Jack and Mrs Elliott Move to Bend

You Can't Camp Here Anymore

2012-01-29T07:25:00.000-08:00

If you're someone who doesn't like to camp in fee campgrounds and is used to camping wherever you could drive to in the Deschutes or Ocheco National Forests or the Crooked River Grasslands, you may find that your favorite lovely dispersed campsites where you could set up a tent are no longer legal sites.

According to this press release "Deschutes and Ochoco National Forests and Crooked River Grassland to Implement New Motor Vehicle Use Rules" decisions were made in 2011 to enforce new Motor Vehicle Use Rules in 2012. Among other things, the new set of rules changes the conditions for motor vehicle access off of designated roads for dispersed camping."

There are two salient points that affect Mrs Elliott's and my camping.

First, prior to this new set of rules, unless a forestry or use road was posted as closed, you could drive it. Now, all roads are closed unless they are posted as open on a Motor Vehicle Use Map.

Second, where previously a fellow could camp any place that was not posted as closed, "Motorized access for dispersed camping is only allowed to existing sites within 300 feet of roads shown on the Motor Vehicle Use Map [...]."

This means that you can't camp on any site that is more than 300' from the road, and that road has to be one of the ones shown as open on the map.

Jack picked up a set of the new Motor Vehicle Use Maps (free) from the Deschutes National Forest Headquarters in Bend (new location on Deschutes Market Road) last week. The seven maps that cover the two national forests are large, 3 foot by 4 foot, and printed both sides. They are very detailed and very depressing. This because the riverside and lakeshore places where he and Mrs Elliott like to camp are outside the 300' corridor and even the pretty sites that Jack hoped would not be affected, such as the south end of Crane Prairie Reservoir, are off-limits.

See the press release for more information.

New Bakery Downtown

2012-01-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

Located in the space formerly occupied by the Bond St. Market, La Magie Bakery opened their doors for business for the first time today. High-end French pastries are what they are about, according to the nice lady working there who somehow tricked Jack into buying an apple turnover.

949 NW Bond St.
lamagiebakery.com

Call for Suggestion: Cabin

2012-01-27T18:05:00.000-08:00

My birthday is coming up in March -- another year older! Not necessarily wiser.

I would like to find a nice cabin near Bend or Sisters or Sunriver or Maupin to rent for a couple nights, and I'm looking for suggestions.

Not resorty, I don't want a place that feels hoity-toity, don't want a spa or a restaurant, don't even want housekeepers. No one knocking on the door to change the towels, just a basic kitchen and a pile of firewood.

It could be part of a lodge, it could be just one of a string of fishing cabins; I do want a place with staff, it being March and no telling what the weather might do.

Clean, snuggy, no highway noise; a pretty location, and a sense of privacy, a place where a fellow can be alone with his thoughts.

If you know a place that sounds like this, click on the "comment" button (below). I won't publish your post unless you ask me to. Otherwise, it's a private message. Thank you.

Brother Jon's Downtown Opening Date

2012-01-26T14:26:00.000-08:00

For those who are fans of BroJo's (and Jack is), mark your calender for February 1, the date they are scheduled to open their new downtown location at the former site of The Decoy and then the Bond Street Grill.

That is all.

The Ancient and Manly Ritual of Soap, Brush and Blade

2012-01-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

Friend, fellow blogger, Bend's honorary goodwill ambassador, and (gag) "Bend treasure," H. Bruce Miller, has turned me on to a new obsession.

For many, many years, Jack has shaved his rugged, manly face and chiseled chin with a Gillette Mach3 razor: a system with a cheap handle and expensive three-bladed cartridges. This, along with Edge Shave Gel, gave Jack what he thought was a pretty good shave.

But during conversation over a game of chess a few months ago, the matter of shaving came up, as it does with well-groomed gentlemen. Bruce let on that he used the India-made Parker double-edge razor with Japanese Feather brand blades.

A double-edge, or safety, razor. The blades are of of honed steel. Multi-bladed injection-molded cartridge razors are to this as Miller Lite is to real beer.

I paid little attention at the time; this idle bit of conversation sank without a ripple into my aged and creaky brain as swiftly as the names of people to whom I have been recently been introduced, unavoidably and regrettably forgotten almost immediately.

But like a good aftershave, the idea lingered. It had attraction: it suggested gadgetry (which I love), and connoisseuroisty* (which I also love); it appealed to me and a seed was planted which eventually flowered into curiosity and, shortly thereafter, into acquisition.

For Christmas I asked for a hard rubber shaving mug, the kind you could rattle a shaving brush around in without fear of breaking or loud rattly noises. My admirable daughter obliged.

And once that thing was in my hands, I was hooked.

Within a week, I had ordered an Edwin Jagger DE87 safety razor, a puck of Mitchell's Wool Fat shaving soap, a Simpson badger shaving brush, a bespoke Dirty Bird pottery scuttle,** an assortment of blades, a styptic pencil to quench the newbie hemorrhaging, other necessary accouterments such as lotions, aftershaves and balms, and cheerfully embarked on the quest for a manly man's Damn Fine Shave.

At time of writing, I've only been shaving with the razor for a few weeks. I am but a tyro, a newbie. It is harder than shaving with a cartridge razor. It requires practice and skillfulness. One must proceed mindfully.

I nicked myself a lot at the beginning.

Some brands of blades are sharper than others and beginners need to be careful. After trying several blades, I've settled on Gillette 7 O' Clock "Yellow" blades as a comfortable and effective blade to use while I develop my skill.

I'm getting better; my shaves are becoming dependably baby-butt smooth and miles better than anything I ever got from a supermarket blade. I'm glad I switched. Supermarket cartridge razors are clearly the Two Buck Chuck of shaving.

I'm enjoying, as Bruce says, "[...] the ancient and manly ritual of soap, brush and blade." And, like he found, "[...] it gives a better and more comfortable shave."

But is it manly enough? Bob Woodward, former Bend mayor, local mountain biker, Scottish beer afficionado, occasional writer for The Source Weekly, raconteur, and man-about-town tells me that he shaves with a straight razor:

Jack is just too uncoördinated to use such a thing. Jack can't chop two onions without lopping off a fingertip.

============
* A neologism a day keeps lazy readers at bay.

** Not yet here; Dirty Bird scuttles are hand-made.

New Place for Ribs

2012-01-24T12:08:00.000-08:00

Player's Bar & Grill on the west side is not the first place that comes to mind when I'm looking for some eats. It ain't one of Bend's more upscale establishments.

But I was tooling down Century Drive around lunch time yesterday, entertaining the idea of getting some barbecue ribs from Baldy's when I saw this sign in front of Players:

I've never been in Players before, but it was pretty much like I expected: video gambling machines, pool table, several TVs tuned to random channels (I saw ODOTs video feeds of road conditions on one, some kind of dog race on another), jukebox, beer and liquor posters.

There were three people at the bar, two guys and one woman, but the place was otherwise empty. The two guys were in the middle of a conversation. One was a large white man who looked like Jessie Ventura; the other was even larger, and black.

I walked up and their conversation stopped. The Jessie Ventura guy studied me from behind a pair of sunglasses.

"You must be Big Troy," I said to the other guy. "On account of your cook's apron."

I am, he said.

"My name is Jack Elliott and I am in the mood for some barbecue. What do you have?"

Ribs, is what he had. St. Louis style.

Perfect.

Big Troy is soft-spoken and Big Troy is big. Big Troy sports size sixteen feet, he said. "Double wide."

I ordered a half-rack of ribs, which was all he had left after the weekend. A half-rack, no sides, is eight dollars. That's at least a couple bucks less than what you'll pay at Baldy's or Slic's, the other two prominent BBQ shops in town.

While Big Troy was working up the order, I overheard the bartender ask the Jessie Ventura-looking guy if he wanted another beer.

"How many have I had?"

Two, said the bartender.

"Sure."

I carried my ribs home for lunch and they were the best I've had in Central Oregon so far. Big Troy grills them for nine hours which makes them tender. And there's lots of meat on the bones, maybe 30% more than the other shops provide.

Big Troy's opened last Thursday. Call ahead for take-out at 541 389-2558, or stop in to enjoy the fine ambiance of Players. It might not be the most salubrious place in town, but with the addition of Big Troy, the place is now on my radar.

Brick and Mortar Loses Again

2012-01-21T17:36:00.000-08:00

I don't expect stores to carry every single weird item I want to buy; It's unrealistic because: 1. I'm a quirky fellow, and (B) a store is probably doing gangbusters if it carries 90% of what customers are looking for.

But boy did the stupid big-box stores disappoint this week.

Case #1. Buying an Aftershave at Target.

Target's a fine store, my daughter works for Target and we are both grateful that her employer is very flexible and willing to accommodate college students' schedules. But dang it, I drove all the way out to our Target on Wednesday morning -- rainy and slushy and mashed potato-y heaps of brown snow all over the roads Wednesday morning -- to buy a bottle of aftershave* listed at target.com as "In Stores."

By "In Stores" they mean "Hey, you never know, you could luck out and your local Target might actually have this stuff on the shelf, but don't count on it."

A Target employee, a nice lady, did a stock check for me and found no evidence that the product had ever been in the store.

Irritated, but trying not to be, I walked across the street to another big-box store for my next pu

Case #2. Buying a Surround-Sound Test DVD at Best Buy.

Best Buy. Synonymous with home appliances, blue polo shirts, and Geek Squad-optimized batteries.

And home theater gear.

"Can I help you?"

Yeah, hey, I'm looking for a surround-sound demo disk. Something to exercise the system, confirm operation in Dolby AC-3, DTS, 5.1, 6.1 -- all the fun stuff."

"I'm sure we have that."

He took me to another fellow. I describe again what I was looking for.

"Any DVD or Blu-Ray with THX will do it."

No, I want something for testing different digital formats like Dolby, DTS.

He thought for a moment. Said they didn't have anything like that.

My shoulders sagged. I dug deep into my suitcase of fortitude and strength and proceeded.

Case #3. Clear Switch Plates from Home Depot.

Mrs Elliott had the living room repainted a couple of weeks ago, and we wanted to get rid of the stainless steel covers on the wall switches and electrical outlets, and replace them with clear plastic ones painted on the backside with the same color as the walls. I've done that in a few rooms of the house and it helps blend them in.

But Home Depot, the place where I bought the last batch, no longer carries them.

I can probably get them at Ace Hardware, I thought. But have I lack gruntle right now. So it's easier to grouse:

So, kids, what did we learn today?

Timmy? Yes, that's right: shopping online won.

==============
* "Sex Appeal" by Jovan. Mrs Elliott likes it. That's good enough for

Gratitude

2012-01-19T16:51:00.000-08:00

Patrick O'Hearn's "Beyond This Moment" is on the stereo.

The light outside my kitchen is fading into evening indigo. This, after a gorgeous afternoon of sun and rainbowage (yeah, Mrs Elliott and I saw it).

I guess it doesn't take much to perk me up. Gimmie four hours of cheerful sunlight after two, three days of gray and slush and I feel like I've been repaid, with interest.

In Recognition of Style

2012-01-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

Fellow blogger and friend H. Bruce Miller, who is (according to two [2] people in Bend) a "Bend treasure," and I were at Sideline sports bar last Saturday to watch the 49ers and the Saints play a very exciting game of American football when this guy caught my eye:

Sorry -- the iPhone's camera is lousy in low-light situations.

Or rather, it was his hat that caught my eye.

No, wait...to be honest, it was because this guy totally rocked that hat.

"It's a Bailey," he said when I told him that he looked great.

(This was not a man crush. Not much of one, anyway. It's a case of where the man had style and I had to give him props.)

I'm not sure if it was the hat, the black shirt, the black suspenders, or the way he totally flirted with every woman at the bar, even those 30 years his junior--but the man exuded confidence.

The only thing that could have made this picture better is if he had been holding a poker hand and a cigar instead of a goddamn iPhone in a pink "My Little Pony" case.

But still . . . he hit on every girl.

Sigh.

He's my hero.

[Note: the hitting on every girl thing? I'm just joking.]

A Tale of Three Beefs Burgundy

2012-01-09T08:04:00.001-08:00

Throwing myself onto the grenade again for the likes of you, I tried three versions of this venerable recipe, in order:

Tony Bourdains's Boeuf Bourguignon (from Les Halles Cookbook and also here)
Julia Childs's Boeuf Bourguignon (as shown here), and
Cook's Illustrated's Beef Burgundy (link here)

For ease of preparation, Bourdain's recipe wins, and it tastes great.
Childs's recipe is more difficult than Bourdain's, and it trails far behind in terms of taste.
Cook's Illustrated recipe is fairly difficult, and is guaranteed to fill the house with smoke, but OMFG it is incredibly tasty. Mouth-wateringly rich taste. Stunning.

All three are all-day recipes. Plan ahead.

Bill Evans and Shaving

2012-01-05T18:20:00.000-08:00

Bill Evans ("Complete Bill Evans On Verve") on the stereo right now.

After banging together a highly-successful Shepherd's Pie and a whole pan of (zero carb) fudge last night, I'm taking a break from fancy cooking. Got me some hot wings from Newport Market and a glass of cheap red wine tonight.

Mr. Obama did what many Republican Presidents have done in the past: made appointments when congress was not in session. The GOP is outraged, but find anything they are not outraged by these days that doesn't involve giving the rich and corporations more tax breaks or promoting things that Christians like and I'll give you a buck.

(By the way, comments are turned off for anyone who wants to argue about this matter: forget it: this is my blog, get your own.)

Mrs Elliott came home from errands this afternoon and gave me a big smooch on the cheek.

I'm a lucky guy.

Some of my favorite television shows are returning after winter hiatus; and it's high time, too: a fellow can only watch so many Cheers reruns on Amazon. But some shows I enjoyed, like Bored to Death, have been canceled. Oh well. As an educated white man I know I am supposed to be thrilled that Downton Abbey is starting up again, but it's only a mildly-interesting show at best.

Soapier shows, your ladyshows, like The Good Wife and Revenge are also raising their heads. Mrs Elliott enjoys them and I find them tolerable. But other shows she likes, like The Bachelor are, to me, stupid. I'm sure she feels the same way about the stupid shows I like, such as The League, The Life and Times of Tim, and Beavis and Butthead.

Heck, even I know they are stupid.

Mrs Elliott doesn't care for Dexter, and frankly, after this last season's cartoonish episodes, I have doubts about it, too.

I'd like to watch Portlandia, having heard it's quite good, but our Bend Broadband tier o' shows does not include IFC, and I'll be damned if I'll pony up more bucks for one show. Amazon streams it for something outrageous like $4 an episode in HD. I can't justify that.

No sir, I just don't like it.*

Shaving. Yes, it's time to talk about shaving. Last year, H. Bruce Miller ("A Bend Treasure," Bend's unofficial goodwill ambassador) told me that he shaves exclusively with a safety razor -- a double-edge (DE) razor -- not one of your pathetic plastic multi-blade cartridge razors like I have been shaving with for the past four decades.

I was intrigued. Was I missing something?

So for Christmas I asked my kids to get me some DE shaving tackle: a shaving brush, a shaving mug, and a razor. They got me one out of three (the mug) but let me tell you: even getting one thing I asked for for Christmas from my kids is a friggin' miracle.

I took it upon myself to order up a nice razor (Edwin Jagger DE 87), some hard shaving soap (Mitchell's Wool Fat), a good brush (Vie-Long Gonzalo), an assortment of blades, and then shopped around town for other items like a good pre-shave oil (Burt's Bees Vitamin E and Citrus Bath & Body Oil) and a nice astringent aftershave (Thayer's Witch Hazel Aftershave) -- both found at Newport Market; and read plenty of shaving articles and fora online, and watched a few shaving instructionals on that YouTube.

(Where were we before the Internet?).

Plunging in, I started shaving with the new tackle a week ago. It's a different technique than using a pivoting Mach 3 blade: less pressure, no long strokes, more attention to each stroke.

Bruce loaned me a pack of the ultra-sharp Feather brand blades (Japan) which are not recommended for newbies, but Jack tends to try to skip the baby steps, and a few nicks and weepers aside, some initial fumbling, I'm now getting a closer, sweeter shave than I've ever experienced. I'm talking a baby-butt smooth finish which lasts for nearly 24 hours.

Pivoting cartridge razors, I'm seeing, are the automatic transmission of razors; double-edged razors are your manual transmission: much more control.

I have fine-tuning to do. Everyone's skin and beard are different and there are dozens and dozens of DE blades on the market, from far-flung places like Russia, Finland, Japan, Israel, Turkey, England, and elsewhere, to try. Each has characteristic qualities -- finish, plating, honing, etc., -- that work well with some skins and beards and not so good with others.

This shouldn't take more than a couple years to sort out.

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* A pint of local ale for the first to come up with the animated show from which I lifted that line.

In Short

2012-01-04T16:19:00.000-08:00

Need to catch up!

I finally had a chance to eat at Slick's Que Co., on NE Revere. Had the baby back ribs. No doubt about it, they are better than Baldy's. A couple bucks more (full rack is $22), but they are more meaty. Recommended.

My kids visited for Christmas, and I used the event as an excuse to cook some fine food and drink some fine wine. I made coq au vin for Christmas Eve, and prime rib and crème brûlée on Christmas day. Once again, I managed to NOT set the kitchen afire with my Ace Hardware propane torch.

New Year's Eve is also our wedding anniversary. Mrs Elliott and I stayed at Five Pine Lodge in Sisters, an outstandingly well-appointed and luxurious place. Also on property is the Shibui Spa, which Jack is mildly irritated at.

You see, when he booked the hotel room through TripAdvisor he received this coupon:

Even the untrained eye will see that this coupon has some ambiguous language. We booked the room in October for December 31, but the coupon says that is is good no later than November 30.

However, it also says, "[...] receive a 10% discount on any spa treatment during your stay!" [Emphasis mine.]

It's pointless to offer a discount for a period of time when customers are not staying at the hotel.

Now, Shibui could have jumped either of two ways on this when I asked about it: They might have honored the spirit of the coupon (the "during your stay" part) or they might have tried to save a few bucks by denying the discount due to it being outside the pointless redemption date.

Guess which way they jumped? Yup, no discount, sorry.

Guess what I did? I didn't book the couple's massages. They lost a decent sale trying to save 10%. Not your most effective customer service or business practice.

We had dinner at Jen's Garden, also in Sisters. A lovely six-course prix fixe menu with wine pairings. Thoroughly delightful.

I checked my weight after the holidays, and hadn't gained a pound. That's amazing.

AND FINALLY, GO DUCKS!!! The Rose Bowl game was great fun. Next year's schedule has already been posted and my calendar has been marked.

Sunday Morning Wrapup

2011-12-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

Mrs Elliott hosted her company's annual employee-appreciation Christmas holiday dinner Friday night, this time at the Jackalope Grill restaurant down where south Division hits 3rd Street.

It was very tasty. The wine list is lots of fun.

I knocked about downtown Saturday morning. Jack and Mrs Elliott have this new gift agreement that for Christmas* we'd only buy each other these swell Sid Dickens wall tiles (carried by Haven Homestyle, and if I was a crime novelist I'd pick "Sid Dickens" as my pen name); the idea being that each year we will each buy one tile for the other, and by doing so create a collection, an accumulation that I'll bang up on the living room wall.

But a week ago she let drop that she was also buying me "stocking stuffers."

With this announcement, she upped the game. Because it does not do for a man, even a man as handsome and generous and good-smelling a man as Jack, to give fewer gifts to his wife than he receives, I felt a sudden need to find a whole bunch of pretty and thoughtful things to stuff her stocking with.

And (adding additional urgency), my son, my daughter and her boyfriend are coming by for Christmas morning to see what Santa brought.**

So thar I wuz, shopping downtown -- shop local! -- looking for things to give them.

I found some pretty nice little items. They are presently in my camper van on the driveway. Nothing I bought will freeze, so I reckon it's the safest place (read: less chance of accidental discovery by snoopy Missus McMissus) to keep them.

A few weeks ago I tried a recipe for French Chicken in a Pot found in Cook's Illustrated magazine. It didn't turn out satisfactorily because it was undercooked. I'm re-doing the recipe today, with adjustments. This is how we learn: make mistakes, see what went wrong, try again with corrections.

[Update: the adjusted version is wonderful.]

Bond Street Barber Shop has a new barber, Alicia. She does a fine job with Jack's thinning hair. Better than the dudes. Jim, the owner, is presently looking like Uncle Fester from the TV series "The Addams Family" due to both eyes having been blackened by blepharoplasty (upper eyelid surgery). Everyone is urged to drop by and make fun of him.

Go Ducks. Yeah, another Rose Bowl. I read someplace that the Oregon Ducks have been to the Rose Bowl five times but have not won since 1917. It's high time. At time of publication, Las Vegas odds makers are giving the Ducks a six-point lead. But barber shop's Jim says they'll win by 12 points. Keeping the faith, he says.

Does one trust a barber when making a wager?

Lowes Home Improvement recently folded like a bunch of spineless cowards when some Florida dipship right-wing bunch of Baptist assholes decided that the TV show American Muslim was not, you know, Islamaphobic enough and went after the advertisers, one of which was Lowes. The company promptly, and cravenly, responded by pulling their advertising. "Tough choice," said Mrs Elliott, "either way you're going to lose customers." Fuck 'em, I said, they made the wrong choice, they chose discrimination, prejudice, and ignorance. Wrong side of history. ***

I mention this because I learned that Lowes is the only shop that carries the particular brand of mortar cement sealant that the guy doing the re-mortaring of our fireplace recommends and am not disposed to spend a pfennig at Lowes right now.

So I did a little research and learned that Home Depot carries a perfectly cromulent tile and mortar sealant, the 511 Tile Impregnator, by Miracle Sealants.

Home Depot wins, I'll be shopping there this morning.

Mrs Elliott is wrapping presents. I'm writing this stupid blog.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

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* Jack is not a Christian, but he did grow up with European/American's version of the Christian winter holiday traditions. Hey -- once you've had the whole Christmas tree and Santa thing, you can't go back.

** My son lives here in Bend, and is a locksmith at Bend Lock and Safe. He is excellent. My daughter goes to UC Irvine and just finished her first quarter on the Dean's list. I'm very proud of her. Her boyfriend seems a nice fellow. (I reserve judgement, as any good father should. Not for any reason, but just because.)

They are pale blonds, both of them. I mean like elves from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, and seeing them was positively unnerving; not helped in the least by the fact that Beth has pointy ears.

But now she rocks black hair, and with her green eyes, is a total knockout.

*** Neither is Jack a Muslim.

I Spotted . . .

2011-12-13T18:47:00.000-08:00

. . . this sign today:

In this window downtown:

Anyone know what that's all about?

Missed My Chance!

2011-12-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

I posted someplace, probably on H. Bruce Miller's* blog, "Bend Sux" (available by subscription here), something like a couple months ago, that were we to get an Indian summer here in Bend I might be tempted to take an end-of-the-season backpacking trip into the Cascades.

That trip never happened, mainly because I was (a) thinking September, maybe October at the latest, and (b) thinking "backpacking" instead of the more umbrellaic** term "camping."

The result of these blinders to my thinking, my too-narrow focus, is that when the weather up in the Cascades degraded quickly into dangerously-cold and possibly treacherous conditions, I simply stopped thinking about the outdoors as a destination.

BUT, had I been open to the idea of "early December," and "camping," then I would have seen that this extraordinarily sweet weather we've had for the past three weeks would have been ideal for me to take my VW poptop camper van out to the real high desert to watch a couple glorious sunrises and sunsets and relish the skies.

He who snoozes, loses. But from this mistake, I vow that forevermore I will be alert enough to see when Ma Nature has tossed us sweet sunny days.

IN OTHER NEWS, I have been sleeping much much better these days, due to the diagnostic powers of Dr. Weintrob, N.P., at Glow Medicine here in Bend. Just puttin' the word out -- she does well by me. Anxiety under control, totally, and now improved sleep. Your mileage may vary. Oh, she totally looks like Minnie Driver.

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* A citizen of Argentina, H. Bruce Miller emigrated to Bend in 1927. Named "Bend's Goodwill Ambassador" every year from 1995 until date of publication, Miller and his lovely wife, Sharon, live on Bend's unfashionable east side. Nice house though. I'm just saying.
** "A neologism a day keeps Alzheimer's at bay." -- Bosco Peen.

Beef Bourguignon Derby: Results

2011-11-29T06:36:00.001-08:00

No question about it, Tony Bourdain's version is much tastier, richer, than Julia Child's.

Perhaps Child's is more authentic, maybe Bourdain's is a version tweaked for maximum taste and easier preparation. I dunno.

I've been looking at the recipes, side by side, trying to discover the reason for the difference. (See my previous post for links to the two recipes).

In terms of ingredients, Bourdain bases his broth on 1 cu wine + water. Child uses 3 cu wine + beef broth. For the broth, I purchased Stock Options, an expensive frozen beef broth which I found to be somewhat watery. But even so, watery beef broth should be richer-tasting than water, n'est-ce pas?

