turned the monitor toward me and asked me to check spelling, etc. that she had processed. Just as I was thinking how easy the whole process was, she looked up and sighed, "oh dear, there is a problem."

I think that those are the last words that anyone ever wants to hear from a public servant. Coming from a DMV lady, it was terrifying even if she wasn't. She kindly explained that the state of Colorado had listed me on the National Motor Vehicle Registry as having a suspended license. Right there -no kidding- I was able to feel my blood pressure jump. A little flush to the face, a faint ringing in the ears, the eyes were a little teary and the room turned just the faintest shade of red. I wonder if someday I'll make the front page of the Oregonian or the 6 O'clock news for not being able to swallow the rage back.

I muttered something not quite as under my breath as I should have about the lousy bastards who can't do a goddamned thing right and then quickly apologized to the alarmed looking DMV lady. I asked her for as much info as she had, which included a ticket number from Kansas and a phone number in Denver.

I went out to the car and called CO DMV pronto. At this point I need to do a little explaining. In December 2000 I flew from Germany back to Colorado to attend my hooding ceremony and pick up my lovely dog Hannah. Due to cold weather, I could not fly back to Cape Cod where the family was gathering for Christmas. The only way to get Hannah and me to the Cod for Christmas was to drive a rental. On December 20th I left Denver international airport in some American sedan that was completely unremarkable accept for its big motor. Four hours later I was getting pulled over by Kansas trooper who cut me a real break on the speeding ticket he gave me. I was doing at least 100 mph...the roads were empty and the weather was supposed to be getting bad later in the week...and I was in rush to get home for Christmas,

When I got back to Germany, I put off paying the ticket -I was flat broke- and eventually forgot it altogether. Forgot it until it was time to renew my CO license in May 2005 and got denied for having a suspended license. Thankfully by that point I had a German license, which even more thankfully is legal for driving in Uhmerica. I immediately tracked down the ticket and paid it. In September of 2005 I received a "notice of withdrawal of suspension" from the Thomas County Court. A call to the clerk in Thomas County KS and the CO DMV. Both groups assured me that the info would be shared and my record would be corrected. Six months later upon moving back to the USA, I applied for and received my Virginia driver's license. No mention of Colorado, Kansas, speeding tickets or suspended licenses. Although the VA DMV did punch a big hole in my CO license, but they do that to everyone I guess.

Now, we can go back to the call to the CO DMV this afternoon. I got through to a live person after 17 minutes on hold, which was quicker than the 20 minutes that the recording had indicated. No complaints there. The second person with whom I spoke explained that the CO DMV had not received information regarding my payment from Thomas County KS and that my license was still suspended. The women informed me that it is standard procedure for KS DMV to notify CO DMV when a fine has been paid and that not such record existed. She also told me that I would need to pay the fine in KS and then apply and, naturally, pay for reinstatement of my CO license. I told her I didn't want or need a CO license and she told me to call Kansas. She also gave me the same telephone number that I got from CO DMV back in 2005. Calling the telephone number this time yielded the same result it had back in 2005 - a recording blaring in my already ringing ears that the number had been disconnected. Luckily, by this point I was dazed and couldn't do myself, anyone or anything harm.

I still have all of my bills, bank statements and related notes for the past 10 years and I was able to find the correct telephone number in KS and the original "notice of withdrawal of suspension." The states of CO and KS were done for the week by time I found the relevant info, so, I will be drafting a cordial and respectful letter to the CO DMV requesting immediate attention to this matter that of their oversight that is jeopardizing my livelihood.

In the meantime I am wrapping up this little rant with the following thought.

The state governments of CO, KS and OR were able to communicate very effectively to each other that at some point I did indeed have a suspended license. In doing this they are also very effectively able to hinder me from obtaining document that is critical to my ability to function in American society. The state governments of CO, KS and OR are, however, either unable or unwilling to effectively communicate to each other that I have "made good" and paid my debt. Even more infuriating is the fact that I, a private citizen, have an official interstate document in my possession that the state of CO should have, but claims to have no record of.

Is it a conspiracy? I doubt it. These fucking morons couldn't conspire their way out of a wet paper bag.

Local Pride gone awry

I think the growing tendency for Americans to take pride in their communities is a great trend. I love the idea of local food and drink in particular. The only thing better than buying from local sources is growing your own. However, I think taking pride to the extreme that some do borders on xenophobia. Being proud of one's community and heritage does not give one the right to belittle, degrade or scorn someone else's community.

