Went faster than I expected.
The trailer should be cozy and dry for another year. I guess replacing the $100 top every year is kind of like paying really cheap storage fees!
Cars and Trailers – random stuff
First off, recent windstorms yanked the top off the vinyl carport that protects our old Airstream from rain. This is the second time we’ve had to replace the roof. The frame has been holding up just fine since it’s attached to the shop, but the fabric has a more limited lifespan.
And here’s a picture of our car parked at work, next to the landlord’s car – same car, different colors! His is a newer model, so there’s a few other differences, but I did have a customer come in on a day when the yellow car was there and our green one was not, and ask if we’d had our car repainted yellow!
A good recall
After two years of working on ‘come’, Barclay has really been doing well at it, even coming back in the house when he’d rather stay out and play – which I try to make very rewarding for him. Today at dusk we were out in the pasture, and I was sitting under the cover taking pictures of the rain running off the roof, and Barclay and Jack were way out at the other end of the field in the rain. I called Barclay, twice because it was raining so hard, and he perked up and heard me, turned to see where I was, and then RAN back to me at TOP SPEED! He was probably 200 ft away sniffing around with Jack, and he dropped everything and came running back – I was so proud of him! And of course I didn’t have any treats, so we played for a bit instead, which made him very happy – he’d rather play than have treats anyway 🙂
Trip to the beach
Dave and I haven’t had a chance to get away for a long time, so today we took a fun day-trip to the beach. We started by heading North to Longview and crossing the Columbia there to get back on the Oregon side. Heading North to get to Oregon seems wrong, but it works.
Paper mill and container ship on the Columbia at Longview, WA.
We headed down to Fort Stevens on an exploratory visit to prepare for an Airstream Trailer rally we are organizing in March. After checking out the park we went to see the Peter Iredale shipwreck,
As you can see we were quite a ways back from it, the water was coming in.
Immediately after getting this picture we were looking at the camera screen going ‘hey, we got it, nice shot’, when we realized the wave was still coming up the beach! We turned and ran as fast as we could, laughing the whole way, all the way to the dunes!
I looked back and snapped this picture, look how much deeper the water is around the ship, and the HUGE logs the wave pulled down across the sand.
We headed North to Longbeach and stopped to visit the boardwalk and watch the far off waves cresting and throwing spray high into the air.
Near the parking lot they had this wonderful relief map of the NW, showing all our favorite mountains.
I got down low so it looked just like flying up the Columbia river towards home…
OMG!! What’s that hideous monster?!!
We were taking the back way out of Ilwaco and ran across this neat little vacation spot.
There was one Airstream mixed in there, mostly Spartans, a Silver Streak, and a couple I couldn’t name. Neat find! I love old Spartans!
That was a really fun day, wandering up and down the coast with my wonderful hubby!
Making Marmalade
I felt adventurous today and made preserves. Marmalade to be exact. I was watching Good Eats a couple nights ago, and he was showing how to make Orange Marmalade, and mentioned that the best Marmalade oranges, Sevilles, were only available for a short time in January. So of course I thought ‘hey, it’s January now!’, and ran right out and bought some. Boy, talk about your bitter oranges – yikes! Those things are nasty!
I had a little help in the kitchen…
So I cut them up, cooked them up, got all the canning stuff ready – I went over and helped a friend can tomatoes this summer to learn how, so I was eager for something to can – and then I had a little problem. The recipe said to cook the Marmalade to 222 degrees after adding the sugar. That turned into a horrible mess! The thick, sugary mix was popping and throwing hot lava everywhere, and it hung at 219 for the longest time before it finally reached the goal – and by then it had scorched on the bottom and gotten quite dark – not bright and orange like marmalade should be.
I went ahead and canned it anyway. I wanted the experience of using the hot water bath canning method. It all seems to have sealed well. I figured if it’s terrible I’ve only wasted a few lids. What I tasted of it before I canned it tasted very bitter and scorched.
When I got done, I had a big pot of boiling water on the stove, and since I bought a whole chicken to bake for dinner, I cut it up and threw the less attractive bits into the pot, along with some carrots, celery, onion, herbs and tah-dah…
Mmm, homemade chicken stock – so the day isn’t a complete loss!
Barclay and Jack
It’s a funny angle, but look at Barclay’s beautiful eyes!
Jack, getting all crazy with the ball!
When Barclay gets hot he takes a dip in the pond
Playing with a tennis ball – it floats!
Off for a little exploration in the deep grass
Dodge Stealth
Dave’s car is a 1993 Dodge Stealth, and for the last few months we’ve had a broken window regulator on the passenger side. When I first looked for a replacement part, it was around $170! So we wedged the window up and put up with it for a few months. After Christmas we decided to splurge, and found the part for around $100, so tonight I spent a fun evening installing it.
Installing the new part was no problem, but when I reassembled the door and put the door panel back on, I went to shut the door and thought – I should test the door locks. To my horror, they refused to lock! They would lock and immediately unlock again. Argh! I took the door panel back off and fought with a bit, thinking something was jamming it up, brought Dave out to help, and the solution seemed to be that it didn’t want to lock the doors with the key in the ignition and the doors open. Maybe it’s programmed to stop you from locking the keys in the car? Either way we eventually decided enough was enough, put it back together, and called it done!
Goodbye Darol
This is a picture some friends took at an Airstream campout a couple years ago. Around the back from left to right is me, Dave (looking like a hippy), Don, Janet, and the guy in front with the umbrella is Darol. I just got a note this week that Darol had passed away from leukemia right after the holidays.
Darol was a great guy. I met him a few years ago because he was into restoring Airstreams, and he lived right down the road from me, so it was natural to run into him. I loved going to his house to visit and see what projects he was working on. He was a master craftsman. Everything he did wasn’t finished until it was perfect. He always found the most elegant solutions for problems. Nothing was overdone, it was always just done right. He restored a number of Airstreams which are with happy owners around the NW.
When I was restoring my Airstream and had troubles he was always a phone call away, and he came over a couple times to help me screw down the floor, or fix my water tank where it had cracked. He helped me plan the install of the new furnace, and finished up my clumsy attempt at cabinetry by lifting the fridge and building an extra drawer under it. Everything he touched was better when he got done with it, something I can’t necessarily say about my own efforts.
We had a great time camping, and I loved going over to his house and we’d sit out on the back patio, listening to his stories about being a shop teacher in Alberta, or being drafted at the tail end of Vietnam and ending up being a military phone operator, or of the boats and Airstreams he’d built. He had tons of interesting stories to tell, and told the funniest Sven & Ollie jokes you ever heard, and could have everyone roaring around the campfire.
I have been thinking about Darol a lot. I would have enjoyed another ten years of hearing his stories. He was just a genuinely nice guy, talented, great fun to camp with. He had a dry wit and a wry sense of humor. I think the lesson he left us is to enjoy every day, and don’t put doing those things you love off too long. None of us know how much time we have left to wander around and see the world, and of course the best part of any trip is the fine people you meet along the way.
Community Theater
My husband volunteers with a local community theater (that’s him getting ready to play the wolf in ‘Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe’ 2 years ago. He acts, directs, and designs and builds sets (not all at once, for different productions). And of course I get roped into helping build things, ushering, anything that doesn’t require being the center of attention.
Last night the theater had their first annual end-of-year awards. It was a celebration of their first year in their own location. Prior to this year the theater had performed in various locations, ending in a big baptist church near downtown Vancouver. Now they have their own theater right downtown, and it was paid for with both money, and sweat equity. Although it had been a theater, there was a lot of work to do when they arrived to turn it into what they wanted and needed. They ended up with a beautiful little theater, and have put on a variety of great productions in it for their first year.
The amazing thing about the theater is that it is a ‘community’ theater. Which means the workers are all volunteers (there are very few paid positions), and all members of the community who just want to be involved in their spare time. The result is incredible. Brilliant musicians and singers who are engineers or stay-at-home moms by day, and light up the stage by night. Policemen who are actors, tech writers who do props, teachers who handle video production or sew costumes, and many many others who show up whenever needed and do what they can. And the result is this pool of talent that really pulls off putting on great shows and look good and are entertaining to watch. Behind it all is Jaynie, a wonderful British lady who uses her accent and +1 charm to get people to do what needs to be done – and works tirelessly at it herself!
So last night as they handed out awards and everyone had a laugh watching retrospective videos of the year, it really was amazing to realize the auditorium was full of regular joes you would run into through your day, a cashier at Home Depot or the guy who owns the local toy store, and yet here they all were coming together to make this wonderful thing happen. Pretty amazing!
Barclay gets stuck
If only he had stayed in bed! But instead he went out this morning and chased the stray cat who lives in our hay shed and went right under the floor of the shed – where there was apparently a cat-sized exit hole, but not a dog sized one! So while the cat skedadled off and dissapeared, Barclay was left under the floor, crying and whining. I called him, but he just cried back. I pulled back all the plywood panels to get access under there, and I could hear him, but I was hesitant to climb under there in the dark, spidery recesses. I went and got a flashlight, with his cries in my ears the whole way and ran back, but flashing it around and calling him, I still couldn’t see where he was. Then I thought ‘If I crawl under there and get stuck…’, so I left the flashlight under there and ran back to the house to call Dave who was on his way into town. Just as Dave answered his cell Barclay come running out of the shed at top speed – still looking for that cat!
So a happy ending for all, but I don’t even want to think what if he had really gotten stuck – I suddenly had images of disassembling the shed on the spot! Or if he’d gotten stuck down there when nobody knew where he was. I guess that will be my job for tomorrow – seal up the hole that goes under the shed better, and find out if I can get a trap for that damn cat!
Steff Does Stuff! 