Wine-wise, for Bourdain I used a Burgundy as suggested. For Child, a Cotes-du-Rhone, also as suggested. There's a difference, sure, but I don't know how much influence that would have on the final dish.

Bourdain uses four onions, six carrots; Child uses one of each.

Child cooks, separately, some small white onions to add at the end, they do not influence the taste of the broth, as she has us dumping the onion-cooking broth.

Bourdain calls for "neck or shoulder" of beef, cut into 1'' cubes (chuck seems to fill the bill), and cooked 2 hours or until tender; Child asks for "stew meat" cut into 2'' cubes, cooked 3 to 4 hours until tender. The latter was stringier and tougher than the former. Same meat counter used for both.

I'm guessing that the additional richness of the Bourdain recipe must be mainly due to the larger amount of onion and carrot. There's little else I can see that could account for it. Unless, in my amateur chef ignorance, I am overlooking an important but subtle cooking chemistry detail as it might be a matter of preparation, rather than ingredients.

I tasted both dishes when they were fresh, and also let them sleep overnight in the refrigerator, then re-heated them for a second tasting. In both cases, this improved the flavor, but Child's was still a distant second.

As it stands, the Bourdain recipe, being easier and tastier, will become my standard basic one and based on the outcome of these two version, I have ordered his cookbook. Need to find something challenging, sublime -- and delicious! to prepare for Christmas eve meal w/ my kids.

Beef Bourguignon Derby

2011-11-27T16:13:00.001-08:00

We went down to San Diego for Thanksgiving. Got home last night at midnight.

After a great Thanksgiving feast, what does a boy's heart turn to?

Why, Beef Bourguignon, of course!

Last week I cooked Tony Bourdain's recipe.

Today I am cooking Julia Child's. Hers is more complicated.

But is it better? Bourdain is no slouch in the kitchen.

Our judges (Mrs Elliott and I) are standing by.

The Problem with Salad as We Know It

2011-11-21T16:55:00.001-08:00

I had an epiphany last night. I finally sussed out the basic problem with salad.

There's too much damn lettuce.

On a volumetric basis, the ratio of lettuce to the other (tasty) stuff is about 20:1.

But it gets worse: On the Piltdown Standardized Taste Scale (revised, 1994), the ratio of stuff you just have to plow through* (lettuce) to the stuff that has flavor is closer to 1000:1.

The goddamn lettuce is the problem. Lettuce is promoted by the Benevolent Loyal Protective Order of Lettuce and Other Filler Leaves Grower's Association and Marching Band, and their powerful Washington lobby. They have influenced the FDA, the USDA, the FDIC, and both patriotic hard-working and thoughtless lazy-ass Americans alike (I'll let you guess which category I belong to) that the basis of a salad is always a buttload of crap lettuce topped off with just a paltry, meager handful of anything genuinely interesting.

This is plain wrong. And I have three reasons why:

First, lettuce provides nothing worthwhile nutritionally.

Second, after mowing through a pile of lettuce the size of a toss pillow in search of something -- anything -- worth eating exhausts my jaw muscles and brings on a bout of TMJ.

Finally, I'm regular. I don't need a mass of watery, fibrous rubbish queasily gurgling about my lower gut to accomplish what I normally do. Two or three times a day (photos available upon request).

Jack won't stand for it any more. Jack is going to put down his high heel, put his fist on his hip, and declare a "low lettuce" lifestyle. The stuff is not worth eating. It performs no function and gets between me and the things I care to eat.

Someone puts a bowl of lettuce in front of me with a meager few interesting things hidden away like some goddamn Easter eggs peppered about a 20-acre meadow, and I'm handing it back with a "what the f*** is this crap? I ordered a chicken salad, not a goddamn lettuce salad."

==============
* Fine, Howard & Howard, 2006, Lettuce: WTF Is This Tasteless Crap In My Salad!, Journal of the American Dietary Association, 09;302(10):1107-1109. doi:10.1001/jada.2006.1301

Yet Another Household Improvement Project: Kitchen Hardware edition

2011-11-18T11:17:00.001-08:00

Meanwhile, in the ranch house kitchen, Mrs Elliott announced that it was high time I got around to replacing the stainless steel hardware on the kitchen cabinets and drawers with the desired rubbed bronze birdcage type. Such as this:

I had to go online to find pulls, knobs, and hinges that fit the existing cabinets. The local stores don't carry the sizes we need. This because the previous owner fabricated his own drawer pulls and didn't use standard hole spacing, and since I'm not interested in modifying all 15 drawers with new holes (which would necessitate repainting all of them).

After searching through a number of surprisingly disorganized online stores, I found suitable pulls--I think.

One site has the desired design in 160mm spacing, which is very close to the right size and it will work. But that mfgr doesn't make one for the oddball 4-3/4'' pull that I need for one skinny drawer, but another mfgr's line has one 120mm, which is very close, and it may match well enough with the other pulls to blend.

These are not common sizes, common sizes have the holes either far wider or far narrower than what we need here, so fingers crossed the parts will fit and look good.

Hinges are also a mystery, there being dozens of hinge types and me not interested in re-engineering the cabinet doors, but Mike and I have determined that what we got here are probably "3/8" Inset Self-Closing Face Mount Hinges" most likely made by Amerock.

For the cabinet knobs, we will use these:

It all should look nice. Here's our inspiration:

Of course, that kitchen is much larger than ours.

Another Household Project: Living Room Improvements

2011-11-17T15:15:00.001-08:00

The living room is getting a facelift here at Chez Elliott. The basic idea is to put new tiles in front of the fireplace hearth along with new carpeting. This, like many ambitious projects, has to be done in stages:

Stage 1: Prep the room so there is power for a new floor-heating system (electrician, drywall work, painting).
Stage 2: Lay down new tiles in front of the fireplace (mason/tile guy).
Stage 3: Install the carpet pad (carpet installers)
Stage 4: Lay in the floor-heating mats, route the wiring to the wall (me).
Stage 5: Connect the heating mats to the wall wiring (electrician, again).
Stage 6: Lay down the new carpeting (them carpet installer dudes, again)

(Background): The carpet in the living room does not suit Mrs Elliott. The previous owners picked a color that is colder than she likes. She longs for a warmer color and is drawn to wheat-colored carpet.

A few months ago she took home a number of carpet samples in marginally differing shades of wheat and has since then been vacillating over them and has narrowed down the selection to two or three samples.

She is coming close to making up her mind.

Thinking about the project, I had this brainstorm: The living room is sunken and cold air pools on the floor making it chilly (unless the woodstove downstairs is cooking). It seems to me that that heating the floor would be helpful.

I poked about on the Internet and found that the usual way to heat a floor is to pour a thin layer of concrete with a grid of heating wires embedded into it. That's expensive.

Then I came across a product in the form of a thin electrically-heated mat designed for under-carpet applications. These Environ II mats come in a number of sizes, are UL approved, and installation is simple: simply tape the mat down to the carpet pad, route the wires to a wall-mount thermostat, and put your carpet over it.

A pair of 6 foot by 10 foot mats would cover 70% of the room, and keep Mrs Elliott's feetsies warm.

AND (here's the lucky part), because there is a Cadet wall heater in the room (put in when the room's electrically-heated ceiling system failed) we have 240 volts right where we need it. Which is what the mats like.

Perfect.

We hired Joe Hawkins (a great electrician here in Bend) to pull the old wall heater, drill the needed wire-routing holes into the wall and floor, put in conduit, and install a new junction box for the new thermostat -- all the wiring needed to light up the mats.

With that done, master carpenter and handyman Mike Accardo patched the big hole in the wall where the heater had come out, mudded around the new thermostat junction box, then sprayed texture so the work would blend into the surrounding wall.

Using a weenie roller, I did the final priming and painting. You can't tell that the wall had surgery.

We can now move onto the next stage: new tiles in front of the fireplace. These had to wait for the electrical work because they will cover the floor beneath the old heater location: the new conduit had to go in before the tiles go down.

Mrs Elliott has been thinking what tiles to use nearly as long as she's been considering which wheat-colored carpet she wants. But the tiles have been bought and the tile guys are coming tomorrow.

Test Driving Juniper Firewood

2011-11-17T07:46:00.001-08:00

Our house goes through about four cords of firewood every winter. The house was built in the '70s and did not come with a furnace. It relied on electrically heated ceilings, most of which have failed and are unrepairable. Little 1500 watt Cadet wall heaters were subsequently installed in some of the rooms, but those are about as useful as hair driers (also 1500 watts) for keeping the downstairs, where Mrs Elliott's employees work, comfortable.

The previous owners put a very efficient wood stove insert into the downstairs fireplace, and I added a blower to it. As long as there is wood burning in the stove, the whole house is suffused with heat.

For our first three winters here I purchased Lodgepole pine, four cords every fall, split and stacked.

But softwoods are not my favorite firewood: not a lot of btu's/cord and the stuff burns up quickly. I used to burn oak in a woodstove down in a '30s-era house in Vista, Calif., and loved it. It packs a lot more btu's per stick and burns more steadily.

But we don't have hardwood here in Central Oregon.

So this year I decided to switch to juniper. Your Western Juniper weighs more and packs more btu's than our Lodgepole pine, about 18% greater in both cases (weight pretty much translates directly into heat).

The woodstove seems to be happy with it. And I really like how it burns in the upstairs fireplace. Where pine burns quickly and needs constant replenishing, juniper, in comparison, burns more slowly and constantly, and I don't need to keep feeding sticks into the fire.

Juniper smells like incense, too.

The guys who brought the wood told me that juniper clogs up a chimney with creosote faster than pine. I'll call my chimneysweep dude and see what he thinks.

Household Project: Covering the Deck

2011-11-15T16:08:00.001-08:00

My Project: Yesterday morning, Mike Accardo of Quality Interior Works (seriously competent carpenter and nice guy), came in the morning to build a drip cover over the house's lower southeast deck to keep it dry in winter.

Casa Elliott has four decks: two upstairs and two downstairs. Rain and snowmelt drips down from the upper decks to to the lower decks, making them unsuitable places to store bicycles (six of which are presently clogging our garage) or other items which can be damaged by water during winter. An expensive metal toolbox with drawers, filled with the specialized tools used for bicycle maintenance, got totally soaked and trashed by snowmelt last year, despite my best efforts to keep it covered under a tarp; and the composite wood top on my nice workbench is now warped beyond recovery.

Enough.

I need a covered spot that will stay dry through winter and spring and asked Mike to help come up with a way to protect the lower deck area. Since the wood for the decks is quite nice, we need a waterproof roof above the lower deck which does not look hideous.

Mike suggested transparent corrugated plastic and I thought it was a good idea. After some discussion, we came up with a way to mount the panels above the deck, framed in with 2x2 wood stock, which he ripped from 2x4's for better appearance, stained to match the decks. The result is quite unobtrusive and looks good.

Now I can move the bikes down to the deck.

My plan is to mount a big ol' 2x6 board on the side of the house with a half-dozen J-hooks on it to hang the bikes from.

Nice to have that finally sorted out.

Mrs Elliott was out yesterday evening, giving Jack the opportunity to catch up on a back episode of Dexter, something she does not care to watch. I had a nice Napa Cabernet and a grilled ribeye steak w/ A1 sauce (it came out dry on the outside before the inside was cooked, I have to work on my grill-pan-fu) and a decent Gorgonzola.

Reckon I just need to order the full set of hardware and see if it mounts up.

Taste-testing Canned Diced Tomatoes

2011-11-07T06:57:00.000-08:00

Here in the Elliott Test Kitchen, Jack made Chicken Cacciatore for dinner last night. The recipe calls for diced tomatoes and near as I can tell, there are no good fresh tomatoes to be found in Bend this time of year. The supermarkets ones are brought from far away and aren't very tomato-y tasting, so I planned to use canned toms. And I got it into my head to do a taste-test of a few.

So from our local Safeway, I bought four different canned diced tomatoes. We opened them and tasted them, and wow! what a difference!

Two were just terrible, tasting thin, metallic, and with a bitter chemical aftertaste. Two were quite delicious. All four brands listed the same exact ingredients on the can label: tomatoes, tomato juice, salt, calcium chloride, and citric acid.

From worst to best:

Hunt's Diced Tomatoes
Safeway's Petite Diced Tomatoes
Muir Glenn Organic Diced Tomatoes
Hunt's Petite Diced Tomatoes

Mrs Elliott and I disagreed about whether the Muir's Glenn or the Hunt's Petite was the best. The MG had a sweet, ripe tomato taste which she preferred, the Hunt's Petites were brighter-tasting, like fresh toms, a taste I prefer. A quibble, they were both quite good.

Next time I make something that needs canned toms, I'm going to re-do the test to see if these rankings still hold. There might be batch-to-batch variations and given how terrible the two worst tasted, one should confirm that the toms taste good before using. They're cheap, anyway, so it's not a big deal to dump a couple cans if they don't make the grade.

Oh -- the cacciatore was delicious. I used my new stainless steel saute pan and it was a pleasure to cook with, and cleaned easily.

To Fairfield and Back, a Pictorial Extravaganza!

2011-11-06T14:49:00.000-08:00

Rather than write a few thousand words, I'll post a few pictures, in no particular order. Most are of Mrs Elliott.

Jack's Halloween costume. Fairfield, Calif.

Mrs Elliott and granddaughter, working on a jigsaw puzzle. Fairfield, Calif.

This would be Mrs Elliott and an old school friend, Gary. He and his lovely wife Guia own the Lost Whale Inn, a sweet B&B. Trinidad, Calif.,

I saw how the light caught her face and had to take this shot. Some coffee shop, don't remember where.

View from our window at Ireland's Rustic Cabins, Gold's Beach, Ore.,

Mrs Elliott, Gold's Beach, Ore.

The grandkids on Halloween day. Jessie and Buzz Lightyear from "Toy Story," and a princess. Fairfield, Calif.

Late afternoon at Gold's Beach, looking northward.

Gold's Beach, view to the south.

Jack and Mrs Elliott, Lost Whale Inn, Trinidad, Calif.

Mrs Elliott, Gold's Beach, Ore.

Sock-Changin' Day

2011-11-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

Last night, Mrs Elliott and I returned from a six-night car trip down to Sacramento area via 97 to Weed, and down I-5, and then back up following a route through the wine country to the coast and up to Florence, where we turned inland and drove directly to Bend.

I may write more about the trip tomorrow or soon, but what I want to write about at this moment is sock changing day.

Yes, sock-changing day; a day which occurs twice a year with the change of the seasons, for Jack has but a small bedside dresser for his folded clothes, his undies and socks; and Jack likes plenty of socks, so poor Jack is unable to keep both the warm season socks (the cotton ones) and the cold season socks (those of wool) in the drawer at the same time. There just isn't room.

Thus sock-changing day, a day where the out-of-season socks are replaced with the in-season ones.

Going back to last weekend, the weather forecast predicted a week of not dangerously low freezing temps, so I saw I didn't need to worry about sprinkler pipes yet. But those of you who live here know the value of the local weather forecasts. So instead of the promised non-sprinkler-pipe-threatening weather, Bend was seeing temperatures predominately below freezing.

Seeing this, I was moved to place a call to our sprinkler winterizing guy to request a prompt blowout. I didn't arrange for it before we left because it just seemed too early to shut off the plant irrigation and it could wait until after we returned; so yes, I played chicken with the weather. And though I won (no frozen pipes or sprinklers), it was a costly victory in terms of energy-sapping worrying while getting the job lined up.

Back to now: We're home, and the house has picked up some chill.

There's this window in the living room where the double-paned glazed window has been removed and replaced with a thin sheet of acrylic with an incredibly heavy air conditioner poking through. That needs to be winterized by re-installing the window for winter. There's the fact that the outside air is much colder now than when we left; and we cannot overlook the importance that Daylight Saving Time is packing its valise for tomorrow morning's departure. Like a dear lifelong friend, DST promises, as always, to return next year.

Jack's no fool and can read the signs. So cotton socks are OUT, woolens are IN. The out of season socks live in a nylon duffle bag in the garage, awaiting the return of the warm season. I hope DST doesn't also have to live in a nylon duffle bag.

Tonight's Menu Will Be . . .

2011-10-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

...Ancho Chili-Spiced Grilled Chicken with Fennel.

The highly-attractive and functional Mrs Elliott and I will be tackling this recipe tonight.

It took me a bit of searching to find ancho chili powder. Struck out at the first two markets I tried. Drove to La Colima, the Mexican food store near the corner of Greenwood & 3rd. Looked around a bit at the spices, didn't see any ancho.

There was a tiny Latina stocking the shelf nearby.

"Necesito chile ancho molido," I said to her.

"Chile ancho molido!" she said cheerfully, and pointed to a bag of guajillo chili powder on the rack.

"Guajillo," I said. "Es lo mismo de ancho?"

"Si," she said, said seriously.

Not entirely convinced. "Es verdad?"

"Si, si, es lo mismo! Es ancho!"

Okay, well, what the heck. Maybe a regional difference. Besides, 99 cents ... a smaller amount of the same spice at Newport Market would have cost over two bucks. At Whole Foods it would have been $5 for a bottle, but it would be organically raised and fair traded, I'm sure.

I got the bag and wandered around the store to see what else they had. Found Diet Coke in a can. Do you know how hard it is to find a single, chilled, 12 oz can of Coke these days? All your Kwik-e-Marts sell anymore are the larger 16 oz Cokes in a plastic bottle. I don't like plastic bottles, they don't seem to keep the drink as cold as an aluminum can (probably not true but it feels that way), are probably laden with something horrible like BPA, and 16 oz is more than I care to drink at a sitting.

80 cents. Score!

The nice lady at the cash register asked if I needed a bag.

"Necesita bolsa?"

"No, gracias."

My Spanish exhausted, I got out of the shop for $1.79, drove home, and checked the Google to see if guajillo chilies were the same as ancho chilies. Turns out that they are not exactly the same, but the two are often used in tandem in many traditional dishes. I'm sure it'll be tasty.

Tucking the Garden in

2011-10-28T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here at chez Elliott, Jack has been getting the yard ready for winter's slumber and spring's awakening.

One thing we are focusing on is flowers. Mrs Elliott likes flowers and she likes lots of them, and we learned a few things about gardening in Bend last season.

First, perennials alone are not showy enough for her, so plenty of annuals need to be planted to plump up the yard; and second, if you're going to plant bulbs, which offer reliable flowers in late spring where annuals and the other perennials are not yet up to speed, you need to plant a buttload of them. ("Buttload" is a technical term meaning a large quantity but not as much as an assload, and a lot less than a shitload.)

This time last fall we planted a few dozen fancy bulbs I purchased from the Central Oregon Master Gardener Association. I've never done bulbs before and always wanted to. They all flowered and they were all pretty, but not showy enough, meaning there weren't enough of them to impress.

Meanwhile, over in the valley, our friend Michael Hill of Sweeney Pond had also planted bulbs, but rather than planting a few fancy ones, he planted great clusters of inexpensive Costco and Fred Meyer tulips. It looked spectacular and he had plenty for flower vases.

So that's what Jack did yesterday. With the help of a hired guy, something like 400 or 500 Fred Meyer bulbs went into the ground. Daffodils, anemones, hyacinths, and Dutch irises in the front yard, and a mess of tulips and ranunculus in the back yard, where deer can't get to them. To make room for the bulbs we moved a bunch of perennials and some of last year's bulbs out of the way, applying compost and root stimulant; I feel pretty confident that they'll survive the transplanting.

Knowing that after flowering, your bulb-y plants don't look so pretty while they are sittin' and gatherin' sunlight and nutrients, gettin' ready for the the following spring, we left plenty of room in front of the bulb gardens to plant annuals into.

In the back yard, petunias, annual geraniums, and marigolds provided Mrs Elliott with a lot of pleasure this summer, so we'll repeat that. Out front, I don't yet know what annuals to use. Don't need them ending up as deer pellets.

I reckon that that's something to research during winter.

I outlined the various bulb beds using bone meal for the planting guy, and while the bulbs were going in, I wandered about, deadheading and trimming the perennials, trimmed the lawn down to its final, short, length to reduce the amount of tender blades which are susceptible to frostbite (or the plant equivalent), and applied some winterizing fertilizer, which will be stored in the roots until spring and give the grass a robust start.

Sometime next week I'll spray a lawn antifungal on the grass to protect it from snow mold, something that chewed large holes in the lawn on the north terrace (i.e., front yard).

Of the three young aspens we planted between our house and the one next door, one dropped its leaves quickly without going through fall color, and I feared it might be dead and was mentally preparing to pull it and plug in a new one. But the guy at the nursery told me to check the trunk and see if the layer (the cambium) under the bark was green, which indicates that the tree is not dead, and lo and behold, it is green, so I won't lose hope yet.

Something else I did wrong last year was not water the rhododendrons in the front in winter. They dried up and died. Turns out that they, and other shrubs that are not yet established, need water in winter like they do in summer. Who knew?

With the sprinkling system shut off, I guess I'll just water those plants with a bucket, trudging through the snow, and see if I can keep the replacement rhodies alive.

Anyway, at the end of the day yesterday, Jack was pretty darn tired. A cup of hot sencha and a bottle of Alsatian wine helped my flagging energy and spirits.

I've got a bit more to do before winter sets in. Plenty of leaves to rake, for sure. Still have four cords of firewood to source. Gonna try juniper this year.

There's a covering to be put under a part of our deck to keep rainwater and snowmelt off items I want to store there for the winter.

Each year I hope to make the yard prettier and prettier. It does so please Mrs Elliott.

It Breaks My Heart

2011-10-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

I placed an ad on the Bend branch of craigslist.com today for someone to help Mrs Elliott and me plant a buttload* of bulbs (my pot-metal knee and fused ankle don't make kneeling and doing ground-level work possible).

I posted the ad eight hours ago. I've received nearly 30 call and a few emails. Here's an example of an email:

My name is (redacted) and I am interested in the garden help gig available. I am a 32 yr old father and husband with a strong work ethic and experienced in outdoor labor. I have open availability and transportation if the opportunity is still there. Thank you for reading and considering! I can be reached at (redacted).

Cripes. How's a girl to deal with such an onslaught of heart-tugging messages like that? Who do you hire?

============
* Buttload: technical term. noun; a great quantity. Not as much as an ass-load or a shit-load

Farm Fresh Eggs Hard to Find

2011-10-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

My first taste of farm-fresh eggs came in spring when Mrs Elliott and I took a class in raising backyard chickens. The class was through C.O.C.C. and put on by the folks at Celebrate the Seasons on American Loop in S.E. Bend.

We decided that chickens required more care than we wanted to give, Mrs Elliott especially finding the idea of going out into the snow of winter every day to tend to them unappealing, so we had to take a pass on the idea. But we didn't take a pass on buying a dozen of their fresh eggs.

Jack found them revelatory. Such taste, such richness! It was like having your first cup of quality coffee from someone like Lone Pine or Thump after a lifetime of drinking Maxwell House.

And opening the carton was like opening a box of mixed chocolates: the eye is greeted with an assortment of eggs ranging in size from pretty darn small to quite large, and in various shades of green, browns and tans, and white. Uniform egg sizes and colors don't come from a random assortment of hens.

When eaten, my goodness. Jack vowed that supermarket eggs, with their uniformity and pallid, tasteless yolks, would no longer disgrace his breakfast plate.

So I continued to pop over to Celebrate the Seasons to buy eggs, a dozen at a time. It's an across-town drive for me, and they didn't always have eggs, and though I initially tried to call ahead to see if the trip would be worth it, they could not be counted on to answer the phone or return calls, so on a couple occasions, I returned empty-handed and had to subsist on supermarket eggs.

By happy chance I discovered that Devore's, the little hippy store on the west side, carried Great American Egg eggs and I tried a dozen and found them to be nearly as good as CTS's, but there was an availability problem there, too. Four times out of five there were no eggs to be had at Devores.

According to one of the fellows that worked there, Great American Egg diverted a lot of their eggs to their own booth at the farmer's markets and were selling the eggs for the same price as the store did, pocketing the difference between wholesale and retail price.

I twice attempted to buy my eggs from GAE's booth at the farmer's market, and they were sold out both times. Another vendor there also sold eggs, but they weren't as good.

Nature's Market in the Wagner Mall carries two brands of farm eggs, but they are spendier and also not as good, kind of straddling the world of factory eggs and farm eggs, age-, taste- and uniformity-wise. And they come in rattly clear plastic cartons. I rather preferred using the cardboard containers and returning them for possible re-use.

I struck out at Newport Market. They have a big selection of eggs, but all are the relatively-tasteless factory eggs. I guarantee that if you took an empty egg carton and filled it with one egg from each of the many brands they stock, you'd find they all tasted the same.

Ranging out to Whole Foods I found no fresh eggs. I buttonholed the egg guy to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything. "I won't lie to you," he said. "I grew up on a dairy farm and I know what you mean about fresh eggs being better than factory eggs, but we don't carry any."

Sigh.

So for this weekend, with a foodie houseguest, I wanted to have good eggs on hand for a Sunday omelette brunch. On Thursday I called CTS and was greeted by the answering machine. Without much hope of getting a response, I left a message anyway.

I was surprised the next day when Julie called me back on Friday. She said that egg production had been slow for a while due to the hens molting, but they had enough to set two dozen aside for me for pickup on Saturday.

But when we got there at midday, there was no Julie and there were no eggs. I was irritated.

That was my last straw with them. One expects a small operation to have an availability problem, but one shouldn't have to deal with being blown off.

There's gotta be a better way than dealing with flaky, undependable operations like that, and maybe this is as good as it's gonna get in Bend.

Or maybe not: Tom, the guy in charge of eggs at Newport Market, told me that the store was in negotiation with a poultry farm near Powell Butte to put farm-fresh eggs on the shelf.

Hurry up, Tom. You don't just sell crappy Yuban and MJB coffee, you also sell great coffee from local roasters; see what you can do in the egg department.

Pear Flambé Redux: Jack Loses Hair, Eyebrows

2011-10-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, Mrs Elliott and Jack hosted a dinner party for Bend's most beloved personality, H. Bruce Miller, and his lovely wife. For dessert, Jack attempted Pears Flambé and succeeded; i.e., he did not set fire to the kitchen.

This weekend, we had a house guest, long-time friend Michael Hill of Sweeney Pond, in Alsea, Ore., and Jack wanted to reprise this spectacular dish, but not in the kitchen: for maximum ooh and aah factor, the dish would be prepared beside the dinner table.

I set up a portable butane stove, and used a brand-new 12-inch stainless skillet purpose-bought for this dish.

Over medium-high heat the pan heated, a little clarified butter added, the pears went in, followed by 1/3rd cup of spiced rum, then lit with a long-nose lighter.

There was a satisfactory fireball. Quite impressive.

Served with vanilla ice cream, a red wine and orange reduction sauce, a sprinkle of orange zest, and sprig of mint, it was a lovely dessert. As I sat to take my first taste, I wondered why the dish tasted like burnt hair.

I examined myself this morning. The damage isn't too bad: some loss of eyebrows and hair. Not a big deal. But next time I'll lean back more, and wear a hat.

Training to Seattle: The Road Home

2011-10-21T07:42:00.000-07:00

Our sojourn back to Tacoma for our final night before returning the rented car and picking up the Coast Starlight took us across Puget Sound on a ferry to Bainbridge Island. Back in the old days, the '70s, when I was in that lounge band I mentioned previously, our Seattle-based agent's parents lived on Bainbridge. I've never been to the island and wanted to check it out.

Make him stop!

There was this guy playing Celtic harp on the ferry. He had his CDs on display for sale. I like Celtic music and their harp, but when he announced that the next tune he was going to play was one he wrote called "The Festival of the Orcas," I was, like, gag me. Seriously. I swear, only truly wimpy white guys would write songs with titles like "The Festival of the Orcas."

We knocked about Winslow, Bainbridge's main village. Not much there, there. Mainly a series of shops and restaurants bound together by a mutual disregard for any unifying architectural theme or style; a bunch of random but not particularly attractive buildings.

Though the shops obviously target tourists (the population of the island cannot support Winslow's candle and kitsch emporia alone), Bainbridge seems less a tourist attraction than a place where people live, which is fine. I've lived in a few tourist towns, like Santa Barbara, San Diego, and now Bend. Touristy towns put on an effort to appear charming or quirky, Winslow makes only little visible effort in that regard. It looks like the shops scrape enough dollars off the hides of passing tourists to satisfy the local economy without having to resort to tarting the place up.

Might be a pleasant-enough place to live. There are certainly many large, handsome houses along the waterfront, but Jack has a suspicion that the best he could afford on that island would be some little uninspired house well back from the water's edge, buried in the dark, dark forest.

We drove north, up the 305 (I'm from SoCal, we say "the 305"), crossed over the sound on Agate Pass Bridge, then south on highway 3, to the 16, across the Tacoma Narrow Bridge, and into Tacoma.

Before picking a hotel for our final night, we made a stop at the Harmon Pub to fetch a scarf that Mrs Elliott had left there three days before (I have written previously about her unique way of making room in her luggage for acquisitions: "She tends to lighten her suitcase as she travels. Not intentionally, but dependably. Hats, scarves, cell phone chargers are often left behind.")

On this trip she played it safe, bringing two jackets (one, a downhill ski jacket well-suited to take on Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the second a warm wool cape), and purchased a third jacket, also of sturdy and sensible wool, while in Seattle.

We settled at the Hotel Murano, in Tacoma's downtown. The hotel is quite nice and has an extensive collection of glass art. Since the dining room was too dark for reading; and Tacoma's downtown apparently shuts down at night (the streets are oddly quiet even in the day), we ended up back at the Harmon Pub, which is well-lit, not noisy, and has perfectly adequate food.

Returning the rental car and boarding the southbound Starlight Express was a stress-free experience (C.f. The Horrors Of Flying in a Post-9/11 World); and the trip back to Chemult was uneventful and perfectly comfortable.

I avoided the dining car's disconcerting texture-free chicken this time.

I brought along my Kindle with a few books on it. For those keeping track at home, the titles included Life, by Keith Richards; Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep (Zones of Thought); Into the Silence, by Wade Davis; and Role Models by John Waters. I didn't read them all, I'm not some kind of speed-reading fool, but did finish two.

Thank you for listening. There will be a pop quiz.

Training To Seattle: Jack Gets Man Pants -- really

2011-10-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

After knocking about Seattle the rest of the day, we walked to the spa, Ummelina, where we had earlier booked our massages. A nice young woman led Mrs Elliott and me to the changing room.

"You will find bathrobes for both of you in your booths."

Holding open the curtain to my booth, she lowered her voice, "Jack, here are also pants for you."

They were knee-length, made of unbleached cotton, with a drawstring. Puzzled, I took off my clothes, donned the shorts and bathrobe and the young woman led us out of the room.

"Now would be a good time to visit the bathroom before getting your footbath and shower," she said while we trailed behind.

"Well," I said, "I don't need to use the bathroom now, but when you get my age you never know!"

She laughed. "You're so funny, Jack!"

We were made comfortable in nice chairs in a special rest and relaxation room where the foot guy tried to get us to select our aromatherapy scents -- but we resisted, finding the whole concept of picking out a special fragrance for our feet absurdly indulgent. He was invited to pick.

After washing our feet, foot guy left, hauling out the wash water. Of course, no sooner than he was gone I found that the splashing of the water had sweet-talked my bladder into declaring that it was time for a pee.

But we were alone in the room, so I had to wait. I started to get a bit uncomfortable. Fortunately, the young woman showed up.

"I have to go to the bathroom," I told her.

She laughed. "You're so funny, Jack!"

And left. She must have thought I was kidding around. After a few more minutes, she returned.

"Um, when I said I needed to go to the bathroom, I meant it," I explained.

"Oh, sorry. Okay, follow me!"

She led me through a minor labyrinth of corridors and through doorways to the bathroom. "Okay, when you're done, just come on back to where your wife is waiting."

Since I didn't know I'd need to find my own way back, I hadn't been paying attention. I told her I'd need a guide to lead me back.

She laughed. "You're so funny, Jack!"

I was getting a bit tired of being so funny.

Once back in the sitting room, I leaned over to Mrs Elliott and asked her why I needed to wear pants.

"You're wearing pants?"

"Yeah -- I was given pants in the changing room to put on."

She had no idea.

The young woman returned again to introduce us to our massage therapists. Mine was named Rose.

As Rose led me down the hall to the massage room, I asked in a low voice, "Rose, why do I need to wear pants?"

"You're wearing pants?"

"Yeah -- I was given pants in the changing room to put on."

She paused, looking a bit puzzled. "Well...I guess that sometimes men are uncomfortable and want to make sure to cover up when they are getting their feet washed."

"What -- afraid their dangly bits might be visible?" I found the idea silly. Women know how to keep their ladyparts covered . . . are my fellow men mentally deficient or something?

Anyway, Rose said they were optional and I didn't need to wear them during the massage.

Which, by the way, was exceptional. I've received (and given) lots of massages, taken course with Mrs Elliott, and like getting massaged. Rose's style of slow, deep pressure was perfect. Ummelina + Rose = highly recommended.

Next: We ferry to Bainbridge Island to check it out, then return to Tacoma for our last night before boarding the morning Starlight Express back to Chemult.

Training to Seattle: Jack gets Man Pants

2011-10-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

For our last full day in Seattle, Mrs Elliott proposed that we get massages in evening, her treat, an idea I heartily embraced (Jack knows a thing or two about sponging). The Inn at the Marketplace's in-room massage service was pretty spendy so we left to the streets in search of the city's equivalent of the Source Weekly and found two promising rags, both free.

Over breakfast we perused the classifieds. Although both publications sported two full pages of four-color ads promoting attractive ladies in revealing attire who were said to be qualified to provide a a number of pleasant experiences, Mrs Elliott, for some reason, refused to consider giving any of these nice-looking ladies (or gents, the ads target a number of predilections and orientations) a call, and instead focused on other, less-interesting ads placed by massage therapists who didn't even post their pictures, in revealing attire or otherwise!

She told me to settle down.

And she says I'm not fun.

We called the numbers of the half dozen or so massage therapists who looked promising but no one called back.

So we did the Google thing and found a spa on 4th street, just three blocks from the hotel, and booked an appointment for two 60-minute massages, later that day.

This accomplished, we continued to wander about the downtown. Some pictures:

Mrs Elliott, ominously backlit

Rat Man

Rat Dogs

Couple a nitwits.

Yesterday's tomorrow, today!
That expression on Mrs Elliott's face? That's her dopey "Me like roadside attractions" face. Click here to see it again.

We rode the monorail from downtown to the Space Needle. In the future, it seems, monorails go very very slowly. As do the elevators that bring one up to the observation deck. It was a pretty impressive view of the city, at any rate, even though we had a hazy day. On the way back, the driver let Mrs Elliott honk the train's horn. Beep beep!

This post is long enough already. I must defer Jack Gets Man Pants for the next episode.

Training to Seattle: The Touristy Things

2011-10-19T14:51:00.000-07:00

Before we could go to Seattle there were a couple more clients to visit in the south sound. We drove back to Tacoma from Olympia to visit the Glass Museum before Mrs Elliott met with the day's first client at Indochine restaurant. She reports that it is a fine restaurant. While they were lunching on exotic foods, I was parked at the Harmon pub for pub food and a glass (or two) of wine. Nice pub, perfectly cromulent.

Then a brief stop in Bellevue for the final businessy meeting.

Since we didn't have a place in Seattle to stay, I remained in the car while Mrs Elliott visited her final client and plugged the address of a highly-regarded hotel, the Inn at the Market, into the GPS, figuring that that would get us downtown so we could scope out the situation. Meanwhile, Mrs Elliott asked her client where he'd recommend staying near the waterfront and he replied, "Inn at the Market."

So we parked in front the Inn at the Market and found they had an off-season deal, and the hotel was ideally-located next to the Pike Place Market and other shops, and looked great, so we booked a room for two nights.

And yeah, we did touristy things: visited the market, shopped the shops. I told Mrs Elliott that because she was being good that she could try on hats if she wanted. But only try, not buy. She completely ignored me and bought herself a new hat.

Looks pretty cute, too.

We had quite good food in Seattle. A little French cafe next to the hotel was perfect for breakfast, and Etta's Seafood restaurant on Pike Place was delicious. The ling cod was extraordinary.

Downtown Seattle has its fair share of fearsome homeless and cracked-out street people. But the city and cops seem to have made it very clear that civilians are not to be frightened or hassled. No one pan-handled. Yeah, there was one scary-looking guy standing on the street shouting curses and threats, but he was pretty clearly lost in a delusion.

Making tourists feel safe is important, especially in a city like Seattle which is a destination for Chinese and Japanese people. Travel in America is viewed with a certain amount of fear -- we have a high-crime culture and physical crimes like robbery and muggings are far more common here than in Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong, and certainly Japan and Singapore. And scary black people in tattered clothes panhandling or approaching could make your usual small group of Japanese tourists feel very nervous. But I saw none of that.

I spent some time trying to determine what it is that makes tourists look different from locals. Here are some of my conclusions:

Locals are usually alone, tourists travel in couples or brought the whole damn family along.
Tourists rubberneck while walking, looking up at signs, into shops, scanning faces and landmarks, locals watch the ground in front of their feet.
Tourists stop at intersections to regroup and decide where to go next, locals know where they are going.
Tourists dress as though they are on safari, employing fanny packs and fisherman's pocketed vests for their travel tackle. Locals pack a wallet in a pocket.

Here, some friendly gal took a shot of us in the Market.

Puttering around Pike Place Market

Next: The Space Needle! And, Jack wears man pants at spa.

Training to Seattle: Best Western Tacoma Dome Hotel -- uh, no thanks.

2011-10-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Today's Amtrak diner is a bit less well-dressed.

Once you've ridden a train in a third-world (or second world, for that matter) country, you realize that Amtrak could be a lot worse. It's not until one has taken trains in Europe and Japan that one sees how the shabby Amtrak is.

But the Coast Starlight departed from Chemult on time, and Mrs Elliott and I grabbed a table in the observation car so we could watch the scenery as we cruised over the Cascades through some lovely countryside. We had a commentator in the car, a volunteer railfan guy who described the history of the railroad and the area we were passing through. He was exceptionally good at pointing out various geographic and railroad-y features . . . usually right after we passed them.

"On the left will be the longest covered bridge in . . . oh, we just passed it."

The mountains and even the farmland of the valley were pretty, showing early fall colors and that hazy light that I associate with autumn.

We ate meals in the dining car. Those who travel on Amtrak know that the food is so-so though expensive, and tables are shared. I had your standard burger for lunch, Mrs E had chicken cacciatore, the special. Our two companions at table were Swiss, male, and reserved and expressionless in that way that Swiss men are. They hailed from Zurich, from the Schweizerdeutsch-(Swiss German) speaking part of Switzerland, a city famous worldwide for its banks, its lack of nightlife, and for being really boring.

I've been there, and seeing how this was playing out, I ordered a bottle of red wine for myself.

At dinnertime, I thought to give the baked chicken a try. It was oddly . . . textureless. It was shaped like baked chicken, smelled like baked chicken, looked like baked chicken and had bones like real chicken, but the meat gave no hint that it was originally muscles and sinews; it was instead, a featurelessly even density of meatlike substance wrapped around bones. I ate it, but with a puzzled expression on my face and a vague sense that this bird owed its origins more to the factory than the farm.

I do not recall who we shared a table with that night. Following on the heels of the unsmiling Swiss couple, they would have to have been pretty unremarkable to leave no trace in memory.

The train arrived in Tacoma around 8:30 in the evening, on time.

Mrs Elliott had three appointments in the south sound area over the next two days and so the plan was to get a room in Tacoma for the first night, rent a car in the morning, and visit her clients in Tacoma and Olympia before moving to Seattle, making hotel choices using reviews online. For convenience and price, we picked the Best Western Tacoma Dome for the first night, took a cab there, and found that the hotel was pretty terrible.

The first room we were given was unsuitable. It was noisy, being right next to the elevator, the Coke machine, and the ice machine. The toilet took five minutes to stop running after it was flushed, and the vent in the bathroom emitted a depressing moaning sound. The room felt creepy.

The fellow at the front desk was more irritated than helpful. "Here, try this room, it's the best I can give you." The second room was visually identical to the first, but it was somewhat quieter, being located well away from the noisy hallway machines.

Both rooms had old analog TVs with giant cathode ray picture tubes. It was just like a trip to 1995!

We unpacked then wandered out to do something (I forget what it was now), but when we returned, the cardkey no longer unlocked the door.

I went back to the front desk to get a new card. The same fellow was behind the counter and he didn't look too happy to see me.

"How's your evening going?" I asked while he was programming a new card.

He paused, then smiled sardonically. "I was hoping to study, but I'll never have a chance if I have to keep dealing with this kind of thing."

I could not tell whether "this kind of thing" referred to residents pestering him for new cards, or having to re-program new cards. We heard from someone else that their cards stopped working, too.

In the morning, Mrs Elliott gleefully occupied herself with writing a devastating review of the joint on tripadvisor.com before we checked out, rented our car, and drove to Olympia and Mrs Elliott met with her client at Evergreen College while I had tea in the student lounge until she finished up.

We drove around the town afterward to get a sense of the area.

Mrs Elliott likes to window shop a lot more than I. Though we have no intention of moving to the area, she wanted to explore the neighborhoods anyway. Downtown Olympia appeared shabby, rough, gritty; the young people were seedy and ratty-looking.

Lodging seemed to be your choice of one very Bates Motel-looking bed and breakfast (the Swantown Inn), a handful of your standard Comfort/Ramada/La Quinta Inns, the Governor Hotel (which receives high marks on places like Tripadvisor,com, but which looks rundown on the outside), and a few other places like a Phoenix sitting all by itself between downtown and the waterfront. We decided to stay at the Red Lion Olympia -- it was in a nice parklike setting with a view of Capitol Lake, but like many conference hotels, it's located nowhere near restaurants that might compete with the establishment's dining room; as a result, the kitchen will be mediocre but the prices high.

Before hotels cheaped out and brought karaoke machines into their lounges, I was in a band in the late '70s that played the PNW motel lounge circuit. We covered pop music hits and played in towns like Yakima, them tri-cities (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland), Corvallis, and others that I have well-forgotten. Five-piece group, guitar, drums, bass, keyboard and the requisite blond chick singer. "Legs Feeny" we were called.

I bring this up because nearly every tune that plays over the ceiling speakers in the Red Lion Olympia's dining room and bar was a tune that we played. Chicago's "Feeling Stronger Every Day," Aretha Franklin's "Until You Come Back To Me," lounge essentials like "Car Wash," "Play that Funky Music (White Boy)," your Bee Gees and Fleetwood Mac hits...heck, we had a set list with over 80 popular songs on it. Ballads, dance tunes, the usual pop stuff. We played most of them every night, four or five sets a night, six nights a week. I thought I'd forgotten them, but as late '70s tunes played, one after another, I realized that this hotel apparently had a canonical collection of the era's music, and wasn't afraid to play it. It was a puzzle.

The room was fine, though, large and in the corner so it had one more window than the usual room.

Next: Mrs Elliott finishes with her obligations and we drive to Seattle for touristing.

Jack and Mrs Elliott take the Train to Seattle

2011-10-18T17:17:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott had to visit a couple clients in the south Puget Sound area, so we decided to take the train to Tacoma, then rent a car, and putter about.

Amtrak's train #11, the Starlight Express, goes between Los Angeles and Seattle and is, along with their Southwest Chief, Empire Builder, California Zephyr, and other named routes, a full-service train, with sleeping compartments, dining, observation, and cafe cars.

There is no passenger train service in Bend, the nearest station this side of the Cascades is in Chemult, and Amtrak provides Amtrak "Thruway" bus service for Bend travelers. We bought a couple tickets and were told that the bus would be at the Hawthorn St. travel center in Bend at 7:35 am.

So we got up early on a below-freezing Wednesday morning, showered, final-packed, called a cab, and were at the station by 7:15. After Mrs Elliott and I were settled inside the center -- nice facility! -- I wandered around inside, looking for some information about the Amtrak bus. Like, where it parks, its schedule, anything. Nothing anywhere indicated that an Amtrak bus existed. The words "Amtrak" or "train" don't appear on any of the literature or signage.

The fellow that sold the snacks and coffee said the bus is usually late, but didn't know anything else about it.

So we sat and waited.

7:30, I looked outside. Plenty of Bend Transit buses out front. Off to the left, on 4th, a sign indicated that intercity buses, such as HighDesert Point, Eastern Point, and the Central Oregon Breeze, all park there. No mention of Amtrak on the sign, and there was only an Eastern Point bus idling at the curb, with no "Amtrak" markings on it.

At 7:45, Mrs Elliott asked if anyone in the lobby knew anything about the Amtrak bus. "That bus left a few minutes ago," a fellow said. "It was parked over there," pointing to where the Eastern Point bus has been idling.

Amtrak never said that Eastern Point was the carrier, the bus was unmarked, and no one popped their head in to announce boarding for Amtrak.

We missed the bus. Mrs Elliott was fuming.

We called back our taxi (he'd been waiting around the transit center for trade) to take us back home, Mrs Elliott called Amtrak to unload on them, tried to get them to contact the bus driver and have her wait, which they said they had no way of doing, and got the times and locations of the bus's route down the Chemult.

We loaded our baggage into Mrs Elliott's car, and while she started to chase down the bus, I called the Sunriver lodge, the bus's next stop, where a very helpful fellow at the front desk contacted the bell captain who said that the bus had already gone by: it hadn't come to the lodge that morning because there was no one scheduled to be picked up or dropped off. He gave me the phone number of the driver, a bit of information Amtrak didn't have.

I called the driver and told her that we had missed the connection in Bend, and were on our way to her next schedule stop in La Pine, and told her that according to our GPS we'd be there before she was scheduled to leave, and asked that she not leave early.

With minutes to spare, we met the bus in the McDonald's parking lot. While Mrs Elliott was making arrangements at a nearby motel for us to leave the car until our return, I started to complain to the driver.

She was having none of it. Bristled. Paid to drive from Point A to Point B. Nothing about going into terminals to call for customers. It was the only bus there aside from the BAT buses, how could I have missed it? If I got a problem, contact her boss.

It was obvious I was dealing with one tough old bird, standing there smoking her cigarette, one eye squinted at me, her expression saying that she'd raised and beaten into submission two or three generations of little bus drivers and no pissant twerp like me was going to spoil her morning without sustaining serious injuries.

Knowing a brier patch when I see one, I changed the tone of the conversation. Made a few knock-knock jokes, did a little soft-shoe routine, praised her for her intelligence and good looks. She stared at me suspiciously, uncertain how to react to my sucking up. But after a few minutes she softened and started to grunt responses to my expert observations about the bus, such as, "Say, I see this bus has six tires! I'll bet it takes some practice to drive something with six tires."

When Mrs Elliott returned from the motel, I drew her aside and warned her that the driver would brook no complaints about what happened.

So we made it to the Chemult Amtrak passenger platform before the train did. We made small-talk during the drive. Several points were agreed on: 1. The driver agreed that the bus should have something on it to indicate that it provided Amtrak Thruway service, and in fact, the bus that normally does that route has "Amtrak" printed on the sides, but it had been injured in a fender-bender so this bus, which has "Amtrak" on the rear only, was pressed into service; 2. It was agreed that it would be helpful if a sign were posted inside the travel center explaining where the bus parks and what it looks like; 3. This is something to bring up with the owner of Eastern Point; and finally, (4), That even tough old bus drivers have hearts: she didn't charge us for the ride.

Vinturi Wine Aerator - Don't Waste Your Money

2011-10-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

Once again, Jack throws himself on top of a grenade to save everyone else.

My fellow blogger-in-Bend and man of letters H. Bruce Miller and Sharon, his beautiful and brilliant wife, came over this weekend for dinner at maison Elliott. I cooked rack of lamb, Mrs Elliott made mashed garlic cauliflower and appetizers.

And there was wine, plenty of wine.

Bruce brought over his swell new Vinturi wine aerator. If you're into wine, you may have seen this device which goes for anywhere between $25 to $40, depending on where you shop. They claim that it aerates wine while it's being poured, eliminating that horrible horrible tedious entirely old-fashioned decanting and waiting for the wine to breathe and open up.

When he first told me about it, I expressed my doubts about the claims and suggested we do a double-blind tasting session. Bruce agreed and offered to bring three bottles of the same wine. He selected a moderately-priced, moderately-tannic Zinfandel, which pairs well with lamb.

The experiment was set up so each person got three glasses of wine: one poured straight out of the bottle, one decanted traditionally, and one poured through the Vinturi. Each glass had a label (A, B, or C) on the bottom, which they could not see without lifting and looking at the underside of the glass. Bruce and I did the pouring, Mrs Elliott, who was not in the room, then mixed up the glasses and set them up for our panel of distinguished tasters.

At this point, no one knew what glass was what.

Uncle Jack says, "Don't bother!"

So we tasted, we discussed, and we tasted some more.

There was no difference between the wines.

Unfortunately, in the hustle and bustle of preparing dinner, it didn't occur to me that the decanted bottle should have been allowed to breathe for a half hour or so, in the traditional manner, but considering that the Vinturi is claimed to speed the breathing process, the wine poured through it should at least have tasted better than the wine that came straight out of the bottle.

But no one could taste it.

The Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator: Not recommended.

Dessert was Pear Flambé in a red wine and orange reduction sauce. Jack nearly set fire to his eyebrows, but the end result was delicious. This, followed by cigars on the back porch. Until the cold drove us indoors to see what the ladies were chatting about.

Another, Long-Lost Campin' Cookin with Uncle Jack Recipe

2011-10-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

Uncle Jack

I thought that this one was long lost. Many years ago I posted my recipe for Campin' Pizza Margherita on my blogspot blog on Google. Google cancelled that service to start Blogger, but didn't provide any way to migrate posts from the old to the new site.

Well, nothing on the Internet is forgotten. Which is a Good Thing because if you're campin' and have a hankerin' for some pizza, I provide here, for your delectation, a link to the recipe:

https://sites.google.com/site/campingelliott/campin'pizzamargherita

One thing: that was an early version. Later iterations used wild sourdough yeasts and cooking without the stone, directly over the fire.

Uncle Jack's Campin' Barbecue Ribs

2011-10-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

Uncle Jack

That's right kids, it's time to gather 'round and let your old friend Uncle Jack show you how he barbecues ribs on a portable charcoal grill. Move in close, kids.

Not that damn close, jeez.

Timmy, your nose is running and you're creeping me out.

Jeremy, get your hands out of your pockets. What are you playing with in there? Cripes.

Brie . . . Jeezus, Brie, who names their kid after a cheese? . . . bring me that bottle of wine, will you?

Now settle down and watch how Uncle Jack does ribs.

We're going to make a rub. Here, I use fajita seasoning, paprika, some crushed red chili pepper, Saigon cinnamon, dry mustard, salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and garlic salt. Have a sip of wine.

I put a half-rack of room-temperature ribs into a gallon-sized Ziplock bag and sprinkle both sides liberally with the rub. Then press the rub into the meat through the plastic. My fingers get dirty enough when camping, so I do what I can to minimize goop.

(Not shown: The bone side of the ribs has a tough membrane that needs to be removed before the ribs are rubbed. Basically you insert something like the probe on a meat thermometer or similar pointy thing under the membrane between two ribs to start the peeling job, then complete the job by pulling the membrane off with your fingers. But it's slippery, so I grip the membrane with a paper towel when peeling. It's a sticky job and I didn't want to get the camera all gummed up so I took no photo. )

Drizzle about a tablespoon of honey on both sides of the meat before closing the bag. It's going to marinate for about a half hour while I get the grill started and make the mop. And now is a good time to have a sip of wine.

Using heavy-duty foil, make a drip pan to go under half of your $19 portable charcoal grill. Heap enough charcoal on the other side to fill it.

I used charcoal lighting fluid to start the file. I'd-a preferred to avoid petrochemicals when cooking, but I need to build or find a smaller chimney-style starter than the ones I see in the stores. They are just too bulky for my needs. Anyway, I used the the lid as a windscreen to let the fire get a good start. Once lit, a sip of wine is nice to have.

While the coals get started and the meat marinates, I make the mop on the stovetop. In a mason jar I have salt, apple cider vinegar, and butter. A saucepan with an inch or so of water makes a nice bain-marie. ("Bain-marie" is a term from alchemy and it's pretty much a double boiler, but sounds fancier; Wikipedia has a nice writeup about this much-maligned process.)

After about 30 minutes and a few more sips of wine, the coals are going well. Spread them out and put on the grill, place the ribs over the drip pan, bone-side down, and stick in oven thermometer. The ribs will be slow-cooked for somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours, and the temperature wants to be between 275 and 350. Cover the grill and have another sip of wine.

Controlling temperature is no Swiss picnic when it's windy, I can tell you. Here, I have about a 3/4'' opening on the windward (left) side. Every five minutes, check the oven thermometer and adjust the size of the opening as needed to try to keep the temperature in the target range, and have some more wine.

After 45 minutes and many sips of wine, baste both sides of the ribs with the mop. With the ribs still bone side down, re-cover, and keep cooking, checking temp as you go along. Re-mop every 15 minutes while making sure that the wine glass never goes empty. A second bottle of wine might need to be opened right about now.

Somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours, (or one to one-half bottles of wine) depending on temperature, the ribs will be protruding about 1/4'' out of the meat, indicating that the meat is done.

We're going to want some barbecue sauce at this time.

Brush the sauce the ribs and sear them directly over the coals, about a minute per side.

Bon Appétit! Pour yourself a glass of wine and enjoy some lip-smackin' ribs.

One final note: the composition of the rub, the mop, and your barbecue sauce are up to you. I used the stuff I had on hand.

So until next time, this is your old friend Uncle Jack, telling you to have fun trying this recipe, and to be careful with fire when camping in the woods.

Goddamn it, which one of you little bastards spilled my wine?!?

And Finally, This Season's Last Camping Trip

2011-10-06T07:58:00.000-07:00

Before moving onto my next post, Uncle Jack's Campin' Ribs, I'd like to post a few pics from last weekend's Goodbye to 2011's Camping Camping Trip.

There's this spot south of Pine Mountain out near Millican that I like to camp at early in the season, like May or June. I wanted to see the place at the end of the season, and soak up the scenery.

I arrived on Thursday morning to find that my usual spot had already been snagged by someone who left a humongous fifth wheel trailer there to hold down the spot for the weekend. Big game hunting season (deer, elk) was opening on Saturday, so the population density was going to go up. Same for the flying projectile density, so I made sure to bring my undeer-like bright red and orange colors.

I backtracked to a spot I normally drive by. It was unoccupied and I set up. Some pictures:

First, here's what the place looked like in June. As always, clicking on the picture
will provide a larger version.

And in September. Much drier.
Sunny, crisp weather. Perfect for wandering about in shorts, no shirt.

Typical skies.

Hunters beware! Old hippie warning! I often hang these colorful
flags where I camp, to add cheer and mark the spot.

The previous occupants left a lot of firewood behind. With the lengthening nights,
a fire provides a nice reason to stay out after dark. Although the fire restrictions had been
lifted a few days earlier, the area was a tinderbox, and the ground covered with dry
pine needles and flammable debris. I kept the requisite bucket, ax, and shovel on hand
as well as a 6-gallon container of water.

Quite independent from me, Jim had been planning a trip to the same area with
his buddies to play poker. Prior to setting up camp at a nearby site, they pay a visit
(having seen my flags) to say howdy.

Jim and friends Cameron and Joe.

The weather in Central Oregon is changeable, to say the least, and Jim usually has the misfortune to miss the sunny days and bring with him overcast, colder days. This trip was no exception. I like the fickleness of the weather: it keeps me on my toes and I've gotten real good at changing the camp to suit the weather. Awnings, heaters, sunny areas, sheltered areas; attire ranging from warm fleece and windbreaker to birthday suit.

Next up: Uncle Jack's Campin' Ribs recipe.

Here's Uncle Jack:

Would you cook anything this
man recommends?

Overnight Backpack Trip to Lancelot Lake

2011-10-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the weekend right after my Big Fat Trip to Wickiup Reservoir in the middle of September, my son, Jim, and I backpacked to Lancelot Lake in the Three Sisters Wilderness. This was the first time we did any backpacking together since 2003, when he, Mrs Elliott's son, Brian, and I did a weeklong backpack in the High Sierras.

I did a solo overnight trip to Lancelot Lake at the beginning of September and had such a good time, found the place every bit as pretty as places I've hiked in the Sierra Nevadas, that I wanted to show Jim.

During the days leading up to our hike date, I watched the weather forecasts pretty closely, not wanting to get stuck in a winter storm. The forecast called for an unusually warm day, possibility of thundershowers in the evening, then a cold front and rain on Sunday. The best guess was that the rain would start falling in the afternoon.

On Saturday, the forecast was the same, I didn't see any alerts or warnings -- even though things can get real ugly real fast in the mountains -- so we decided to go for it. We adapted to the conditions by adding our little lightweight one-man shelters, a spare tarp, and rain gear to our packs.

Half a foot taller than me, and all the
energy of youth.

It's an easy walk of about four miles or so, passing through some very pretty country. In 2003, Jim was still an adolescent of 15 years, and had not yet gotten his muscles. I was able to outwalk him. My how the tables have turned. He can outwalk his old man easily now.

Due to various reasons, we didn't get to the trailhead until about noon. The weather was sunny when we started hiking, but when we reached camp on a pretty knoll above the lake, the cumulonimbus clouds started building, and the mutter of thunder could be heard in the distance.

We no sooner got the tarp rigged above the kitchen area when rain started to spatter the surface of the lake and us.

It rained off and on throughout the evening. I brought all my fishing tackle, but my attention was focused on making sure that we stayed dry and warm.

I am a very conscientious packer. To make sure that I don't forget to bring some necessity, I make checklists, I lay everything out ahead of time, I consider alternate clothing and gear ... I just don't want to be caught out without something important like food, or shelter or a stove or something.

But I totally overlooked two important things: First, a small nylon bag in which I carry useful items like my little amateur radio walkie-talkie for emergency use, eyedrops, medications, 100' of light rope, and water treatment chemicals; second, I forgot my insulated jacket. All I had for warmth was a rain jacket, essentially a Gore-Tex windbreaker.

Camp site above Lancelot Lake.

So Jim loaned me his Primaloft vest, and since he'd brought a light sweater, he used my rain jacket as a windbreaker. We both had collapsible umbrellas for real showers, a good Primus canister stove, and plenty of (untreated but safe) lake water to make hot tea and soup.

It was a bit harder rigging the tarp over the kitchen without the extra rope. We had to get real clever and use fallen branches and spare tent stakes to lift the corners. But it all worked and we had a nice log to sit on and watch the scenery while eating our dinner and making fart jokes.

We both slept warm and dry, but the cold front moved in earlier than expected and we had to make breakfast and pack up in gusty winds and cold fall rain.

Having grown up in SoCal, this was Jim's first backpack where rain was a factor. But I learned him good when I taught him to backpack -- something he does frequently when he visits his friends in the Old Country -- and I passed on some of my old man wisdom about preparing for, and staying warm and safe in the rain. A fellow can become hypothermic in even cool temperatures if he's wet, wearing something stupid like cotton, and there is a breeze.

I've done more backpacking in the rain than I care to consider. One thing about the backcountry behind Santa Barbara, where I grew up, is that the window between the torrential spring storms and the oven of summer is very small. Preferring cool over hot, I usually planned my trips earlier, rather than later, in the year, so I have been caught out in three, four, and five day solo backpack trips in the San Rafael Wilderness and other places where it literally rained the whole time.

Anyway, the hike back down to the trailhead was uneventful except for when I stumbled on some damn rock or root or something and fell down, face forward. Smack. Like a cartoon. Oof, grumble grumble.

I thought that all I hurt was my pride, but a couple days later it was clear that I had broken a rib. I've broken ribs before, twice, (bike accident and bar fight, respectively) so I know what a broken rib feels like. Blowing your nose, sneezing, coughing -- those really hurt.

(I didn't tell Mrs Elliott about the rib. No sense in worrying her. Besides, there's not a damn thing you can do about a broken rib except take aspirin and wait for it to heal.)

On the drive back to Bend, Jim allowed that he'd like to go on another trip next season. Me, I might do two or three hikes. Easy overnighters.

This trip was suggested by Bob Woodward's wife, Ilene, who does hiking hereabouts. If anyone knows of other easy hikes to pretty places to camp overnight, please leave a comment.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 10

2011-10-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

View from my campsite, the day before I depart.

Just a reminder. So far on my trip I have sighted sheriffs, fire crew, and state troopers. But so far, no one with the Deschutes National Forest, the folk that have direct jurisdiction over the area.

On my second day (or was it the third?) I had been asked to move from Camp 1, which was below the high water mark of the reservoir, to a second location, higher up.

So thar I was, minding my own business when a forestry service office appeared.

"Are you aware of the travel restrictions," she asked.

I said I was, that I had no fires and was above the high water mark. I thought I was bulletproof.

Well, I wasn't.

The fire crew-woman who moved me from that lovely below-high-water site a few days ago only gave me part of the information about the travel restrictions. Turns out that I have no business camping where I was, either, as it is not on an established road. She handed me a flyer with the details on it, and told me that I would have to leave. Now.

I dickered a bit, she allowed that she'd give me until sundown. No ticket at this time. But if she will come by tomorrow, early, she says, and if she finds me, then, well . . . the choice is mine.

So. I am an early riser. I think I will take my chances, and get everything ready to go so that all I have to do is drop the poptop and drive. I'll catch breakfast in town. My guess is that she doesn't even clock in until 8 am and I'd be long gone by then.

I proceeded to start packing for an early departure, when a couple of sheriffs came by. They paused to ask how I was doing and I explained that I was packing up to leave on account of the forestry service.

"Are you aware of the travel restrictions?" I asked the driver.

He looked puzzled They knew about the travel restrictions but didn't know I could not camp here.

I asked the office if he wanted to see the flyer and he said, yeah, and followed me around to the side of the van where I gave him the document that the FS official gave me. His partner joined quickly, what with the two of us being out of sight and all.

After reading the bulletin, he said he didn't see where I could not camp here. We looked it over and decided that the relevant sentence was that travel was restricted only to paved, gravel, or cinder roads bearing USFS 2, 3, or 4-digit numbers, and that this shoreline road is a dirt "use road," not a USFS road.

"Aw," he said. "That's splitting hairs."

I agreed that he might be right but that I was in no position to argue, and pointed at the declaration on the bulletin that said that a ticket could be as expensive as $5,000.

"Now if it was you camping here," I said, "you might be able to argue the point with her."

He said that was probably true. He said if he came across her he'd chat about it, and promised to come back if she agreed that she was being a bit officious.

They drove off, I continued to pack. About 30 minutes later, the sheriffs returned and said that they had been wondering about my situation and called the USFS office and spoke to a law enforcement officer. the driver pulled out a pad and started to write in it. Are they giving me a ticket? He tore out a piece of paper and on it was the name of the LEO they had spoken to.

This fellow, it seems, sided with the sheriffs on the matter, and told them that the matter came down to the interpretation of "gravel/cinder" roads vis a vis this dirt road.

Interestingly enough, the LEO asked if I was the guy in the yellow VW van who has been here for a week and was asked to move earlier on and did.

So I'm famous.

The sheriff said that if the USFS gal came by again to tell her that the LEO requested that she call him.

Not quite the same as the famous (and imaginary) "Letters of Transit" in Casablanca, but close enough!

I proceeded to open a bottle of Rortteus "Rattlesnake Red," but needed to avoid getting drunk, in case the FS gal comes by, but I decided I'd not lose any sleep over her..

Well before the sun set, the solar panels and all the gear were packed in the trailer, it was closed, and the kayak tied on top.

Most things have been stowed for departure, dirty linens in the "launder me" bag, dirty cookware in the dishwasher tote, rugs have been addressed with the carpet beater and rolled up, floor swept, stovetop and cabinets wiped clean.

I was surprised by the sheer number of lawmen up there, having camped here a couple - three times before, and not seen a single badge.

I attributed their presence to the extreme fire hazard. The ranger told me that she doesn't usually patrol this area, is usually fighting fires. When I mentioned that to the sheriff, he pointed out that there was a fire on Mount Hood -- the implication being that she might be of better use there.

View from my campsite, the last sunset.

One does not want to get caught up in a dispute between two different law enforcement agencies. But I found his comment amusing.

I was up early the next day and had an incident-free trip back to Bend.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 9

2011-10-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

My camping trip continues, but tomorrow would be the day I have to go back to Bend -- Redmond, actually, to pick up Mrs Elliott at the airport.

I decided that after my abject failure at getting even one salmon to strike my hookless fly, the day nevertheless held promise as a good one for projects, not too hot, not too cold.

Cleaned out the camping gear tote boxes and re-organized them into "basic" camping gear and "extended trip" gear. I guess was doing this with an eye on next season, this one feels like it is drawing to a close, although that might just be this cold front and the high, thin clouds stealing some of the sun's heat, all putting me in mind of Autumn. It felt fall-like. But we can have some lovely Indian summer days, too, so I mustn't be too hasty to pack things away!

I also worked on a couple items in my "recovery" kit -- the chains and slings and hooks and other bits I bring when I think there is a chance the van could get stuck in mud or sand.

For sand, one of the best things a fellow with a two-wheel skinny-tire vehicle can do to improve traction is to air down the tires. 16 psi makes for some very squishy tires that are less-likely to get stuck.

So I have these new automatic tire deflators, little dinguses that you screw onto the tires' valves and which let air out of the tires until they reach the desired pressure. They are adjustable and I needed to set them so they shut off at 16 psi.

A tire pressure gauge and an allen wrench are all that's needed. Oh, and a tire to deflate, then re-inflate as needed until all four deflators are dialed in. But that takes a long time with a passenger car tire, so I brought along one of the little tires from my bicycle trailer.

I also brought an air compressor for re-inflating the tire after each adjustment. This becomes part of my rough road gear, and it was something I hadn't yet opened up and tested to make sure it works -- don't want the first time it's used to be somewhere where I'm stuck and then to discover that the thing doesn't work.

Well, it worked, although it makes that fearsome BRRRRRRR sound that compressors make, sounding even louder here in the silence of the lake.

I noticed how dirty the van was, and broke out the 409 and the carpet beater.

By midafternoon it had become a gray day with weak sunlight. I spent my time indoors, mostly, going out only to use the facilities, tidy up camp, and other trivial chores. Quiet, peaceful, only the sound of the wind and the cries of the shorebirds. Have you read "Into the Wild"? This puts me in mind of Alaska. Or northern Canada a la "Never Cry Wolf." Thankfully, there are no mosquitoes here that rival the sparrow-sized ones found farther north. Dry climes do not breed mozzies.

The copse of trees in which I sited the my commode has been used by others for years as the toilet area. It's littered with scraps of toilet paper, a urine-filled bottle, and other disagreeable rubbish. Here we find the reason why they don't want people camping below the high water mark -- people downstream boat, swim, fish, and raft in this water.

As with amateur radio licenses, I think that people should be required to pass a test to prove their competence and sense of responsibility before being allowed to camp in certain sensitive areas. Those who show they understand and can be counted on to take care of the area would have access to sites like where I was a few days ago. The lazy, the irresponsible, the ignorant, mouthbreathers, rednecks, knuckledraggers and morons need to be penned up in Kampgrounds of America where they can play with their chainsaws and turn their campfires into garbage fires.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 8

2011-10-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

The day of reckoning. So okay, there was good news and there was bad news.

I got up at 6:30, temp in van 41 degrees, calm -- no wind, mostly clear skies. Checked the NWS online forecast and saw that today will (might) be windy, like 15 to 18 mph all day. At least in La Pine, which is the closest location they got to where I am.

If I was going to go fishing upriver, I needed to jump on it, to skip breakfast until I got back.

Rigged my pole with a hookless bug-like fly, installed the Mk. II version of my makeshift killig (big rock tied to a line off the stern of the kayak, with means to lift and lower it inside cockpit), put my iPhone into a dry bag, donned my rugged outdoorsy kayakin' attire, and paddled upriver.

The new anchor did not drag in the water like yesterday's Mk I version, so I made good time.

Dropped anchor in a likely spot near the outfall of the springs above the Sheep Bridge cable crossing where there were plenty of kokanee salmon at the bottom and striking at bugs on the surface. Stowed the paddle, unfurled the pole, and proceeded to try the bug. Nothing. Then a wet fly. Nothing. Then a couple of dry flies. Nothing. Yet the darn salmon were noshing on low-flying bugs. A couple of the bugs landed on me, so I saw they were little black critters, but I had no fly that matched.

Had to pee, lifted anchor, beached boat, relieved myself, kayaked further upstream and let myself drift while tossing the bait hither an yon, but no takers.

Maybe the wrong fly, maybe the float, maybe both of those + my amateur angling. I must learn more about how to use a spinning rig with flies.

I'm tellin' ya, the stupid fish were striking bugs just feet within my kayak.

Returned, changed out of wet clothes, had a cup of tea. Breakfast was eggs, fried sweet potato with onion, cheese and Spam.

Hey -- they can't all be classy meals!

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 7

2011-10-04T14:46:00.000-07:00

Since the fire crew that moved me two days ago had already noticed that I had a charcoal grill set up at a time when all fires, including charcoal ones, were prohibited, I was left with a culinary puzzle: how to cook these pork ribs? My plan had been to slow-cook them for a couple hours in a covered half-filled grill, but stealth barbecuing is pretty much impossible, and I didn't need a ticket.

My friend Michael Hill and I exchanged many emails about this. The man is a cook. His partner is a cook. If there's anything those two guys don't know how to cook, I'm not aware of it. The dishes they make are spectacular. Michael suggested boiling the ribs in my saucepan for an hour to cook them, then sear them in the skillet.

Which I did, and it was tasty. Made a right nice dinner. Still and all, it wasn't the same a grilling them. But we do what we have to do.

The following morning I took my makeshift kayak anchor out for a test drive. It was a partial success.

Yeah, when lowered it held me in the current so I could-a tossed a line into the river to tempt fishies with, but it could not be raised enough to get it out of the water when paddling, so it caused a lot of drag. The line goes from the cockpit back through a carabiner at the stern. The anchor was a sack filled with rocks, and it hung down too far. The boat wanted to veer to the right because the dangle was on the starboard side, and when working up a current I moved at a snail's pace.

So after testing it, I beached the kayak and took down the rigging for the return trip, which went much faster and more easily.

While I was staring at the fish, another sheriff's boat bearing two sheriffs came upstream. Kokanee salmon, according to the constables. And brown trout. The salmon are spawning, I saw several of their corpses on the bottom of the lake.

The sheriffs beached their vessel and hung about onshore for a bit. One lit up a cigar. We all agreed the place was beautiful. We watched a bald eagle atop a dead snag. As I started downstream, one of the sheriffs apologized in advance for the noise his motor was going to make when they did their return journey. It really wasn't an obnoxiously-loud engine, but it was nice of him to acknowledge how the sound of the engine disturbed the serenity of the place.

So back to camp and back to anchor R&D.

I tossed the dangly bag of rocks in favor of a single stone. A single stone has not the dangleage of a bag of rocks. I lashed the rope to the stone using a kellick -- or kellig -- hitch -- a "kellick" being a rock used in lieu of an anchor in places where an anchor might foul. See this excerpt from the excellent Ashley Book of Knots.

Equipped with fishing pole and new improved Mark II version of drag anchor, I planned to set out on the next day to see about messing with fish.

No breeze, but overcast and cool. The lake is like a mirror.

Finally positively identified a large black one: double-crested cormorant. The beak isn't exactly like the photo, but everything else matches. So I'm sticking to my claim.

No sandhill cranes, no one here admits to having a red beanie.

Great blue herons; killdeer, yeah; blackbirds; and Cassin's finches. Also spotted: three sheriffs, two fire fighters, one Oregon State Trooper.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 6

2011-10-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

I slept much better the next night. The two comforters kept me snug in bed, and the new propane heater warmed up the cabin quickly.

I took a kayak cruise upstream, above Sheep Bridge (an old cable crossing over the Deschutes river where it empties into the reservoir) and prowled along the north bank, where massive springs empty into the river. In the deep, clear turquoise spring water I saw some massive salmonoids prowling along the bottom. I don't know my trouts and suchlike. All I could determine was that they had cinnamon-colored bodies, and maybe some blue markings, too.

They were rising, too, and snapping low-flying bugs out of the air. I decided that it would be fun to try my hand coaxing one or two to rise to a dry fly, but didn't know if I could do it legally. I wanted to learn how to set up my little spinning rig to toss dry and wet flies. And I'd need a way to anchor the kayak out in the middle of the stream so I could put down the paddle for a while.

So when I got back to camp, I emailed Bruce to see if he could find the ODFW's definition of "fishing" and see whether hookless flies are permitted. Is tossing a line with just a float on it fishing? How about a totally hookless fly? After all, I really would not know what to do with a trout if I caught one, anyway.

I need to learn to clean and cook trout. That's for next year.

Bruce got back in a few minutes. He wrote,

"The ODFW definition of angling is 'to take or attempt to take fish for
personal use by hook and line'; therefore a person using a rod and reel
with a baited hookless line would not fall under the definition of angling."
-- ODF memo, July 12, 2006.

"Bottom line: If there's no hook you ain't angling."

After all, the verb "to angle" comes from the sharp bends in early fishermen's hooks.

With that cleared, I needed to invent an anchor. I know nothing of anchors. I studied articles online for tips on making a kayak anchor and rigged the kayak with a DIY drag anchor: a nylon stuffsack with about 5 lb of rocks in it, with a couple carabiners for the line to pass through. With such a thing, I thought, I should be able to park myself in a likely location. And I'd bring a knife if the line gets fouled.

The day finished pretty, with blue blue skies, enough clouds to make it interesting, and a brisk breeze. Too brisk for kayaking, so I wandered along the shoreline a piece. There are other campers, oddly buried in the woods, in the dark shadow of the trees. Why anyone would camp where there is no view or sunlight baffles me.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 5

2011-10-04T11:26:00.000-07:00

After settling into the new site and got over my grumbling about having to lose the sweet campsite on the sand, I sipped a Walnut City Wineworks Willamette Valley 2007 Pinot Gris (Fred Meyer's, $9.99, and considered dinner.

I was unsure how to cook steak without a BBQ. Bruce Miller sent an email suggesting steak au poivre. I looked at a few recipes online, then took it from there: Sautéed onions in butter, added a bunch of coarsely-ground black pepper, tossed in the steak which was cut into 1'' slices, three minutes, turned the steak, drizzled some Ranch dressing atop it, cooked another 3 minutes, dumped the food onto the plate, poured some coconut milk into the pan, let it gather up some flavor, then poured that over the steak. Kicked BUTT! It was delicious.

Read for a while, fell asleep, but I didn't sleep through the night. We had loaned one of the two down comforters we keep in the van to my stepson a couple weeks ago and it hadn't yet been returned. Slightly chilled, I awoke at 3 am and could not fall asleep. I read for a while, tried to doze, but don't think I accomplished much in that regard.

During the night I heard a Great Horned Owl hooting, coyotes singing, and some other critters I could not identify. When I got up, it was a chilly 35 degrees in the van and I was cold.

After dressing in my warmest clothes and getting a hot cup of buttered green tea into me, I watched as the day grew brighter, revealing a fog-shrouded lake and listened to the automated weather service forecast for the area.

Exposed tree roots show that these guys have their feet
underwater when the reservoir is full. Fuzzy horizontal
smear in distance is a sandbar.

I waited for the sun to break through the mist so I could place my solar panels. This new site was much more shaded than the last so I knew I'd be spending time relocating them as the sun moved.

On the other hand, it was so cold that morning the refrigerator hardly had to work at all, meaning that the battery was not being drawn down much.

The forecast called for even colder nights ahead and I figured it was time to break out a new heater I picked up on sale at Fred Meyers on the way out of town.

The van already has a heater in it, a little catalytic heater connected to the van's 2-gallon propane supply which I installed many years ago. It can provide as much as 2600 btu's.

But the new one, a "Mr. Heater Buddy" is good for 9000 btu on the high setting. At that setting it goes through one of those little 1-lb bottles of propane in three hours, but I thought the van would warm up quickly so my two bottles of propane should last the rest of the trip, easy.

I also brought along a 7600 btu kerosene heater. It's more economical to run than the Mr. Heater Buddy, but it's large, and takes up a fair amount of space in the van's little living quarters.

It took several hours, almost until 11 o' clock, for the fog and clouds to lift. I wandered about camp and the surroundings jacketed, be-hatted, and gloved until the sun finally broke through.

Due to lack of sleep, I found myself drowsy in the afternoon. The sun was warming the inside of the van (one thing these Vanagons have over other camper vehicles is nearly 360 degrees of windows) and I decided to take a chance at a nap.

I have been told that naps are restorative, but I am a reluctant napper. My naps are seldom successful. By some means that I have never understood, the world knows when I try to nap and will do all in its power to prevent it. The phone rings, someone knocks at the door, Mrs Elliott calls out, wondering where I am, a bird crashed into the window -- whatever it takes to totally disrupt my nap.

And I wake disoriented, slightly nauseous, feeling out of sorts.

I don't get the attraction of napping.

Though no one or no thing bothered me that day, it took me at least two hours to recover from the effects of the afternoon's nap.

The weather service told me that cold, it would be, that night -- but it that it will be brilliant, with crystal-clear skies, suitable for stargazing. Cold fronts are good like that, bringing clear, dry air. Fortunately I brought along my backpack with my lovely warm Western Mountaineering down-filled hiker's mummy bag to supplement the thinner comforter in the van.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 4

2011-10-04T08:12:00.000-07:00

Well -- that was a surprise.

After deciding that the day was so nice -- sunny, breezy, bright -- that drinking wine looked more attractive than farting about in a kayak, I wuz sitting all naked and warm in the open side door of the van, baking in sunlight, reading a book, when without warning, an Oregon State Trooper in his dark blue truck materialized almost noiselessly and slowly drove by, no more than 30 feet away.

I gave him a wave, he gave me a wave and, in his government-issue mirrored sunglasses, he just kept on driving.

I have no idea what the laws are regarding nudity in the national forests but I bet he could have ticketed me for something if he'd been in the mood. But no complaints, minding my own business, tidy campsite, no loud music . . . keep moving folks, nothing to see.

So, so far: county sheriff in a boat, then state trooper.

Last night's dinner was grilled buffalo steak -- very good -- and I was planning on grilling

a nice grain-fed New York steak from a cow. The cut was marinating in Penzy's BBQ 3000 dry rub.

But in the afternoon, a couple crew in a forestry fire truck stopped in front of the campsite. Wanting to see I'd had a campfire going, I guessed. There's a fire restriction in place right now so I knew better.

"Are you aware of the travel restrictions?" she wanted to know.

"Uh . . . maybe," I said.

"Well, you can't camp below the high water mark," (I knew that), "and you are."

I didn't know that. I had surveyed the area pretty closely and didn't see a clear high water mark behind me, and I recalled plenty of people camping under these very trees last month when the reservoir was full.

But she said the whole field behind me, and the trees around me, are under water in spring.

"And, no campfires." She looked at my little charcoal grill. "Or charcoal fires."

Duh. I should have known that. And caught red-handed.

"Aw, shucks," I tried to be charming. "This is the sweetest campsite I've ever camped in."

"Are you leaving tomorrow?"

I was staying until Monday.

"You have to move. You can go up to those sites along the road," she pointed at higher sites buried in dark evergreen forest.

That was now three people with jurisdiction over me, and while the sheriff and the trooper saw nothing to complain about, the fire fighter did. I guess her priorities were a bit different.

I moved. It only took about 20 minutes, trailer and all. The new site wasn't as open as the old, and it is more bedraggled. Amazing how a couple generations of lazy campers can trash an area. Mutilated trees, mysterious pits dug in the ground, fire circles filled more with burnt garbage than ashes, and tatters of toilet paper on the ground back in the trees demonstrated how people can't be trusted to leave an area clean enough so when the water rises in spring, the river isn't polluted with human fecal matter and rubbish.

Still, I had a nice view. It got overcast that night.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 3

2011-10-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

The fish had started to rise at 6 the previous evening so I thought I'd go pester them. I had located the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife buoy about a half mile downstream and I'd need to be on the other side of the buoy to fish legally.

Me, ready for kayaking, striking manly pose.

Kayaks, though, are very tippy, and there's no way to lean over the side to release a fish, so I reckoned I'd use hookless flies. Just to see if I got a strike. Besides, I would not know what to do with a fish if I caught one. I recall our old man bringing fresh trout to camp when we were kids, and have mental images of fish being split open, anus to gullet; I remember digging inside to scoop out the gooshy bits. But while it doesn't seem too hard, I'd want to get some instruction in the matter before making a big horrible stinky mess.

Back in camp I started to prepare my tackle. Here's where my general ineptness with fishing began to show itself.

The old line and leader had to be stripped off my old spinning reel because it hadn't been used since 2003. Bruce Miller had suggested that 6-lb line and 4-lb leader would be appropriate for the conditions, but I discovered I brought 4 lb line and 4 lb leader. Sigh.

Next, after some serious fumblage getting the line onto the spool, I found I could not get the reel to work right. After some studying, I discerned that I had wrapped the line around the spool backwards. So, off the line came, back on it went.

I then clipped on a bubble float and made a test cast. The float flew off the end of the line, hit the water, and promptly sank.

Fortunately it was within reach of the rod tip so I fished it back to shore.

After re-rigging the float, studying the action of the bail, fiddling with the drag, and screwing around with my grip, I pulled off several decent casts.

But I never did make it back out on the water that day. A nice bottle of a 2009 pinot noir captured my attention.

It was a beautiful day, with pelicans boating about, looking like swans in the distance. This was one trip where I wished I had brought the real camera with a nice long lens. Just the thing to lose overboard.

That whole day I saw a total of two humans: one man out walking his dogs along the shore 1/2 mile downstream, and a sheriff who came boating up the river, scanning the shore, looking' for trouble.

It appeared that she got stuck in some weeds upstream, I though briefly about whether I could be of assistance, but realized that a 61 year-old man in a kayak would not really be that useful. She had a radio anyway, so could have gotten help if she needed it. Didn't, got unstuck, putted back downstream.

And that's it.

It was so quiet that I could hear birds flying overhead.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 2

2011-10-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

Some people are satisfied to eat canned goods when camping. I am not of that species. On my first morning my breakfast was farm-fresh eggs cooked sunny side up in pasture butter, bacon, and diced sweet potatoes and onion sauteed in olive oil, seasoned with rosemary and pepper.

First morning, view toward reservoir with camper van
under the trees. Click on image for larger view.

It was a cool, misty morning. I wandered about the area, becoming familiar with the lay of the land.
.

By midday it was 82 degrees, with a gentle breeze rustling the trees and I again stripped down to the buff. Why wear clothes when it's as nice as this and no one is around?

Besides, the National Weather Service radio was telling me that tomorrow would be cooler.

My modest lunch consisted of of Genoa salami schmeared with Brie de Nangis cheese.

Birds, birds, and birds. Water birds everywhere. Bald eagles, pelicans, huge blue egrets, some Double-crested cormorants, and a little sea birds which hangs out with the gulls which I could not identify. Mostly white, a couple or three black rings around the neck, and pointed wings.

View of camp from offshore.

After lunch I took the kayak out and explored the narrow branch of the reservoir I was camped on. I saw no other people, upstream or downstream, my side of the other side.

I'm a poor swimmer and do not trust that bodies of water have my best interests in mind, so I'm always a bit anxious when out on the water, but I love the gentle nature of kayaking, the peaceful solitude I find when out poking around the shoreline or out in the middle of a lake. Rivers, well, I'm a Class 1 kind of guy. Give me a nice smooth stream.

Camping on the Shore of Wickiup Reservoir, Pt. 1

2011-10-04T07:03:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott was out of town the whole third week of September, off playing with her girlfriends in SoCal. Not one to see the point of sitting around an empty house, alone, I loaded my VW poptop camper van with food and the little "Westrailia" trailer with camping gear and drove south, then west into the Deschutes National Forest to see about spending the week on the shore of Wickiup Reservoir, doing a little fishing, a little kayaking, some wine "tasting," and some cooking.

As "Woody" Bob Woodward told me, the backcountry empties out after Labor Day. Though in August the place was packed with campers, in mid-September the place is deserted. By 3 o' clock I was all set up on a sweet spit of land that I had eyed from my kayak the last time I was here.

It was just me, Great White Egrets, pelicans, killdeer, and ring-beaked seagulls stopping by on their migration from inland to the coast for winter; sun, wind, trees, and sand. Sand is not dirty, I like camping on sand.

Set up on the sand.

A bit of fried chicken and a glass of red wine for lunch, a full battery (plenty of sun and the reefer wasn't laboring to keep things cool, it being only around 90 in the van), and the kayak was on the shore.

With the full sun, warm temperature, and total lack of other humans, I stripped down to my birthday suit and enjoyed the feel of air and sun on my skin.

The reservoir was down several feet, having been drawn down by irrigation needs all through summer. Winter's snows will refill it.

We had a late fire season this year, with unusually dry and warm conditions and there were several fires burning throughout the mountains. The air was hazy and my eyes burned a bit due to the smoke from fires.

Because of the high risk of wildfire, there were no campfires permitted, violation risking a $500 fine. And where I was camping, fishing wasn't permitted due to spawning season, one has to go downstream a bit beyond the ODFW buoy to be legal. I wasn't really happy about that as I had planned to toss some flies and nymphs about with my spinning rig and try my luck.

("Luck" being the operative word here -- I am no fisherman and have little skill or knowledge of the art.)

As the sun set I had quacking ducks, the sound of fishies jumping, no wind, and a wonderful sunset.

Sunset on Wickiup. Dramatic lighting provided by
smoke from fires and Ma Nature.

Blog Overload

2011-10-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

Sunset on Wickiup Reservoir

(As always, people receiving this post via email are encouraged to click on the link to view the blog online for da pitchers.)

I need to catch up on blog posts. I went on three camping trips during September: a one-week camp in my VW van in the Deschutes National Forest along the shores of the Wickiup reservoir during which I was rousted twice by law enforcement officers; a one-night backpack with my son into the Three Sisters Wilderness where we had thundershowers in the evening and cold fall rain in the morning; and a three-night "farewell for 2011's camping season" stay in the BLM's East Fort Rock OHV area south of Millican, Ore.

During the first trip I learned much about what Oregon State Troopers, county sheriffs, forest rangers, and fire crews focus on with campers during fire season; I learned how to rig an anchor on my kayak so I could park myself in a current for fishing; I learned to identify kokanee salmon and many ways to inaccurately cast (hookless) flies; I field-tested a new portable propane heater (it got down to the mid-30's at night); and because my charcoal grill was a no-go during fire season, how to cook steak au poivre and baby back ribs on a stovetop. (To give credit, I had email and phone service in camp and it was Bruce ("Bend's Andy Rooney") Miller who suggested the steak recipe, and Michael Hill of Alsea, Ore. offered tips on how to cook the ribs indoors. Bend artist Katherine Taylor prompted me to take pictures of dramatic skies, one of which appears at the top of this post.)

During the backpacking trip I learned that even after checking and rechecking my pack to make sure that everything is loaded, I can still forget some important things pertaining to safety and comfort, and that all it takes is one stumble on the trail to break a rib. Yeah, I broke a rib.

On my final three-day trip I was reminded once again how varied and interesting Central Oregon's weather is, was again transfixed by the beauty of the high desert, and that despite more-crowded-than-usual conditions due to the opening of big-game hunting season, Oregonian campers are extremely polite about not crowding anyone who got a site before they got there, even if that site could hold a party of 50.

And I learned how to cook a half-rack of baby back ribs to perfection on a $19 Fred Meyers charcoal grill.

So I gotta get cracking. Lots to write, lots of nice photos to publish. This is just my warm-up exercise. I will finish with a detailed step-by-step of my ribs recipe for those who are interested in such things.

Jack Packs Pack

2011-09-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

Lancelot Lake at Sunset

Can a 61 year-old man who recently gained and lost 55 lbs, had ankle surgery two years ago, and has not backpacked since 2003 or even done a whole lot of walking lately, backpack into the Three Sisters Wilderness for a night without totally destroying himself?

Apparently so. And have a wonderful wonderful time, to boot.

Jack in camp, feeling mighty pleased.

I found it easier than I expected. Surprisingly so. Already planning my next hike!

Turns out an old bicycling jersey makes a fine
hot-weather hiking shirt.

Campin' Safari

2011-08-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott and I are departing early tomorrow morning on a camping trip. We're going to East Park Reservoir south of Redding, Calif.

This is not the kind of place we'd normally pick for camping. Satellite imagery shows a parched land, devoid of of foliage, a reservoir (i.e., not a real lake, unattractive bulldozered banks) in the lowlands. California in August is a hot place at best, and the reservoir attracts power boat people who like speed and noise. Jack does not find speed, in itself, to be interesting, and noise does not appeal.

But Mrs Elliott's kids and their friends are gathering there for Labor Day weekend and we've accepted the job of getting there early to find a big site for the ten-or-so vehicles and 20+ people that are expected. Even my son is driving down from Bend after work on Friday to join.

To cordon off the site, I bought 600 feet of rope from Harbor Freight today. We have a half dozen or so junky but suitable cheap popup tents to place within the area to make it look occupied. I gave brief hope that I could find blow-up manikins to place here and there in lifelike poses, but all I could find were sex dolls.

Our little Westrailia camping trailer is loaded up with just about anything we might find useful. My 1984 VW camper van is fueled and ready.

Two weeks ago the alternator idiot light on the dash lit when we were a few miles up a dirt road near Wickiup Reservoir, but that turned out to be worn-out brushes in the alternator and, wouldn't you know it, I had a spare with me. I put on a new water pump/alternator belt this weekend, and checked all the fluids and stuff so I reckon we are good to go.

The main issue appears to be the weather; or more accurately the heat. It's expected to get to about 100 degrees on the weekend. The camper van has no air conditioning.

I can tolerate temperature extremes, but Mrs Elliott has a fairly narrow "comfort" range. Anything below 72 degrees is "freezing" to her, and if it gets above 85 degrees, she wilts, gets crabby, gripes and moans, and is generally a pain to be around.

We'll see how this rolls.

More to follow . . . .

I Don't Get It

2011-08-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott and I were watching TV the other night. This being the dead, dry, parched time in TV viewing when there's pretty much not a goddamned thing on, she dialed through the movie listings and landed on Casablanca. It's a fine film and I enjoy it.

But she chose the non-HDTV version and the stupid TV applied its "stretch" mode to the image.

I walked into the room and said, "why are you watching the stretch-o-vision version?"

She said she didn't see anything wrong with the picture.

Here's what Bogart's face looks like:

Here's what the TV was displaying:

"I can't see a problem," she said.

Really? How can that be?

I changed channels to the HDTV one.

First Time Visit Back to San Diego

2011-08-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott and I moved from San Diego in 2008. Until this weekend, I had not re-visited the place. But I had to fly down on Friday to take care of some business, and I just got back last night.

Guy at the rental car place wanted to know if I wanted to upgrade from the base model. "I drive a 1984 VW van," I told him. "This is an upgrade."

I was curious to see if my feelings about the SoCal had changed.

What I learned is that, no, nothing has changed. The charms of San Diego, and SoCal in general, escape me. I don't find it in any way attractive. Sure, the ocean is pretty, but there's only a super-thin sliver of coastline compared with the hundreds and hundreds of square miles of traffic and buildings inland. The rest is sere hills, endless encrustations of crappy-looking stucco houses, billboards, and strip malls (Oh my god the strip malls are everywhere!). The driving style is binary: on and off: they are either flooring the gas when the light turns green, or jamming on the brakes for a red. And crowded. So many people, so much pollution. Sales tax, pump your own gas, glary moisture-laden skies.

When the day came in 2008 to to move up here, I could hardly wait, and hit the road feeling like I had finally escaped from a long, long nightmare. I felt exactly the same way yesterday when I got onto the plane.

When I deplaned, I smelled the perfume of the junipers and felt the crispness of the air. And Mrs Elliott was up, waiting for me. It was good.

I don't get SoCal's attraction. It has many fans, and I'm happy that they are happy to live there. But I could not find a single thing I missed.

They Said There Would Be Thunderstorms, Updated Photo, Bulletin BKs.

2011-08-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

Finally. A decent peal of thunder. I know that for firefighters and property owners in the outback, lightning is a bitch. But I love it. I love dramatic weather. So while others may be watching the skies with trepidation, I welcome the flashing and crashing. I'm weird that way.

Speaking of which, my new profile photo (on the right) is the best so far, dontchathink? Mrs Elliott took that shot last weekend. Do I not look a little unhinged?

It's a good thing.

Oh, BTW, Duncan: I noticed the Bulletin's announcement that they are seeking bankruptcy protection. We know someone whose wife works at the paper and learned about the filing early this morning. I could-a blogged about it but there's little for me to say, so I leave it to you to do what you can to draw attention to this bit of irony. They got caught up in the same go-go real estate bubble that they, by command of their advertiser overlords, helped promote. A paper that lives by the advertisers, dies by the advertisers. Fuck 'em. (Jack pauses, recognizing that the paper employs people he knows, and he doesn't wish for one of them to lose a job. May they come out of this stronger and perhaps a little less willing to sell their souls to the almighty dollah. It's really BofA Jack wants to see buggered with a cactus.)

"Sateen" Sheets Troubling

2011-08-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott just put some new sateen sheets on the bed. I'm not certain what "sateen" means: Satinesque? Pre-satin? Post-satin? Anyway, it's a fabric with a shiny finish.

The damn stuff rustles like gift wrap tissue and feels dangerously slippery.

The wikipedia tells me that, "Better qualities [of sateen] are mercerized to give a higher sheen. Some are only calendered to produce the sheen but this disappears with washing and is not considered genuine sateen."

A good washing in hot water with strong detergent will not only show whether these things are mercerized or calendered, but maybe it will make the stuff feel better. Cheap and scratchy, like low thread-count standard cotton. That's how I like my sheets. Less chance of sliding out of bed.

A Return to the Backcountry

2011-08-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

I feel fit as a fiddle and ready for love.

Over the course of the past 10 months, I've shed 55 lbs, and my right ankle, which was surgerized in 2009, is fixed...in both senses: it no longer flexes and is no longer a source of pain.

I'm back on my sweet little road bike, bipping around town and exulting in how responsive it is and how light and strong I feel.

And I'm thinking about doing a little backpacking.

I started backpacking when I was teenager and loved it. I enjoyed the whole thing: poring over maps, planning routes, buying guidebooks and reading descriptions of places to backpack, assembling the gear, making menus, counting calories and ounces, buying food and re-packaging it for easy meals; and when the morning of the trip arrived, I awoke early and eager to go.

The first day on the trail was always kind of a struggle. The second a bit better. By the fourth day I was settled in and in the groove of hiking and resting and making camp and sleeping and breaking camp and hiking more, always looking ahead to see what was around the next corner. I hiked around Yellowstone Lake by myself when I was 28 and there were times of uncertainty and exhaustion, and there were times of sublime beauty and comfort.

My last trip was with my son and stepson about six or maybe eight years ago, in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, out of Bishop. It was a weeklong trip and the kids were still young. It was an in-and-out (as opposed to a loop) trip, over New Army Pass to Soldier Lake. Really, really beautiful.

I kind of considered that my last trip. My ankle, which was becoming increasingly painful after any extended standing or walking, was crippling me: even an evening of standing while preparing a fancy meal for friends resulted in excruciating pain the next morning. On the hike I kept it tightly wrapped and consumed a whole lot of Ibuprofen.

My backpacking days were over, figured. And after moving to Bend I shed much of my gear. The good stuff went to my son (he still goes on backpacking trips with his friends [I think he caught the bug from me]) and I discarded the rest.

I kind of regret that now, because the itch has returned. This is a gorgeous area to backpack in. There are mountains and streams and lakes and trails galore. From San Diego, access to this kind of country required a six hour drive, minimum -- and always through Los Angeles, nature's punishment for people too simple to realize that are lobsters in slowly heating water.

And I'm-a gonna scratch that itch. The stars have aligned. My ankle is fixed, my weight down, my energy good. My son has allowed that he'd enjoy going on an overnighter with his old man.

That last time, I outwalked him. This time, I suspect that he'll be politely waiting for me.

I'll pull out what gear I have remaining and see what I need to acquire to put together the necessities. I know my hiking boots are gone, probably my hiking poles, too; stoves and sleeping pads are likely vanished, but I do have a pack and more than one down sleeping bag; and I have feelers out to the likes of the peripatetic Bob Woodward* and others for recommendations for an easy one-night trip out to some sweet lake or streamside destination where a fellow can unpack a mummy bag and build a little fire, light a fattie and enjoy the silence and beauty.

It will be a test, a test to see whether the old man still has enough horsepower to climb up and down trails, and whether he can get a decent night's sleep on a Thermarest pad without heavy medication.

But why not? I feel good now, not plagued by various ankle and knee ailments or excessive weight. Right now I feel energetic and strong and inspired. And I'll be goddamned if I'll let this opportunity pass.

Of course, I might end up being one of those stories on KTVZ-TV Channel 21 news:

"A 61 year-old Bend man strayed off the trail while hiking with his son in the Three Sisters Wilderness and has been missing for three days. Search and rescue teams are combing the area, hoping to find him before the grizzlies and snowstorms find him first. McKenzie Williams has the story. McKenzie?"

But it's unlikely. I'm an experienced backpacker, know how to read a map and a compass, I have a GPS, and I've only gotten lost in the backcountry maybe four or five times.**

So in a few weeks, after the tourists and other assorted riff-raff have retreated back to their dismal urban ghettos, we're hitting the trail.

I'm excited.

=================================

* Actually his wife is the fount of knowledge about trails hereabout.

** Yeah, I've gotten lost a few times. The first or second time you get lost you panic. By the time you've gotten lost the third or fourth time, you just look around, check the map again, and sigh. If it's late, you find a likely place to camp, preferably with water as dry camps are tedious, and hope to sort things out in the morning; if it's not too late in the day, you study the geography, try to match it to the map, and if nothing makes sense, backtrack until you find where you lost the trail. Simple, really -- it's plunging ahead that gets folk into trouble.

A Little Camping at Little Cultus Lake

2011-08-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott reading at Site #6.

Mrs Elliott and I went camping last weekend. Well, I actually started the trip on Wednesday, the better to get a choice site at the popular Little Cultus Lake US Forestry campground in the Deschutes Nat'l Forest. Mrs Elliott joined me on Friday, right after lunch.

I got a pretty decent site. Like all popular USFS campgrounds in high season, these places tend to fill up starting Thursday, and by Friday night the good sites are gone. The bigger, more popular USFS campgrounds have reservable sites, but Little Cultus Lake is first-come, first-served. So one's best odds for finding a good site is to arrive midweek.

It's a pretty location, though we feel that we have outgrown fee camping where your neighbors are within eye- and earshot. These days we find that we prefer undeveloped "dispersed" campsites where you're all alone along a stretch of lake shore or a river. With roads too rough for giant RVs and a total lack of "facilities," only the best-equipped campers who are willing to bring their own toilets and water are found. Such campers have learned to shrug off the herding instinct that prompts most campers to cluster together.

But for this trip, since Mrs Elliott was coming by separate car, we elected to go to a known place. The dispersed campgrounds are scattered and often hidden and I had little confidence that she could find where I had settled, but might instead find herself wandering dirt and gravel roads in the forest with no idea where I was. Her navigational skills are not very strong, having little sense of compass bearings, and most of the places we go don't have cell service or any other way for me to send GPS latitude/longitude coordinates or directions to her.

So she arrived on schedule, and it's always nice to have her with me.

We pooted around the lake in my little red kayak and an inflatable watercraft with miserable oarlocks and stupid little cheap oars. Next time, two kayaks.

If The Cops Show Up It's A Good Party

2011-07-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

Never let a biker's girlfriend tend bar. That's the take-home lesson I learned this weekend.

We had our annual summer lawn party on Saturday. About 35 or 40 guests, friends, family. It was a "luau" theme and there were weeks of preparation. Rented tables and chairs, hired a band, invited neighbors so they would not call the cops (someone across the valley did, anyway, but the band turned it down a bit and we weren't bothered after that), put tiki torches around the yard, set up small charcoal hibachis on tables and provided skewered meats and veggies for folk to cook. Guests were encouraged to wear their tackiest luau outfits. Some were very tacky. I chose "Creepy Old Guy Who Thinks He Is Much Younger Than He Really Is" for my costume. I think I pulled it off very well.

That creepy old Jack Elliott with two daughters-in-law.
Reid of Dump City Dumplings setting up to provide
appetizers, behind.

I bought wine (three bottles each of two reds, two rosé's, and two whites), and a pony keg of Trumer Pils beer. Also the makings for Mai Tai's: rums, orgeat, Triple Sec, simple syrup, limes, cocktail straws and umbrellas.

We hired a bartender with an OLCC permit to do the mixing and pouring. While setting up I learned that her boyfriend was a Harley biker dude without a job. Her income pays for him and his bike. This is something I never quite get about women, why some find that life so attractive. Just look at the men and women in a biker bar and you are looking at your future--but hey her life and all that.

She mixed up the first trial Mai Tai and gave it to me to approve. It was tasty.

Shortly into the party the bartender announced that we were running out of rum. A neighbor volunteered to made a rum run.

Now, I don't normally make or consume cocktails and had figured that 1.5 liters of golden rum and 750 ml of dark rum would be sufficient for this group, that most people would drink wine or beer. Alarm bells should have been going off at this point.

But instead I had a couple glasses of wine, another Mai Tai or two, was barbecuing a skewer of shrimp when the world came crashing down on me. I was plastered and it was all I could do to get upstairs and fall onto the bed, humiliated. That would have been around 8 pm.

I missed the entire second half of the party. I woke up at dawn, feeling pretty miserable, not just physically, but mentally: I was ashamed and angry with myself. We worked so hard on this party and I passed out halfway through.

I reviewed how much I remembered drinking and it just wasn't enough to explain what happened to me. But I did drink on an empty stomach and I was certain that was what I had done wrong.

Mrs Elliott with same two daughters-in-law.

Fortunately, when an exhausted but happy Mrs Elliott got up she said that everyone had a great time, the band had folk up and dancing, and that I wasn't the only one who got pretty drunk. Several people had to be sent home in cabs.

So this morning I got an email from Paul (the Computer Guy) Spencer and he tells me that he saw the bartender pour at least six shots of rum into a Mai Tai and hand it to an unsuspecting guest.

So -- two things that don't mix well:

1. Empty stomach, and
2. Mai Tai's mixed by a biker's girlfriend.

Next party--and there will be a next party and I plan to be there the whole time--there will be a discussion with the bartender about how much booze to put in the drinks.

Hey I Got Rope

2011-07-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

I was camping last week at a sweet spot near Twin Lakes Resort. I decided to clean out my rope bag.

Big rope, little rope. Lots of colorful rope!

After some consideration, I decided to get rid of the cheap blue rope with the yellow and red checks. The others I kept.

I like rope.

The weather was variable. This shot was taken on Friday afternoon:

My decorative camping flags were blowing in the onshore breeze. That's a waterproof waxed cotton canvas tarp covering some of my gear in the foreground. Not a body.

I gathered up several sharpened sticks I found in the campsite and leaned them against the tree. Maybe the previous occupants were expecting trouble.

My son joined me on Saturday. He brought his little dog, Peanut.

Jim liked the retro look of this photo.

Here's Jim's Jeep. He's very proud of it.

I have heard that some are satisfied eating beans out of cans when camping. I do not belong to that school.

Shrimp Kabobs. Picture's a little fuzzy, was working under low light.

Mrs Elliott has started to express interest in going on a camping trip or two . . . I think I can manage another trip. Or two.

Pizza Mondo is apparently the Heart of Bend

2011-07-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

I asked Google Maps to chart a course from here ("Bend, OR") to the Vandervert exit off the 97 below Sunriver.

It started the route from Pizza Mondo.

I'm cool with Pizza Mondo being the default center of Bend. Anyone got a problem with that?

Yeah, I'm a Simpleton

2011-07-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

My Stupidity Index usually surpasses my Competence Index.

Earlier this week, the household sink's garbage disposer packed up. Sounded like it had chewed a piece of metal, and it would not budge.

"It's a goner," I said, with male confidence. Purchased a new disposer from Home Depot (who are very nice to their employees) and brought it home. Fancy piece, 3/4 hp, over $200. Well-reviewed on Consumer Reports.

Plumber guy came over, peered into the thing's maw with a flashlight, probed into it with a magnetic retriever and fished out a screw. A #8 X 1/2'' pan Phillips sheet metal screw with a black finish.

"Well, there's your problem," he said. Fired up the disposer which ran as sweetly as a $12,000 record turntable on air bearings.

Mrs Elliott looked at me. I felt somewhat cretinish.

I have no idea where that screw came from, or how it got close enough to the kitchen sink to fall in. But I am 99 and 44/100ths sure that the screw wasn't part of the disposer. And I suspect that it came from me. I mean, how many women typically wander about with loose #8 X 1/2'' pan Phillips sheet metal screws in standard steel with a (could have been oil or wax) black finish?

I did it and I are a nitwit.

Garden's Wrapped Up So Pet Parade and Freedom Ride Snapshots

2011-07-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

The final work on the garden wrapped up on Saturday: colorful annuals planted, mulch spread, final drip irrigation emitters installed. A job well done and it looks swell.

So we went to the Pet Parade then the Freedom Ride. Four random shots, two from the parade, and two of Mrs Elliott and me waiting for the Freedom Ride to get underway:

This, That, and some other Damn Things

2011-06-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Today was the ugliest day of the month (TM): bill-pay day. Ugh. $1,000 in the hole.

We just had 6 yards of garden mulch delivered to maison Elliott. After making arrangements with High Desert Mulching to have the stuff brought over in their smallest dump truck (following much discussion about wheelbase, height of truck, etc.), the guy that took the order didn't pass this bit of information on to the driver who arrived right on schedule ... in a huge fucking dump truck, one far too large to go down the little driveway beside the house. Poor fellow had to go back and transfer the load and bring it back out in their smallest truck.

It fit -- just.

So now there's this giant heap of High Desert Blend (sounds like a coffee) waiting to be strewn amongst the foliage.

This will happen tomorrow. And so will edging the lawns.

I, accompanied by the groundskeeper and my wolfhounds, paced off the lawns and determined that 240 feet of vinyl edging is needed to contain the grass -- grass which is positively bursting into the flower beds -- and bought four 60-foot rolls from Home Despot. Mind, I would have Bought Local, but after calling around no one -- get this -- no gardening center or landscaping company in Bend has landscape edging. "Call one of the big box stores," was the advice I received.

Oh well, we're working on the cheap so you do what you gotta do. If I'd had my 'druthers, I'd-a bought brick pavers.

So. Today I was feeling a little under the weather -- sore throat, gastrointestinal upset-- but after paying the damn bills, I scraped up enough energy to take apart my second-hand Spanish-American war-era Hi Lift jack (part of the tackle I've assembled to pull my camper van's ass out of stuck places) and cleaned it so (a) it can be painted some other color -- red? Mellow Yellow ivory? Black?* -- then (b) rebuilt with new bits to operates smoothly.

These jacks go by the generic name "farm jack", and like most tools used around a farm, they can, and will, maim or kill without warning. So keeping it in good operating condition reduces the chance of having a minor annoyance, such as getting stuck in sand, turn into a life-threatening (or ending) situation.

Meanwhile, Mrs Elliott had other goals today. She employed several teenage girls -- daughter and friends of an employee -- to assemble and package trinkets to take to a conference, which takes place a couple weeks from now in, um, Pittsburgh or some damn place.

While she's gone, I'll be camping. Dunno where, yet. North Fork John Day river? My son is dropping by tomorrow so we can take a drive along the Metolius to check out the camping opportunities there.

IN OTHER NEWS, the Volcano Funk Fest is at the end of July. I just found out that a previous obligation has been canceled, so I can go. KPOV's "Dr. G" tells me that the Band To See is Big Sam's Funky Nation. More than music, she assures me: they put on a show. Dr. G is from New Orleans. She knows from funk. And if the lady says that Big Sam's Funk Nation be the band, I am there.

They are scheduled to go on stage at midnight.

I'm gonna need a whole lot of coffee.
================
* Son recommends hammertone gray and fire-engine red.

A Big Day Gardening Preceded by a Very Early Awakening

2011-06-24T19:04:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning at 2:30 am. This wasn't my idea. It seems to have been prompted by a combination of old guy aches and pains (been having a bitch of a time with nocturnal leg cramps, my doc will be looking at the results of Thursday's bloodwork and let me know if there is anything obvious going on; me, I'll be trying some Schwepp's tonic water which contains quinine tonight) combined with additional musculoskeletal aches caused by hefting around bags of compost and 16'' concrete stepping stones yesterday.

But mainly due to some anticipation of the Big Planting Day today.

Eighty-five plants to plant. Many in the front, many in the back. Mostly perennials, and a few shrubs. This woke me up early. Stupid fretting and planning.

I would not do the actual planting, my brass knee making work on ground level extremely difficult, but a guy was coming at 9 and I wanted to have everything ready for him.

I read for an hour, got drowsy, turned out the light. And returned to full wakefulness immediately.

"Screw this," I thought, and stole out of bed, as quietly as possible so as not to disturb Mrs Elliott (sleeping the sleep of the sweet and pure), pulled on my Pac Man jammy bottoms and Oregon Ducks t-shirt and drifted into the kitchen. Killed time on the Internet, eggs and bacon breakfast at 5 am, and watched the clock tick toward sane hours.

The garden plan and plant list for today's work had been provided by Karen Rossetto who works at Landsystems, that nursery out on Highway 20 just east of 27th street. I picked them to do the work because they were familiar with Libby's Garden, a lovely little spot of color near Drake Park, near the breezeway. Gardeners and landscape people unfamiliar with Libby's Garden are not worth a burnt-out match, as far as I am concerned.

Not just because I think that Libby's Garden is as pretty as pretty can be, but because Mrs Elliott's taste in plants is mainly in direction of flowers, flowers, and flowers.

Landsystems delivered the plants on Tuesday and I separated them into front yard and back yard groups, and had been watering them with the hose twice a day so they would not die before they had a chance to get into their new homes.

Because Karen did the planning a month ago, when last year's new perennials were still dormant, I asked if she could come by this morning to help place the new plants, thinking that now that last year's plants were now making themselves known she might tweak her design a bit.

So she came by at 8 am and sorted out where the plants were to go. Some existing plants were going to need to be moved.

I watched her placing plants, digging into the soil with her bare hands. "Don't you wear gloves?" I said.

"Oh no. I love getting my hands into the soil."

An admirable quality in a woman.

And there I was, wearing landscaper's gloves, feeling like a total wuss.*

At 9 am, Pedro Ibanez -- a fellow recommended by Bruce Miller -- along with a son (senior at Mountain View High), and a spare nephew (also senior, but at Summit High) came by, and we got the show on the road.

Though Pedro has a lot of experience planting and doing landscape maintenance on places like the amphitheater and the Old Mill, Karen stuck around long enough to give the Gospel According to Landsystems on how the perennials are to be planted: dig a hole twice the diameter of the container, fill it with water, wait for it to drain, place the plant and surround it with a 50-50 mix of local soil and compost, then pour on root stimulant to wake the plant up.

Pedro's English is about as good as my Spanish. I know a little gardening Spanish, he knows a little gardening English. The kids, of course, were just regular English-speaking high school kids. I split my time using pidgin Spanish with Pedro, who was closer to my age and a peer, and regular vernacular English with the kids, who are just kids -- they're nice kids, but they are still kids and therefore unsatisfying for conversational purposes.

It was fun unlimbering my Spanish, and though Pedro corrected me a few times (I used "antes" when I meant "dispues" when saying that we'd resume after lunch), and a couple other other flubs, we communicated quite well.

So Pedro and youths dug and planted, I followed with diluted root stimulant in a big red bucket, and we generally plugged along like that for five hours. I turned on the sprinkler system to see if the digging had caused any problems with the existing lines, and we found a one place where the 1/2'' poly line had been punctured by a shovel, and three places where the 1/8th-inch drip lines had been severed or disconnected from the line.

Leaks need to be fixed, trips needed to be made to the irrigation supply house (Horizon, out on Boyd Acres) to get the required bits.

Two blue oat grasses, two ninebarks, and one "low grow" sumac -- all planted last year -- wanted to be moved, as they did not please where they were; and the five rhododendrons we planted last year needed to be replaced with new because the old had did over the winter for lack of water. Who knew that plants needed watering over winter? I thought they were dormant.

Lesson learned.

After the plants were in and the irrigation Band-aids had been applied, the boys hauled 40 two cubic-foot bags of medium bark mulch (Ace hardware, free delivery) down from the driveway to place around the path I'd created alongside the hot tub with the stepping stones (which were probably responsible for the aches and pains which had woken me up so early this morning), and they dug up some disreputable-looking yuccas that had been lurking in the corner of the yard since we moved in, three summers ago.

I cut a low-hanging limb off a juniper, a limb which had knocked my hat off a number of times while mowing the lawn, causing me to develop a strong dislike for it; and we hauled rocks to plug a hole under the fence made by a mama skunk to gain access to her private little hideaway under the hot tub last winter.

I also modified the irrigation setup in the front so that the plants in the soil will be watered deeply twice a week while the hanging color baskets -- which have entirely different needs -- will be watered for short periods twice a day.

These guys were previously on the same circuit and that was another thing that woke me up: I saw how to reconcile these two needs cheaply and easily using parts found around the house.

While we were digging and planting and spreading, Mrs Elliott and one of her employees were doing tie-dye on the lawn for the KPOV Beatles singalong tomorrow night. Made a pretty awesome marijuana leaf banner, too, I must say!

Pedro was done at 3, and Mrs Elliott paid him (she has the money around here).

He'll be back next week to do lawn edging, something badly needed because I'm doing such a great job taking care of the lawn (it looks positively resort-like!) that it is vigorously invading the flower beds.

I tidied up, noticed that I was weary, drove to Newport Market (three blocks), picked up some kabobs to barbecue tonight and a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio.

I am now relaxing.

My ankle, the one that was fused in 2009, is complaining, but I am not: the flower beds look great. It was a very productive day. I hope Mrs Elliott will soon appreciate the beauty of perennials, develop the patience to let them really take root, and get over her longing for SoCal's more showy but (IMHO less-interesting) flowers.

Time will tell.

Tomorrow I'll pick up a bunch of marigolds, annual geraniums, and petunias to add some color for next month's annual summer party fest here at Maison Elliott, and install a whole lot more irrigation for the new plants.

===============
* On the other hand, my son and I just finished watching Bill Burke's "Getting Unstuck," an instructional video about using chains and jacks and other manly implements to pull stuck vehicles out of sand and mud (considering that I managed to get myself stuck three times last year, it makes sense to learn how to undo my nitwittery) and he makes a point about wearing gloves at all times. "Keep your hands baby soft."

And why not? I don't need to tear up my hands and fingernails to show how butch I am.

Small Business Owners in Bend, Beware

2011-06-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

A little birdy has told me that the IRS has just brought five agents into Bend specifically to audit S-corps. Git yer books in order 'cause Uncle Sugar wants his money!

Two Musical Events . . .

2011-06-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

. . . one I will be able to attend, the second I cannot.

The One I Can Attend: The ever-popular Beatles Singalong on June 25 at the Century Ballroom at 7 pm.

For the benefit of KPOV
There will be a show to see
Bring your bong.
Seven bands will play some songs
Beatles songs to sing along
You can't go wrong!

With dancing, beer and wine and food
and a silent auction for nifty swag*

In this way we can celebrate the day!

* Including a gift certificate to a 5 day rental of a VW Westfalia camper van from Happy Campers in Hawaii!

Tickets available at KPOV.org
10/members $12 non members $15 at the door

...Let's all get up and dance to a song that was a hit before your mother was born.

The One I Cannot Attend. Jack loves funk. And a two-day funk fest sounds about right. Something like, maybe, the Volcanic Funk Fest.

July 30 and 31 (also at the Century Center). But Jack has a prior engagement and, alas, cannot attend.

Y'all get down without me.

A Series of Tubes

2011-06-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

I'm the IT guy for Mrs Elliott's company. Which is kind of like putting a basset hound in charge of financial planning. I do what I can for her, help with the occasional hardware or software glitch by generally hacking my way through the problems and using Google a whole lot to find out what others have done with similar issues.

Yesterday, the bookkeeper was unable to open the company file. The first thing I found was that the network was down. You could browse the Internet from any machine, but none of the machines or file servers were visible in the network.

The only thing I could think of doing was turn off every machine on the network, then bring them back up. That's like ten computers, and a few printers and other network-connected peripherals. This would be quite a disruption to the day's business.

So I called Paul the Computer Guy to ask for advice. Paul wasn't there but his lieutenant, Susan, suggested that I cycle the router, and if that doesn't work, turn off all the machines on the network then bring them back up. Ugh.

I reset the router and Hey Presto! the network became visible again. The bookkeeper would be able to find and open the file.

Except he couldn't because the file server was filled to capacity. It has a 1 terabyte hard drive which was suddenly 100% full. I had to figure out what was chewing up all the space and it turned out that the backup directory for one of my machines was huge.

I deleted most of the old backups and re-configured the backup settings on the rogue machine to take up less space.

Problem averted, but not solved, because no matter how I set things up, that drive is going to be full. We're gonna need a bigger file server.

At the same time, another series of tubes were being worked on: we had a couple guys in the backyard, in the rain, installing new sprinklers for our flower beds. The flower beds are an ongoing project, and I hope to bung a whole bunch of new plants into them shortly. More flowers for Mrs Elliott.

Unexpected Excitement

2011-06-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

We had a bit of excitement here at chez Elliott last night.

Getting ready for bed, Mrs Elliott said, "Uh oh. I just took some of your Mobic by mistake!"

Mobic is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used for relief of chronic pain, usually from arthritis. I take it daily to ease the aches and pains of my fused ankle, titanium knee, and general old guy body complaints.

Mrs Elliott can take neither aspirin nor NSAIDs as she learned early on in life that she is quite allergic to such meds. They cause her to have a severe anaphalactic reaction -- very disagreeable and life-threatening.

She tried throwing up the pills with no results. "I don't know how bulemics do it."

So we grabbed our coats and wallets and drove to the ER at St. Charles where we discussed the situation with the triage nurse. Since Mrs Elliott was not yet showing any symptoms, we agreed that there was no reason yet to check in; we'd wait and see how she feels.

After an hour, no signs of trouble were turning up, so we drove home.

Mrs Elliott is sleeping happily right now.

So what does this mean? That she is not allergic to NSAIDs and has been taking Tylenol (the D student of analgesics, and fairly toxic) instead of far more useful pain meds such as ibuprofen her whole life from a mistaken diagnosis? Or that some NSAIDs are fine while some are dangerous? How does one go about testing for such a thing without ending up in the hospital?

So many questions.

All I can say is that I will paint the caps of my meds with red paint. And, as anyone who has ever gone to the ER will tell you, no one looks as pretty in a real ER as they do on medical dramas on TV.

"I'm Having My First Glass of Wine!" or Camping Alone Along The Lower Deschutes River

2011-06-03T21:12:00.000-07:00

(This is a long one. I struggled with tense the whole time)

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional time for mom and dad to strap Aunt Edna on top of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, ram the kids and pets inside, and go camping. For rednecks, it is the time to get together with five other like-minded people with similarly large, bulky pickups and roar into a campground at 1 am to get drunk; and for Aryan Yuppie couples preparing to breed the Master Race to pull up in their little Priuses and set up expensive little dome tents and drink from expensive BHP-free water bottles.

Like St. Patrick's Day, it's amateur hour. They don't do it out of love for the activity, they do it because they think they have to. They make it less fun for those of us who take our camping (or drinking) seriously.

Which is why I waited until Memorial Day to go. Mrs Elliott isn't in town anyway so I had no particular reason to stick around the house.

In my experience, your campgrounds are pretty quiet on weekdays. Monday through Thursday will generally be the best time to go. People start arriving on Friday mid-day and by Friday night all the nice spots in a campground will usually be full.

Which means that on Friday night, the bros will arrive after midnight in their unnecessarily large lifted trucks and set up right next to me. With full headlights and shouting and a hip hop soundtrack.

So I try to stay away from weekend camping. It's for the rubes, the punters. The only time to go camping is when the weekend is over. Period.

I have been serious about camping since I was a kid. I have preparations down to a science.

I study the weather forecasts and refine what to bring, paring the clothes down to the minimum that will keep me comfortable, plus a little margin of error in case it's hotter, colder, wetter, or drier than expected. (It turns out that I did very well this trip. I had one case of excess: a heavy fleece pullover which I never needed.)

I check maps and make lists on Post-It notes, reminders of things to bring (floss! bedding! tea! cigars!), tasks to take care of (find lug wrench!), a grocery list or two, and plaster them about the house.

I thoroughly enjoy the process!

I decided to drive to Maupin, then north on the Deschutes River Access Road and find a quite, scenic place to camp.

I chose to bring my laptop to blog on, and though I usually don't watch movies when I camp, the weather may sufficiently wet or cold that I might spend most of my time inside, so I brought the films Tunes of Glory, Unmistaken Child, Morning Glory, and I Love You Phillip Morris. (It turns out that I was never bored enough to watch a movie on this trip.)

On the trip, I brought a tidy little portable toilet, the kind used on sail boats, so I would not be tied to places with outhouses; and of course Mellow Yellow, our 1984 VW camper, has solar panels so my music, lighting and refrigerator needs are taken care of; and with a 20-gallon tank of water, a sink, a stove, a barbecue, birding binoculars, wine, a Kindle filled with books, a kerosene heater for outside, a propane radiant heater inside, and various savory food items to cook, I reckoned I would do all right.

[Some might find Martin Hogue's A Short History of the Campsite an interesting read at this point. Others may not. It's your funeral.]

Monday Morning, Memorial Day, day of departure.
The drive to Maupin and down the river was uneventful. Which is how I like my drives. Mellow Yellow ran smoothly, like a top. Nothing good can come of this.

From Maupin I turned north down the river toward to Beavertail campground, passing Oak Springs campground, where, as my reader may recall, Mrs Elliott and I spent a night last September on our way back from Astoria. My tentative goal was Beavertail campground, north of Shrears Falls and Shrears Bridge.

But Beavertail wasn't exactly what I was looking for. The campsites are set back from the river, and shrubbery blocks any view of the water. What's the point of camping alongside a river if you can't see it?

I drove a bit farther north, to Rattlesnake CG, but it too suffered from a lack of anything interesting to look at. Unless you consider bushes and road interesting.

So I turned around to re-examined the CGs I had passed on the way down, and at Jones Canyon I found a lovely spot, exactly what I was looking for: a level spot to park Mellow Yellow, a view of the river, open skies and no one else save a couple of ancient anglers trying their luck downstream.

And the site greeted me: driving from Bend to Maupin the skies were overcast. Not leaden heavy skies, but almost completely overcast. When I pulled into this site, the sun came out and I heard a heavenly choir sing "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah."

Mellow Yellow camped in site #10

That was all the convincing I needed.

The site is a "group" campsite which costs $12 more per night than a standard single site. But it was perfect. So I filled out the site reservation ticket and paid the "single" rate, thinking that if a uniformed representative of the Bureau of Land Management (United States Department of the Interior) wanted to bing me for the difference, it would be worth it.

At 1:30 I had pulled in, and now, two o' clock, I'm all set up, enjoying a midday lunch of raw almonds and, in the words of Mrs Elliott's longtime acquaintance and our friend, Michael Hill, "I'm having my first glass of wine!" (Finca el Tesso, 2009, Newport Market, $10, nice).

The sun is shining, I'm shirtless, the solar panels are keeping the house battery topped up while I listen to Kate Bush's An Architect's Dream on the stereo. Two mighty Burlington Northern & Santa Fe freight trains have power upriver on the main line; three huge locomotives pulling 100+ cars up the opposite shore of the Deschutes; with two "pusher" locomotives bringing up the tail end.

Mellow Yellow faces train across river.

There was a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper takes his family on a picnic, and when they are ready to leave Sally Draper throws their trash into the grass. He tosses his beer can aside.

It was a surprising moment for me. It reminded me of how much we have changed as a society. Or most of us.

Still, people consider campsites to be acceptable places to leave their trash. I found six huge chunks of wood tossed into the grass around the site.

Six giant cleats left by previous occupant.

Some people are pigs.
...
5 pm. Switched to a Chianti (Aquila d'Oro, ["Golden Eagle"], 2009, Trader Joes, $6). This stuff is nasty. But someone has to drink it. Might as well be me.

There is a sweet little stone beach along the river below this campsite. With a bit of shade, too. Mrs Elliott could fall asleep there in midsummer.

Mmmmm - dinner. Simple but savory. A big ol' artisanal bratwurst steamed, butterflied, and grilled. Served with Sriracha "rooster" sauce.

The solar panels are easily keeping atop of the energy requirements of my refrigerator and stereo. The house battery is charged to "Full." I am parsimonious about electrical power, and after an evening of energy-draining energy usage I will not turn on anything that consumes power in the morning until the panels have charged the battery back to full.

Harvesting the power of the sun

6:30 pm. Thunderstorm. I've camped through plenty, and like 'em. Flash of light then crashing noise. Light travels instantaneously, sound's a lot slower. Takes sound 5 seconds to cover a mile. Flash! then crash! Count the interval. 1 to 2 seconds. These electrical discharges are only about a quarter of a mile overhead.

Rain is falling heavily, but it's a heavy warm rain; ever notice how thunderstorms bring warm rain?

Bach's Concerto in D minor, BVW 1043 III on the stereo, Heavy rain and the sun is shining. Everything is getting washed. Full sun and a heavy, warm, downpour. Could it get any better? Not by this writer.

Tuesday morning, second day
5:45 am. Slept well. Conditions: skies overcast; 55°F inside, same outside; damp-feeling; lit radiant heater to "low"; overnight power usage, 17A/H, battery at 87% capacity.

[Author's note: Though I have respect for my reader and don't want cause boredom by focusing too much on the minutiae, I do want to record a few things. I normally keep a journal when camping, but I find this activity more enjoyable using my little netbook and Blogilo, a free offline blogging tool, than I do with a paper journal book.

So this is my journal entry for the trip and it will get posted (why not? I'm paid by the word, (the princely sum of 0¢ per word, a rate negotiated between my editor [me] and myself) so I suggest to my reader that he/she consider this post no more than few pages torn from my journal, not worth reading, not to be confused with one of my more serious posts.

I promise to write a serious post one of these days.]

7 am. Breakfast (butterflied sausage, two eggs sunny side up) is cooking; skies clear, sun striking opposite canyon wall, has not yet reached the river and campground.

The refrigerator thermometer showed temp just a few degrees above freezing, I set the thermostat higher to reduce power consumption, temps below 45°F are fine.

Some high clouds blew in for an hour or so, but when the sun was high enough to hit the canyon floor, at 8:30, they had dissipated, and the battery started to receive a charge.

I busied myself with various tasks, like: troubleshooting the courtesy light over the driver's door (broken, needs replacing); organizing the spare parts kit under the driver's seat (spares, mainly; things like fuses, oil filter, distributor cap and rotor, accelerator cable, alternator voltage regulator, light bulbs, and so on); doing the same for the repair kit for the camper (bits of Velcro, strong thread and needle, adhesives, snaps &c.); likewise the the little toolbox I keep my ham radio along with other electrical devices like battery chargers and bits of wire and connectors in; cleaning and organizing the two bins we keep under the refrigerator; and generally swabbing the decks.

Stuff in Box #1 - items what go on the body

Stuff in Box #2 -- items what go in body.
(Except for the nailclippers and tweezers;
sometimes you have to make
arbitrary decisions)

Items in their respective boxes

Boxes stowed under refrigerator. My job is
done.

I'm in the habit of examining the things in the van to refine what is needed and what isn't. Storage is always tight and some items that seemed like a Good Idea a few years ago have turned out to be less than useful. I typically have several "go back" items after every trip.

Only the items necessary for surviving the imminent zombie apocalypse are kept, viz:

"Hi-Lift jack in place of rear bumper.
"Very Road Warrior," commented son, approvingly

The weather is warm enough that only shorts and hat are required while I putter around. The van's cotton rug got pretty soaked in yesterday's downpour so I spread it on one of the site's picnic tables to dry.

Cumulus with wispy clouds -- sure sign of rain!

Ate lunch at 1 pm, 80°F inside the van with open doors, a gentle breeze, mostly clear skies with the exception of a rather heavy-looking cumulus with a gray bottom and wispy clouds at its leading edge drifting in a westerly direction to the north of me. Weather generally comes from the southwest or west around here, this coming from the easy is probably the backside of an area of low pressure, bringing in moisture from the south.

The battery is nearing full charge (98%) and once full I'll turn on music.

3 pm. Because the cumulus have become more prevalent, are looking ominously full of moisture, and the wind is getting gusty I decided to batten down the camp for a possible repeat of yesterday's lovely thunderstorm. The cabin's cotton rug was not 100% dry from the soaking (cotton takes forever to dry) but I figure it's a good idea to bring it in from campsite's picnic table so it won't get any wetter.

Inside, snug, music is playing and "I'm having my first glass of wine!" Chianti, Aquila D'Oro, 2007, Trader Joes, $6. Pretty nasty stuff.

3:20 pm. Heavy rain with strong gusts. The clouds are coming from the east, so they are not storm fronts, but the heavy gusts are indicative of thunderstorms -- strong updrafts sucking in air from below.

Snug in Mellow Yellow, Pablo Casals playing Bach's "Bourries I and II", Suite No. 3 in C, BVW 1009 on the stereo.

3:27 pm. Rain has stopped though the sky remains dark. Have not seen another camper nor anyone from the BLM all day. ghost colony by Tape Deck Mountain on the stereo. Train's a-coming upstream.

5:00 pm. The wind has dropped, the sky is completely overcast, the clouds coming from the southeast. More of the same low pressure area, I assume, not knowing anything else to explain this. The van's little propane barbecue is heating in the sporadic rain while a cheese and spinach flank steak dry-seasons. Cup of tea in the pot.

Patti Page singing "Cross Over The Bridge" on the stereo.

6 pm. Full, brilliant sun, upstream wind has died along with the thunder to the south. The thunderstorm has stopped sucking in air. Björk's "Army Of Me" is on the stereo, a cup of tea and a nibble of cheddar within reach.

I'm trying to catch up on my reading. I'm up to May 9th's The New Yorker.

By nightfall, the gusty wind was causing continual flareups from the kerosene heater, which sits outside, so I shut it off and closed the van's sliding door.

Wednesday morning, 3rd day.

It was raining steadily when I went to bed last night, at 8:30.

That's so early for me that I reckoned that I'd probably have a wakeful period in the middle of the night between "first sleep" and "second sleep," as our forebears who lived before artificial lighting and who went to bed at nightfall called them. But no -- I woke up at 5:30 with a full bladder, dealt with it, set the little inside propane heater to "low" and returned to bed. Woke up at 7:30.

Conditions: battery 87%, temp inside 70°F; mostly cloudy, rain-bearing kind of clouds; no wind except for slight down-canyon draft. Hot tea beside me. Did not hear any trains last night. Breakfast was leftover flank steak and a couple eggs.

10 am. Skies more heavily overcast, small rain sprinkles. I rearranged the camp so that the kerosene heater shines directly into the door of the camper, allowing me to reserve the camper's propane for cooking and morning heating duties only; and placed the table supporting the little gas barbecue next to the heater so it is within reach without leaving the van. Alternatively, I could have set up the awning over the side of the van, but when it's a dark day, a day like I have today, I want as much visible sky as possible.

I gaze at the geography. There is a thin strip of green trees and shrubbery along the river's banks. The canyon is several hundred feet deep, a winding V-shaped notch cut into the rock by the river's erosion. The rock is the color of burnt brick and is probably volcanic in origin. Generally, the canyon walls slant directly into the water, often with no level ground which could be called a beach -- only a river's edge.
The river access road is cut into the side of the canyon, a flat ribbon winding above the river.

[Note: this road on the east side of the river might well have been the right of way for a competing railroad -- according to this link, two railways used the river's course from the Columbia river to North Junction.]

Debris shelf along east bank of river, probably
flood deposits from when the
river had the power to move debris.

In some locations, a shelf of level ground, perhaps an alluvial fan built at the mouth of a side canyon, or the shoreline flood deposits of the old Deschutes before it was de-nutted by damming -- create flat land where a campground can be built.

It looks like Jones Canyon CG is built on the rocks, gravel and sand washed down Jones Canyon.

10:30 am. Snug in the van's little living quarters, the warmth of the heater keeping the damp away even with the sliding door wide open. Birds are singing, and the sky is lightening to the north, down-canyon. Birds don't bother singing when the outlook is gloomy. So I listen to their songs with hope that I'll see sun today. But if not, I have plenty of kerosene.

A small white utility truck fitted with train wheels drives up the railroad track on the other side of the river, inspecting the route for possible problems: rocks on the railbed, washouts, downed power lines, anything that might derail a freight train.

He drives by three or four times a day, upstream then downstream, then upstream and downstream again. I wonder how long this guy's route is, how much time he drives the same way then back again and how much time he spends cooling his heels between trips, so as not to get run over, and where he might sit it out at the end where his home isn't. In his truck, radio on, thermos of coffee and bag of sandwich to keep him company. Or at the counter of Mae's Cafe, watching the Budweiser clock go around a few times, before Dispatch tells him that another train is headed this way, and so he drives up and down the canyon again, to check that the way is clean before the train gets too close and might get stuck midway up the canyon, blocking access to a bit of track that needs repairing or a boulder that needs shoving aside.

11:30 am. No change in weather, still mainly overcast though there is a patch of blue to the north. The solar panels eke just over an amp out of the light. It's really quite pleasant, a cup of tea, reading, perhaps a cigar later? For midmorning snack, almonds.

12:30 pm. Lunch. Smoked salmon that Mrs Elliott purchased for me before leaving. The day she left she opened the refrigerator and surveyed the contents.

There's plenty of food, she said, as though she wanted to reassure herself, or me, that I would not suffer from hunger in her absence.

That she does this amuses me. I usually buy my own food; but I find it charming that she pauses to assure herself that I will be comfortable while she is away.

She could be mother of the world.

Sun's coming out slowly, from behind a scrim of thinning clouds. The solar controller is harvesting six and a half amps out of the panels; I've never seen it pull this much before. Battery is at 86%, only 1% lower than when the day started; that it has not been drawn down farther by the refrigerator is entirely due to the controller's ability to tease current out of the panels in less than full sun.

None of the NOAH weather channels in the 162MHz band reach the bottom of the canyon; nor do cell phone towers. I could turn on the van's radio -- the AM band reaches everywhere -- but the outside world, the commercial world of braying voices, would be an unwelcome intruder here.

So I have to make my own weather forecasts based only on my observations. I suppose I could get a barometer, but I've gotten pretty good at reading the clouds and wind and birds. The birds were right, of course -- they announced an end to the rain before the clouds were willing to commit.

Little camper, big outdoors

Now we have blue skies and white, plump post-storm clouds lazily drifting across the sky. There is enough moisture that if the day heats up I might hear a thunderstorm or two, but it's very peaceful now.

Proof of other mammilian life forms

Except for one Oregon State Trooper who drove down-canyon then back up, there has not been a single car on the road all day. The campground is mine; I appear to be only mammal, the other members of the animal kingdom sharing this area with me have been a couple flies and a bunch of birds, mainly crows and seagulls.

2 pm. I'm having my first glass of wine! Chianti Classico, 2007, Lamole di Lamole, Trader Joes, $11. It's tolerable. Better than no wine, but nothing to write home about.

It's raining again. Not seriously, not like it means it, not the dreary drizzle of a storm that has hunkered down like an unwelcome relative on the sofa in the rec room, nor the heavy downfall of a summer storm, but slow, fat drops. Without strong breezes I don't feel a thunderstorm is in the making. The wind seems to be from the west or northwest. Chunks of unsettled air drawn up from the south and wrapping counterclockwise around that presumed low pressure area, is my guess.

A large work truck on rail wheels stopped across the river. Through my binoculars I watched the crew -- three men in orange vests and hardhats -- do some trackside cleanup: strap together four railroad ties and hoisted them onto the truck with a crane, gather debris from past railroad work: a tie plate and some spikes. Spring cleanup, maybe.

2:30 pm. The rain falls, though slowly. It's not cold. The riverine air is heavy with the fragrance of growth. I found the air of Hawaii to be overly thick and humid. This, by contrast is rich without being overpowering.

Strong upcanyon winds now. I see thunderstorms in my future!

I switched wine to a robust Spanish riojo: Marqués de Cáceres, 2007, Trader Joes, $12. After them two rasty Chiantii, this wine is nice. Sweet, at first, then rough. The way I like my women (TM).*

7:30 pm. I took a nap and awoke refreshed. I wish that sentence was true! I never wake from a nap refreshed; instead I am muzzy-headed, confused, a feel anxious. No idea why. It's how it always is. It took me two cups of tea and at least a half hour to feel better.

A chubby bratwurst on a bed of mushrooms, asparagus, and onions for dinner, the sky a uniform gray, wind downstream, strong enough at times to rock the van. To avoid flareups I moved the kerosene heater just inside the open door. It's pretty powerful, and the van came close to overheating.

Behind the canyon wall to the west, the sun was setting; the sky overhead mostly blue with fat cumulus clouds underlit in baby aspirin orange.

Read a bit on the Kindle: a couple chapters of Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order followed by Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire.

At 9:30. turned off the heater, set it outside, carried the trash to the campground's dumpster, poured water into the kettle and re-loaded the tea ball with fresh leaves in preparation for the morning, checked the battery (86%), unfolded and made the little bed, undressed, and set aside the morning's clothes (clean underwear, Capiline longies, jammy bottoms with pictures of buckaroos and chuck wagons on them, warm shirt and fleece vest), and went to bed. I was falling aspleep in moments, listening to a passing train, a sound I find comforting.

Thursday, 4th day.

6:30 am. Wake up. Conditions: 55°F inside van; battery at 80%; overcast.

I lit the little heater and the burner under my kettle.

I had not heard the refrigerator's fan for a while and considering that the battery was only about 6% lower than it was last night, I wondered if the refrigerator had shut down due to low battery voltage condition, but the panel voltage shows 12.0V which is plenty high. Maybe it stopped working? But after a bit, it ran a normal cooling cycle so I guess it just didn't need to work very hard during the night.

A 6% drawdown overnight is quite good considering that there has been so little full sun. And yet thanks to the LED strip lights I installed last month, I enjoy bright lighting in the van with little power consumption. It's the music -- the stereo and subwoofer amp -- that is the big power draw. Even with no, or soft, music playing they draw 3 amps which means that for every hour I have the system on after dark, the battery is drawn down 3 amp/hours or 2% per hour (I spent the money a few years ago for a heavy and powerful Trojan deep cycle battery rated at 130 A/h and do not regret the expense as it provides a nice reservoir of power for our comfort).

9 am. Breakfast: two rashers of Hempler's uncured bacon, two eggs. The eggs come from uncaged chickens who live at Celebrate The Seasons off Reed Market Road. Their yolks -- I like my eggs sunny side up -- are far tastier than those in store-bought eggs.

Cleaned up the galley, rinsed the sink drainer out outside.

"You are the busiest little man I've ever met," the seated Mrs Elliott frequently says while observing me go about campsite chores.

It's true, I like the tasks that the camp needs and I discover; lacking such things on a vacation I go a little crazy; I get bored and frustrated.

8:50 am. The sun is midway across the river.

9 am. Full sun. More tasks: re-hang the cargo organizer strapped to the back of the passenger seat, finding more "go backs" in the accumulation of pens, notebooks, Planisphere, flashlights, pad of Post-Its, multitool, sharp folding knife, and (a personal favorite of mine) a sign which says in big letters:

Caution.
Occupant may be
armed, naked, drunk
or all three.
Do not disterb.

(Not a typo. Literacy is considered a sign of weakness in some circles.)

I've found the sign to be quite useful in reducing the number of strangers who wander into my camp to ask about the solar rig.

10 am. Two rangers came by. Couple of nice, chatty women. Introduced themselves to me, we shook hands.

(Mrs Elliott: this is not a movie about park rangers, neither resembled Katy Perry; they looked more like Melissa McCarthy.)

Regarding the six huge chunks of wood that I had hauled and neatly stacked by the road, one explained that there are no campfires here starting June 1 until October 15, and asked if I was going to take my wood back with me.

The wood was in the site when I arrived, I said, and showed them the flattened spots in the grass where I found them.

They thanked me for doing the work.

We arrived at a fair price for my solo occupancy of a group-rated site.

"The weather is going to get nicer and nicer," one commented. "I hear it will be 80 in Portland this weekend! You should stay a few more days. No one camped last weekend because it was raining."

"Well, then there'll be a bunch of people and I'll get elbowed out of this nice site."

She allowed that was true.

You'll probably be pretty busy then, I said.

She laughed. "Job security."

They told me they hoped to see me again.

After they left I took the bedding out of the van and hung it out to air, then slid underneath to inspect for oil or coolant leaks. Everything dry, no trouble here. However, the dipstick told me that the oil had gone down from the midway mark between the two notches closer to the "add oil" mark. Can't imagine I'm dripping or burning oil. It bears close watching.

This is our little Oriental market butane backup stove
kept in case the camper's propane runs out.
Who can see how the stove has been modified?

2 pm. The clouds have built up and the wind is gusting in preparation for the traditional lackadaisical rain. Plenty of moisture aloft, but not enough solar energy to generate the decent cumulonimbus clouds needed for a proper thunderstorm, which I regret.

Another cup of tea and a Rocky Patel cigar. Bruce Miller has corrupted me, changed me from a former smoker to a once-a-week cigar smoker. At least he turned me on to a decent cigar brand.
Van needs an ashtray. Add that to my list of improvements.

3:30 pm. I'd like to stay another day, but can't for two reasons:

Mrs Elliott has been told to expect me to call her tomorrow when I climb out of the canyon, and if she does not hear from me that she should call the Wasco county sheriff's office, and though I could drive into cell phone range and do that,
It would not be satisfactory because the rangers made it pretty clear that (a) I should not be in a site intended for groups, and (b) they expect a lot of campers this weekend.

In my experience, your weekend campers start arriving late Friday afternoon and if a bunch of burly rednecks and their extended families show up looking for a site that can hold up to 16 people (the legal limit), they have the right to boot my ass out.

So, sigh and alas, I'll be out of here tomorrow morning.

3:45 pm. Surprise, surprise, the expected downpour has started. Just as I start to close the van's door to keep out the rain, I hear a burst of laughter from the river. It is a fellow in a boat and he laughs the same way I do when caught in an afternoon desert shower. I laugh out of delight and it sounds like he did the same.

4 pm. The battery in the iPod is dead and I forgot to bring a cable. Grumble, grumble.

5:40 pm. Goddamn it, I bonked my head again. Living in the van is like living aboard the Spray, the restored 37-foot oyster sloop which Joshua Slocum sailed around the world as documented in his seafairing book, Sailing Alone Around the World (1900). Like the Spray, Mellow Yellow has a tiny cabin; the floor area is barely four by five foot square, and there is some low overhead. If one is not careful, it is easy to bonk one's head.

I do so fairly frequently, which causes Mrs Elliott to giggle.

Also, like the Spray, Mellow Yellow is snug. It's been raining, off and on, for two hours but the kerosene heater keeps the damp out.

Tonight's wine is Paniloco, 2009, Carmenère (Chile), Trader Joes, $4. A decent camping wine. "I'm having my first glass of wine!" and tonight's meal is grilled steak.

After dinner I cleaned the little barbecue thoroughly and packed it away, along with several other items I no longer need -- the solar panels, the roll-up table and camp chair -- to lessen the morning's chores. Mrs Elliott does not like me to start packing the night prior to our departure, preferring to delay any end-of-trip tasks until the morning. But I like to make my departure morning's tasks lighter, and do as much as I can in the evening.

This time there's not so much to do, but on more extended trips in summer, a lot more gets set up to create chez Elliott outdoors: awning, porta-privy, a washstand, and other campside furniture and decorations.

Friday, 5th and final day.
6:30: Conditions: clear sky, 45°F inside, battery 77%. Considerably colder inside cabin, propane heater goes to high setting. I had the foresight to lay out my morning clothes last night in the order they go on, so I was able to dress quickly, so I am warm while the tea steeps.

8:45 am. A passenger train? A locomotive pulling five or six shiny silver passenger rail cars just went downstream.

I waited until the sun struck camp to allow some items to dry out before being loaded in the van, which delayed my departure, but by 10 am I was on my way out.

I found non-ethanol gas in Maupin, which seems a nice little town.

Here are some more pictures I took:

Downcanyon -- rainshowers. Kerosene heater, lamp, and solar panels in

foreground

Downcanyon -- sunset.

Mellow Yellow, chillin'

I had a great time. This is a pretty area, and I was fortunate to have weather sufficiently unattractive to keep people away, yet mild and interesting enough where I was never uncomfortable nor despondent. It was a peaceful time.

I learned that the Deschutes is forceful along this stretch. It has a strong voice and makes a continuous roar. And it has a leaden & heavy & sullen appearance; I am certain it has taken more than a few lives.

But from the bank (and although rafters and boaters may disagree with my opinion) the river here is about as interesting as a big irrigation ditch. It feels too tame for the canyon it built.

We camp on the Crooked River south of Prineville and I find it lively & rambunctious in comparison to the heavy deadness of the Deschutes here, even though it has been just as tamed by damming.

The John Day? Well now. I have driven along its south fork for a fair piece and found it to be as pretty a little river as one could hope for, though I did not find camping on its banks. I wonder about the north fork, up near Kimberly. Need to go camping thataways and find out.

================

* "The way I like my women," -- a stupid running joke I invented which amuses me. The reader is cautioned that the adjectives in no way describe the lovely Mrs Elliott.

Pretty Much Narrowed it Down

2011-05-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

For this camping trip I am aiming for a spot along a river. The three rivers I know of which have nice riverbank camping are the Crooked River, south of Prineville; the north fork of the John Day, NE of Kimberly; and the lower Deschutes, near Maupin.

Thinking about where I want to go, I finished up the work I needed to do on Mellow Yellow, our 1894 VW camper van, this morning. The "low oil pressure" lamp on the dash stopped working sometime back . . . I don't know when, which is kind of stupid considering how quickly a failed oil pump can result in a destroyed engine. So had to remove the cooling tin on the engine's underside to inspect the switch that lights the lamp.

The switch was a goner. Fortunately, O'Reilly Auto Parts on 3rd Street had a generic replacement.

So with the new switch on hand, I installed a second kit I got from Chris Corkins (same guy that made the oil cooler kit I installed last weekend, writeup here) which not only provided a handier place to mount the new switch so I won't need to do so much work to replace it, if it ever fails, but also gives me a spot to mount an oil pressure sender for the new gauges I'll be putting on later this month.

With that done, the van is ready to go. And so am I.

I think I'll head up to Maupin because the sites along the river there are at the lowest elevation. Lower means warmer. Warmer is good.

She Loves Me

2011-05-28T16:37:00.000-07:00

Mrs Elliott hit the road this morning. She's on her way to San Francisco for a conference and a visit with her kids and grandkids. She'll be gone for over a week.

She gave me a big kiss on the way out.

This afternoon I found a Post-It note on the shower door: I (heart) U, it said. On my pillow is another: I Miss You.

She loves me.

Ramping up to Camping

2011-05-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to get the itch. Mrs Elliott will be out of town for a week. The weather is starting to look decent (decent enough for me, anyway). There will be staff here keeping an eye on the house. So I'm free to go.

This time of year, camping at elevation is not a good idea. What I want is lower elevations and lots of sun. That means away from the forests, where the shade can be deep and cold, and out in the open: the grasslands, BLM open desert, and places like that.

Bruce Miller and Bob "Woody" Woodward have suggested some sites to consider. There are potentially nice campgrounds on the lower John Day river north of Kimberly, there are places along the lower Deschutes north of Maupin, and I hear rumors of nice, primitive (read: secluded and quiet) camping areas in the Maury Mountains.

I'll have to hustle this weekend to finalize some work I've been doing on Mellow Yellow, our 1984 VW poptop camper, but this is a three-day weekend so there is plenty of time. No point in heading out before Monday anyway, as campgrounds are generally full up over three-day weekends, and besides, I have two tickets for The Decemberists's show on Sunday which I hope will have good-enough weather (crosses fingers).

Two tickets and no Mrs Elliott to go to the concert with me. Maybe my son will go with me.

But that's a minor detail. It's camping I'm talking about here. Laid-back camping. A book, some soft tunes on the iPod, some barbecue, a little (or lot) of wine, maybe a bit of photography, some birding . . . and not a lot more.

I'm excited.

Driveway Auto Mechanics in Bend

2011-05-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

One thing you gotta say about working on a car on the driveway in Bend, is that you won't know whether you'll be rained on or sunned on. Or both at the same time.

My son, Jim, came over on the weekend to help his old man make some modifications on our 1984 VW camper van.

On Saturday we installed a new transmission cooler and swapped a part on the transmission called the "governor" with a modified one that Ken over at German Transaxle on 2nd Street gave me.

German Transaxle is fairly famous among the VW crowd for their excellent transmission rebuild work, and I'm lucky to have them within 5 minutes of our house because the other good transmission house is located near Seattle.

Before the swap, the van was pretty sluggish. It upshifted too soon. Anyone who drives a stick knows you don't upshift from 1st to 2nd when the engine is at 2,600 rpm, which is what this transmission was set up to do. Upshifting that soon results in poor acceleration, and the van's 1.9 liter engine is capable of better than that.

It was a stupid design. I shifted manually when pulling into traffic and let the engine wind up to at least 4,000 rpm.

With the modified governor the transmission now upshifts around 3,400 rpm, which is more like it.

The transmission cooler we installed was a kit from GoWesty, a company in Santa Cruz, California. GW is one of the premier vendors helping us keep these lovably-unattractive yet practical camping machines alive and making them better and better.

Automatic transmissions can get very hot pulling a heavy van (and me with a trailer behind filled with camping gear) up long grades in the desert heat, as I found on last year's trip through southeastern Washington on my way back from Flathead Lake, Mont. So anything a fellow can do to help his transmission stay cool will prolong its life.

Likewise for the engine.

VW designed -- some say "overdesigned" -- a great cooling system for the engine, but the engine oil itself can still get too hot -- your good oils are starting to degrade at 230F -- so on the next day, Sunday, instead of resting, the son and I installed a very fine oil cooling kit from Chris Corkins, who hails from New Mexico. He goes by the handle "tencentlife" on the Intertubes (http://www.thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=514460).

Chris's kit came with very clear instructions and the parts quality was excellent. We had very little difficulty installing it. There was a bit of confusion about which hose to use where, but that was due to my kit being a custom one with a couple extra bits added so I could hook up an oil temperature gauge while the instructions were for your generic kit.

One good sign after working on anything that involves fluids is that the fluids stay where they are supposed to and don't drip all over the driveway. We were fortunate -- no drips on the driveway to disturb Mrs Elliott.

And finally, I modified the linkage to the gas pedal yesterday so I can more easily swing the throttle from idle to wide open with the limited range of motion my fused right ankle provides.

BRUCE MILLER recently observed that I like my camping van.

It's true. I do. I enjoy it for how swell it is for camping, and I do love me some camping.

But even more importantly, that thing is gonna save our ass when the imminent zombie apocalypse happens. If movies teach us anything, it's that a zombie outbreak is inevitable. And when it does happen, Mrs Elliott and I are heading to the hills in a totally cushed-out and reliable* camping vehicle set up with stove, refrigerator, a warm bed, and solar-powered lighting and music. I'm listening to hip hip right now, Mrs Elliott, not so much.

We will be ready for a very long stay along some desert river in the shade of sycamore trees while the outbreak burns itself out.

At least that's what I tell myself when I'm laying under the van, chunks of schmutz falling into my eyes, torquing a bolt, my feet getting wet from a shower while the sun shines so brightly that I have to squint when I come out.

================
* "Reliable" is a relative term. After all, this is a Volkswagen product.

Our Man in Klamath Falls

2011-05-18T12:06:00.001-07:00

Jack is writing this post for later uploading from Waldo's, a downtown Klamath Falls bar. Mrs Elliott and I came to town this morning to work with a video guy on some ads -- YouTube kind of stuff -- that she is putting together to promote her business. I drove, helped set up the lights (I have some portrait photography experience), held the cue cards, and checked the audio. I can help with that kind of stuff.

The morning started pretty early. I woke up at 3:30am for some unknown reason, and was unable to fall asleep. Fortunately my Kindle was at hand and I brought a novel from 24% done to completion by 6:30, rolled onto my side to see if I could snag a z or two, sinuses promptly filled up with boogies so I said fuck it and got up.

Watching myself gaffering, gripping, and best boying on monitor this afternoon I found that I was pretty pleased with my new svelte figure, but high-def does not favor older men. What a geezer, I thought, seeing my age spots. So while Mrs Elliott and the video guy are holing up and editing, I'm moodily reflecting on aging over a couple of fifty-cent happy hour tacos and soda water.

There are no salubrious places in town with free wi-fi that I could find. Our usual place in town, the Daily Bagel where we eat lunch when en route to the Bay Area for the holidays, close in mid-afternoon so I had to find some other place to wi-fi hobo and do that moody reflection on aging thing.

The memory of decades of cigarette smoke lingers in this bar. An unfamiliar style of rock and roll is playing on the CD player. Who are these artists? After two hours I didn't hear a song I recognized. There are three sports channels on the TVs showing no games of interest, a large semicircular bar notable for its height surrounded by oddly short stools, some tables and chairs of black wrought iron and expanded metal, and a general dark funkiness, the kind of ominous ambiance that tends to attract vaguely threatening men.

This place, I feel, has seen its share of bloodshed.

We'll probably get a room and spend the night. One December winter night a couple years ago we stayed at another motel at the south end of town when the weather was too bad to continue to Bend. It was dismal, an cinder blocks and Cool-White fluorescent lights affair sited at the south end of town. But it was cheap, and that's an essential quality for "business route" motels in towns with depressed economies and no reason for tourists to visit.

The video guy tells us that the Best Western Olympic Inn is the premier hotel, so we'll give it a try.

Klamath Falls does not give the appearance of a town that was formerly prosperous. The most expensive-looking building here seems to be the First National Bank building, now the home of El Palacio *KARAOKE* Restaurant and Bar.

Time for another soda and lime.

Another Goddam Sunny Day

2011-05-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

... just kidding. I love getting up to blue skies and sunlight.

Forecasting weather here is difficult. Back when KOHD-TV had their local news, meteorologist Adam Clark explained to me how the Cascades between us and most incoming fronts really throw a monkey wrench into predictions. And not having a NEXRAD radar that covers Central Oregon doesn't help matters.

Most of the time it looks like the results that come from even the most careful examination of the data and models are about as accurate as throwing a dart at a board.

So I don't envy anyone who has the job of going on-air to tell folks what to expect over the next few days. Even getting tomorrow's weather right looks nearly impossible.

For example, two days ago, KTVZ's Ben Burkel warned us that following Tuesday's lovely weather, the next several days were going to get ugly.

But yesterday was actually kind of nice, even during mid afternoon when it clouded over and the rain kind of spit in a half-hearted way. At least it was warm: the thermometer in front of the 3rd street branch of the Bank of the Cascades showed 70 degrees. Late afternoon was spectacular, to me. A bit breezy, but sunny, mild, with brilliant sunshine. Today has started out lovely.

Now, Ben seems an affable sort. He does smile a lot. And he's not to be blamed for getting predictions so consistently wrong. Even the supercomputers that run the models seldom get it right for where we live.

But I wish he'd just spend a moment to explain why yesterday's prediction didn't happen, rather than just acting as if it never happened. I'd like that.

And I'm not alone.

The fellows at the Bond Street Barber Shop and I were talking about this a couple weeks ago while I was getting my hair cut (I get the "easy money" haircut: a number 3-and-a-half clipper buzz). We agreed that it would be right nice if Ben were to say, "Yesterday I said it would rain, but it didn't. Here's why," and then went on to give a few words about what screwed up the prediction.

This would not only give us a little insight into the factors that make his job so difficult, but would allow us to more easily forgive him for smilingly telling us yesterday that it would be raining today, when we are looking at a sunny sky.

Not that this morning's weather means anything. It could change in a heartbeat. It could be snowing in 30 minutes.

Okay, They Ask, I deliver

2011-05-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

Michael R pdx asked for some explicit Vanagon LED strip lighting porn. Here gives.

For the true fetishist, click on the image for a larger version . . .

Tinkering, Mellow Yellow style, Pt. 1

2011-05-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

Before camping season gets underway I have various projects I want to complete on Mellow Yellow, our 1984 VW camper van. Today's task was to install LED strip lighting in the living quarters. I mean, what the heck: Mrs Elliott is out of town, down in San Diego visiting her mother until Monday. It's either do something productive or spend a whole lot of money paying for that erotic house cleaning service I see advertised on the back page of The Source Weekly!

Tempting though that may be, the van isn't going to light itself.

Mind, we already have lighting in the van, in the form of a couple fluorescent fixtures and two LED reading lights; and though the reading lights draw close to zero power from the battery, they are spotlights so they don't light things up well, and the fluorescent lights draw more power than I wish they did, so I am parsimonious with their usage. Because of that, we use a kerosene lantern for "fill" lighting, but even with a properly trimmed wick, the roof area above the lantern builds up a thin, grimy film of soot.

So earlier this year I purchased a 16-foot reel of flexible LED light strips and four low-voltage dimmers from Ledlightsworld Ltd. The strips have 18 lights per foot and are wonderful to work with: they can be cut to length with a pair of scissors, are only 8mm wide (about 3/8'') and have adhesive backing so they can be laid into place and stay stuck. Only $60 for the reel. The little dimmers are inexpensive and come in a nice beige color that suits the existing color scheme in the van. Once trimmed to length, it only takes a little bit of soldering to connect 'em up.

I spent most of the morning driving around town, collecting the other necessary bits and pieces: mounting hardware for the dimmers from Ace Hardware; a couple spools of wire from O'Reilly's auto parts; vinyl grommets to protect the wires where they pass through holes I would need to drill through sheet metal from Radio Shack; then finally, shrink tubing and cable ties from Home Depot. I could have gotten the latter from Radio Shack or the auto parts store, but I needed to go to Home Depot anyway to get a new drill to replace this piece of crap Black and Decker drill of mine that failed after only one year, got a Ryobi to replace it, and I also needed to pick up some lawn seed mix to do a little top-seeding on the north terrace of our estate where snow mold left bald spots in the lawn.

I got properly started by noon, and the installation went without a hitch although most of the work was in figuring out where to put the lights and how to get the wires to them in the least ugly way. I'll post a few photos at a later date when the van isn't full of tools and various interior panels aren't partially taken apart.

Now, if I could figure out how to make the lamps chase, I could have a proper disco van!

Right now I've got a glass of Riesling, 50 Cent on the Pandora, and that nice feeling one gets from a job that went well without anything embarrassing happening, like an electrical fire. Tomorrow's project is to mount a Rotopax brand 3 gallon spare fuel tank atop the van, so there's still an opportunity for that catching on fire thing.

Or I might try that house cleaning service.

"Outrage"?

2011-05-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

It's a commonly-used term when reporting on how pols react to things. E.g., "Meanwhile, Democrats are expressing outrage that their GOP counterparts would even consider the bill..."

Outrage?

I can see objecting loudly to a bill or waving papers around and claiming that the passage of said bill will cause the end of the world, but outrage seems a bit strong for grownups to go about expressing every time they are not happy with something.

Besides, I'm not even certain that the word is being used correctly.* Wiktionary offers these four definitions of "outrage":

outrage (plural outrages)

An excessively violent or vicious attack; an atrocity.
An offensive, immoral or indecent act.
The resentful anger aroused by such acts.
(obsolete) A destructive rampage.

Which of these definitions makes the most sense when used in the example sentence? Probably "resentful anger." But plug that into the sample sentence and it makes the outragee look pretty childish.

(Outrage: another in a series of words that look stranger and stranger the more I look at them. "Snorkel" and "energy" fall into that category.)

===================
* Other words I often see used incorrectly:

"Decimate" means to kill every tenth person, it does not mean to kill most of them.

"Fold" as in "four-fold" does not mean to increase by four times, it means to increase by 16 times. Take a sheet of paper and fold it in half, then fold that in half again. Do that two more times for a total of four folds. How many layers do you now have? Expressed mathematically, it's 2⁴ times.

I'm glad I got that off my chest. You may now return to your regularly-schedule programming.

The Bend Temperature Derby

2011-05-02T13:29:00.000-07:00

Local curmudgeon and grumbler H. Bruce Miller, who never fails to point out what he sees as Bend's flaws, has decided to find out how many days Bend will see daytime high temperatures in the "comfortable" range (self-defined as being at or above 70 degrees) over the course of the coming year.

And he's making it a contest!

I urge my five or six readers to pop over to Bend Sux and make a guess. Let's see who can come closest to correctly predicting that number.

Stalking the Wily Sea Turtle

2011-04-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I suggested to Mrs Elliott that we might consider taking a camping trip to Hawaii. She jumped at the chance. "I suppose it's the only way I'll get you to Hawaii," she said. She knows that I find staying in resort hotels to be boring.
My idea came from an article I read online about Happy Campers Hawaii, a Big Island company that rents out VW pop-top campers for $125 a day. The campers are fully set up, with beds, a stove and sink, linens, silverware, a hand-drawn map of the island showing major towns and beach camp parks, and other basic necessities. They don't come equipped with refrigerators, the original Dometic unit being small as well as finicky to keep operating, but they do provide an ice chest and ice is easily found in the local stores.
Considering that your $125 covers the cost of lodging and a rental vehicle, it's a good value.
So Mrs Elliott cashed in a bunch of her credit card air miles for tickets, I reserved a van, and we flew RDM to PDX, PDX to Honolulu, Honolulu to Hilo on the Big Island, arriving in the midafternoon. Bud and Teri, who own Happy Campers, met us at the airport, drove us to their little operation right off Highway 11 in downtown Hilo, and helped us get set up with Uli Kai, our 1987 VW Vanagon Westfalia camper. We own the 1984 model so we didn't require a lot of instruction to get familiarized with the new "treehouse on wheels" we'd be using for a week.

Uli Kai -- Click on picture
for larger view. (photo: Jack)

For all but one night at a resort hotel, we camped at beaches.

Like all of Happy Campers Hawaii's vans, Uli Kai had a journal in the glove box for guests to write about their experiences. We found plenty of tips and tales in ours, and Mrs Elliott filled in seven pages with details about our adventure. I photographed them for transcription here:

Captain's Log Star Date 4/27/11: Arrived in Hilo from Bend, Oregon last week. After stocking up at market & Longs [drugstore] for wine glasses (can't drink wine in plastic cups) we went to Issac Hale Beach Park -- grassy area & parking lot were nice but we chose to park on the gravel near the boat launch. Lovely spot but someone parked nearby and played reggae [Hip hop, actually -- Ed.] into the wee hours.


En route to Luapahoehoe park we stopped so Mrs Elliott could take a sip. (Photo: Jack)	,

Day 2. Up to Luapahoehoe [beach park]. Lovely grass parking with a cherry spot on a hill between trees but it was windy so we came down onto flatter ground. Nice spot, friendly people.

We rode the zipline at the "UmaUma
Experience" as seen on The
Bachelorette (I don't pay much
attention to that show, commented
the owner). (Photo: Jack)

(Photo:
Jack)

(Photo:
Mrs Elliott)

Day 3. Headed to Waipio Valley and stopped in the town [...]

Rainbow over the sea at Kapa`a
beach. (Photo: Jack)

(Two pages are missing here, "town" would be Honoka`a, where we had lunch. Then we drove across the island through Waimea (overcast, wet) to the other side of the island, then north along the coast, through the popular Spencer's beach, which looked like a fun family place but requires reservations, then farther up the coast to Mahakona beach, which was grubby, then even a bit farther to Kapa`a beach, where we found a lovely spot right on the shore. Another couple driving a Happy Campers van was also at the beach, they said that this was one of their favorite parks.)

Day 4 was spent at the Hilton on the Kohala coast, a 62-acre oceanfront resort in Waikoloa Village.

(Photo:
Mrs Elliott)

The journal resumes:
[Jack had] one too many Mai Tais by the pool and napped most of the day. Mrs Elliott swam, paddleboarded, bike boated, went down the water slide, swam some more, and shopped.

Church at Milolli
(Photo: Mrs Elliott)

Day 5. We were ready to hit the road, the nice bellman filled up our ice chest and we were off to play in Kona. Went to the farmer's market, walked around town, and shopped. Then down the coast to Hookena Beach -- not our kind of place. Nowhere to really part the van to enjoy a few, but friendly staff. A good place to swim and boogy board, but we don't do that so we moved on to Milolli. We liked it better than Hookena because it was quiet and had great tidepools. We met a young chap from Cambridge, England who was bicycling the entire island. It as just him & us for the night. (Flush toilets no showers that we could see!) We parked at the very end of the lot. There is a church across the driveway.
Drove to Volcano and check out Namakani campground -- it was very nice and grassy. No view. It was cold and rainy so we just walked the Kalieua Iki [volcano caldera] trail which was fun & a good workout. Saw the lava tubes -- just okay, and the Jaggar Museum. We were too cold and wet to wait 'til sundown [when the red glow of lava lights the fumes coming out of the caldera], so we went into Volcano fior dinner. Rock Lava Cafe OK for what it was.

Stalking the wily sea turtle.
(Photo: Jack)

Then we drove back down to Punalu`u Beach Park to sleep. We wanted to wake up in sunshine. Whittington is by far more scenic but we figured we could see turtles and swim at Punalu`u so went there.
Water is cold & choppy and so far no sea turtles (oops, just saw one on shore).
Day 6. Parked on the far side (north side) of Punalu`u Beach by the boat launch. There is a dirt road that takes you to this side where the boat launch is [as well as the ruins of Punalu`u Landing -- Ed] and where you can park the van under a tree facing the ocean. Fairly secluded but at the sand and not a parking lot.

European-Americans and Aussies standing about.
Despite the many, many signs advising that it is
bad form, rude, and a violation of state and federal law
to get close to or touch the drowsing sea turtles,
a surprising number of pimplewits thought it necessary
to have their darling children alarm the animals by,
you guessed it, approaching and touching them
so their idiocy could be captured on film forever.
(Photo and commentary: Jack)

Since it's our last day, I assume Mr Elliott will be finishing off the beer & wine and having another nap [I did -- Ed.]. I'll finish my book and go for a swim [She never -- Ed.] then BBQ & off to Hilo in a.m. for our trip home.

Mrs Elliott finishes book.
(Photo: Jack)

Mrs Elliott closed by providing tips:
Tips: Get paper plates -- so much easier. We ran out of BBQ propane & water in the [van's] tank so make sure it is filled. Baby wipes make better toilet paper. A small headlamp makes a great light to read by at night. Buy fresh fish from roadside vendors. Big pieces & fresh for very little money makes a good dinner. Ice blocks last longer than cubes. Dry ice is the best but must be wrapped in newspaper or it freezes [the food].

Her contribution to the journal will be appreciated by future campers, I am sure.

What I learned.

The weather was nice, if you like that kind of weather. It was humid, and warmish, mostly. The air felt . . . used, like the air in a small room with too many people in it. I found that even one blanket was too much at night, and usually slept with only a sheet on top. Even so, after three nights, the sheets smelled sweaty. Like an unwashed nutsack.
   Adding a layer of sun screen on top of sweaty skin didn't make things better. I was sticky much of the time.
   Staying at the Hilton provided a nice place to clean up. Most of the beach parks on Big Island have showers, but they are for rinsing salt from the sea off, so they are outdoors and soap is not permitted or cool as they drain right into the soil or the sea.
   The locals are very family-oriented, and considering that until recent history, "family" tended to include just about everyone one might ever see in a lifetime, everyone is family. So our European-American ideas of personal space and campsite boundaries are more rigid than theirs. Which means that a local might feel comfortable sitting down at the picnic table directly in front of one's van. As did a nice local woman at one camp.
   Camping is different in Hawaii. For one thing, there are no designated camp sites. No signs saying "Camp Here." One might come across a "No Camping" sign in a few places at or near the parks, but near as we could tell, if camping was not explicitly forbidden, it was permitted, or at least tolerated. Most campgrounds have a fee requirement, but no one comes by to collect fees.

I had hoped to snorkel. I have never snorkeled before. My reader may recall that I am not terribly comfortable on water, and don't find bobbing around in it to be much better. My friend Bruce Miller offered to take me to Juniper Fitness and teach me how to snorkel, but I had to cancel because there was simply too much to take care of before departing.
   The next option was to sign up for a snorkel adventure while on the island, but I could not work up much enthusiasm for that. Mrs Elliott and I could have rented snorkel gear, but none of the beaches looked very snorkelable, being mostly lava. Besides, no one should every snorkel alone and Mrs Elliott suffers from vertigo when she snorkels.

Snorkel. That word looks funnier and funner the more I look at it. Snorkel. Snorkel.

While driving around, I paid attention to the demeanor, conditions, and expressions of the folk living there. Hawaii, or at least the Big Island, does not look a cheerful place to live. No one looked happy. The European-Americans looked the least happy. The place does not look a healthy one: obesity is a recognized problem with Pacific Islanders, but most European-Americans were obese, too. Looked saggy and tired. The tropical sun is not kind to white skin, women in particular looking battered by decades of UV, faces like saddlebags.
    Nor did the women look very happy. When visiting a new area, I always check to see if women look happy, feeling that places where women are happy are happy places to live. It was one quality that Mrs Elliott and I both noticed about Bend: plenty of pretty women who looked happy. There were few pretty and no happy-looking women in Hilo or Kona.
   I saw no signs of interesting music. Near as I can tell, there is little live music in either town, and what music there is is "old" music: old acoustic stuff from the late '60s, early '70s, like James Taylor, performed by old white folk; or old Hawaiian music performed by old local folk. Nostalgia music. The towns seem to close at dark.
   Likewise, outside of touristy art in cruise ship ports, the art scene looked moribund.

Jack is not certain whether he could live in Hawaii.

Even so, we are thinking of visiting another island. As I write this, Mrs Elliott is looking up rates at the the new Disney Resort and Spa on Oahu. She's thinking of bringing her kids and grandkids there next year to frolic. Her side of the family is big on that sort of thing. Jack, not so much. Unless he is left to sample umbrella drinks until he needs a nap, he prefers to avoid places designed around entertaining children. So it's not likely that Jack will want to spend much time at that Disney Resort and Spa.
   However, one must give Honolulu a try: the 2010 edition of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that Honolulu ranked sixth in overall wellbeing and placed "best" in the categories of Life Evaluation and Emotional Health.
   In Why Are Some Cities Happier Than Others? Richard Florida crunched the Gallup data and found that higher average income correlates with happiness, and while Honolulu rates highly in terms of well-being it has average income only slightly above the national mean; and though human capital (education levels) correlates strongly with happiness, Honolulu, again, is not exceptional in that regard.
   The key may be the significant negative correlation between well-being and the share of working-class jobs -- meaning that areas with more knowledge, professional, and creative jobs tend to have less unemployments and creative jobs tend to be more satisfying. Honolulu seems to have a large number of these jobs

Maybe there's even music.

And we might want to visit Kauai, as it has white sand beaches. The Big Island is too new, geologically, to have significant white sand. In Kauai, now, there's a place where a fellow can snorkel.

Snorkel. Heh.

Facing Facts, Hair Edition

2011-04-14T15:02:00.000-07:00

"What are we doing?" asked Jim, as he covered me with the sheet and picked up his clippers.

"Giving up," I said.

When a man has male pattern baldness, his choices of hair styles shrinks yearly, until there's nothing to be done.

"Buzz it."

"You know what we call that?" he said. "Easy money."

Ha ha, I laughed, and it only sounded a little bitter.

Seriously, there's nothing left to do with the hair. Mrs Elliott recently suggested that I let it grow and comb the whispy bits on top back, but that made me look like an old dirt farmer, someone who's musical education stopped at Ernest Tubbs.

In a last-ditch effort to put some life into my coif, she tried adding a few streaks of blond to the sides, which results in some vaguely copper-colored patches, which didn't do much to improve things.

Combover, anyone?

At least really short hair is easy to take care of. And, hell, I can touch it up myself with the old No. 3 clippers.

Keeping One's Spirits Up

2011-04-07T15:33:00.001-07:00

Over at Serena Rides, we read that, "It is April in Bend. