Tuesday, 17 November 2015
White Salmon, Washington – Cedarville, California
Waking up in the cliffhanger, again tranquil serene Buddhist-like moments jolted by the awareness that he was hanging over a cliff, Sir Thomas hopped out of bed and caught up with some writing. Little Prince Cian was awake shortly after wanting “ki ki” a term he uses for “cereal”, “cake”, and/or “muffins”. So they headed into the Kitchen where Sir Kevin lay asleep on the couch. After a breakfast of cereal, Prince Cian wanted to play with his cars proceeded by a frosty sprint of jumping on the trampoline while seeing one’s own breath. Lady Etain woke up shortly after, and the adventurers headed into Hood River to get on the internet at Starbucks to check on tire prices, repair shops, etc. Sir Kevin’s father in law, Sir Glen, got in touch with his friend the mechanic who could fix their bearing issue. Sir Thomas Leaf had a few days prior picked up the wheel hub/bearings ($200) at a fraction of the cost that Les Schwab wanted to charge them to repair the issue ($500) but were lacking the tools to do it themselves. The mechanic friend was willing to throw it on for $50 cash. So Onward the adventurers drove to the Dalles and hit the shop. An hour later, the bearings were done. They drove to Sir Glen’s house, picked up the heated water hoses for Sir Kevin and caught up with the parents. On the way back to White Salmon, they pit stopped at Starbucks to check on orders and messages – a good thing they did as Sir Thomas’ boss had messaged to see if he was able to connect to any of the projects. Apparently the main office had his wrong phone number, so they connected with the team leader and found out they needed to be in Cedarville tonight (a 9 hour drive in pouring down winter rain / snow weather). So they high-tailed it to the cliffhanger, packed up their gear, gave Sir Kevin his hose, hooked up the trailer, said farewells, and hit the wintery rain drenched roads south. Heavy windstorms rocked the trailer and made travel slow, branches and fallen trees scattered across the roads heading south. After Bend and heading down towards Cedarville, ice-covered roads off Forest road 9 near the Surprise Valley/Barrel Springs back country byway made travelling risky and got the adventurers lost trying to find Cedarville at 4 am. They pit stopped in Alturas for gas, mailed off some beet root powder to a amazon customer in Florida, and then drove over the pass down into Cedarville to the hotel. Sir Thomas’ crew chief hid his room key in the gas cap of his car, the adventurers unloaded and Sir Thomas caught two hours of shut-eye before awaking to join the crew. It was a rough night.