I don't bring this topic up because of international politics, the crisis in the EU or the Iranian nut-jobs. I now live in a place that is immensely proud. Proud of its beauty, proud of its food, proud of its wine, proud of its history...well proud of damned near everything. In my opinion Oregon has excellent reason to be proud of many things. The local produce IS great. There ARE some fantastic Pinot Noirs to be found here. All of that said, there are some things that Oregon should not be proud of. The story in the link below is not one of them. (EDIT for whatever reason I cannot get the HTML tags to make the the link live, so you will have to cut & paste. Sorry.)


http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/05/portland_pig_cook-off_followed.html

For those who are too busy to click and / or read, the article is about a chef from the town I live in who got into a fist fight, got maced by police and subsequently arrested, because he was angry about a local event not using local pork.

Akiko and I had my birthday dinner at Berchard's (the chef in the article) restaurant here in McMinnville last weekend. We were impressed by his dedication to local food and the cool atmosphere of his restaurant. The beer and wine selection was excellent too. The beer was brewed by Heater Allen right here in McMinnville; literally right up the block from us. Akiko has two classes with the brewer's daughter at the local college. The wines were all local and the woman running the bar happened to be a friend of a friend. The food was unique, if not the best we ever ate, but Akiko and I ridiculously critical of restaurant food.

As I read the linked the article this morning in the paper, I laughed out loud. I wasn't shocked, but as I read further it made me sad. Perhaps I should respect him for being so passionate about what he believes in. Maybe it was just the wine and booze talking and not a true indicator of who he is. Mostly it just makes him look like an intolerant little prima-dona, who, sadly, is the poster boy of the day for the region that I live in.

Progress

It has been over a month since I posted anything here. It has been over two months since Akiko, Maki, Hannah, Bonnie and I set out from Richmond Va. Our two month anniversary for hotel living is next week. All of this and I still haven't managed to get more than a tease or two written about the cross country trip. So, my goal today is to get something written down here about the trip.

However, before I attack that goal, here is a little update on what's going on in Orygun. In mid-September Akiko and I moved out of the tiny studio hotel room near Portland to an even tinier hotel room in Salem. I had been told many times that Salem was a shithole full of nothing, but migrant workers, meth-heads and religious right freaks. While that description isn't too far from the mark, there are some surprising advantages to living in Salem.

First, it has a ton of great Mexican food. There are little trailers on every block hocking home made Mexican dishes. Most of the current Mexicans seem to be from the state of Michoacán, at least judging by how often this word is plastered all over everything. There are six Muchas Gracia taco shops in Salem. Muchas Gracias is a Mexican food chain that was started in California by a Mexican worker who was busted by la Migra and then given amnesty. He is a true believer in the American dream and now has more than 50 store locations in CA, OR and WA. Having visited several of them, they are a far cry McDonalds. They are all unique in some way although the menu is generally the same. The food isn't fancy, but I never miss an excuse to grab one of their tacos. My Spanish is dreadful, but here is the source of my info on Muchas Gracias. Correct me if I botched any details. http://www.muchasgraciasmex.com/about.html

The second surprisingly cool thing about Salem is the number of little mom and pop stores. Fish stores, bakeries, donut shops, farmer's markets, butchers, etc. Sadly lacking are any asian super markets worth visiting. Nonetheless, in Salem you are more likely to bump into a small non-big box store than you are home-depot, Lowes or Burger king. The other refreshing aspect of all of these places is that they are not boutique -neither in appearance or attitude nor, more importantly, in price. Maybe Salem is backward and not progressive. Or maybe the people here have got it right.

The fairgrounds are number three on my list of reason why I like Salem. People who don't share or understand my bicycle affliction can skip this paragraph. The Salem fairgrounds are my new neighborhood playground. There never really was a playground near to where I lived as a kid. We either lived way the hell up in the mtns or we lived in the sub-urbs. I am fine with that, because at age 37 I have a playground in my neighborhood. The fairgrounds are a 5 minute bike ride from my hotel room. That means that I am 5 minutes away from: a BMX track, a pump track, 4 dirt jump lines and some "north-shore-style-stunts." (For those of you who don't get the bike thing and are still reading this, think: swing-sets, slides, teeter-totters, and jungle-gyms...for bikes.) Since the rain is supposedly on its way here and I will only be in this neighborhood for a week or so more, I have been playing in my personal playground at every opportunity. In three weeks of playing, I still hold the record for the oldest guy to hit the big dirt-jump line.

None of these points are why we moved to Salem. The real reason was that Akiko couldn't handle 2.5 hours a day in the car to get back and forth from work. This issue became particularly pressing as we got closer to harvest time, which is in full swing right now, although the harvest here is kids stuff compared to the German harvest.

Akiko is generally working 6-10 hours per day 5-6 days per week. The times that I was lucky enough to experience the harvest in Germany the teams were working 10-18 hours per day 6-7 days per week. (I jumped in at my leisure for a few days and it was hard work.) The big difference here in the US, is that "white people don't drive tractors." That is the nice way to say that migrant labor does all of the really hard work: picking the grapes, loading the trucks, etc. If you take the picking and the transportation out of the harvest work load, you've got easy street. While it is still a bit or work and requires know-how and experience to get the grapes from the trucks to the tanks, it is a lot easier if you don't spend 6 hours of your morning picking and schlepping grapes.

I am sure there are, in fact I KNOW there are, wine makers somewhere in Orygun or the US for that matter that actually work in the field; pruning, harvesting, spraying, etc., but I am surprised by how many do not. At the same time I am surprised by how many also claim to know "their" grapes intimately. That is tough to do without getting mud on your boots.

OK, before I say something I will regret, let me move on to my goal for the day.

So, I picked our day in Badlands for today's show and tell. The Badlands are an incredible visual experience, especially if one includes the approach to them. The portion of South Dakota to the east of the badlands is Microsoft Windows desktop prairie. Rolling green hills, blue skies and puffy white clouds. As much as we all tried we weren't able to get a decent shot of this landscape from the car at 70 mph. We could have stopped, if there had actually been anywhere to stop and if we hadn't been trying to make time. At the time it didn't seem worth while, but in retrospect I wish we had taken a minute to get a shot of the MS Windows prairie.

So as we approached Badlands we were looking up at the horizon looking for jagged peaks and huge bowls. All we saw were lots of small gullies in the plains from erosion. Some of the larger gullies were brutally carved out with impressive features, but where were these maze like canyons carved into mountains? The "duh moment" came as we crested a large MS Windows knoll. There below us were the Badlands carved *into* the prairie floor. Upon seeing it for the first time it was a shock. A little reflection where we were helped it make sense. Or the other way around, made it obvious that there couldn't really be a mini-rocky mountain popping up out of the South Dakota prairie.

This photo almost looks unreal. Part of that is because of the weird blur line half between infinite distance and very close. There may have been a drop of water on the lens as we did get hit by some rain clouds. One way or the other the colors and the shape were just incredible. This photo does not do the dramatic changes across the strata any justice.

This shot shows some of the other colors that were in the soil and the rock. I think we saw red, green, purple, pink, blue, black, bone white, yellow and orange rock and soil in a time frame of about three hours. All of that with a back drop of blue skies, which explains the poor contrast (brutal midday sun).

Another shot showing the beautiful blue skies and the colorful strata. Whoever took this picture must have one leg shorter than the other...I guess that's me.

Maki and Akiko. Yikes.

Akiko and I. No comment.

Not a terribly flattering view of it, but this campsite was actually very nice, clean and cheap. I think we paid $10. The photos above are only about 5 minutes from the campsite, which was flat as a pancake.

I am half drunk. Maki is freezing. We tried warming the plates to keep the food warm, it was windy and cold. The steaks and the mushrooms were great, but could have been hotter. The trouble with Maki, Akiko and I is that we all love beer, wine and food. The usual routine after a day in the car was to break out some beers to unwind. Whip up a small snack to eat with the beers, while drinking beer. Have a couple of beers with the small snack. The ladies would run off to shower while I fed the dogs and drank more beer. When the ladies were back we would start cooking dinner while finishing the beer and getting the first bottle of wine started. Generally by time we got done eating is a good ways past midnight and we were all pretty much cross eyed. Once we hit bear country we were forced to slightly modify this routine. I said, "slightly."

Akiko says I spoil the dog. It was damned cold (actually it wasn't that cold, but it had been in the 90s during the day) out under the open skies and the poor old dog was freezing. She's nothing but skin and bones these days.

We got up the next day and hit Mt. Rushmore and Crazyhorse and camped at the foot of Devil's Tower. Maybe I'll get around to posting that sometime before Christmas.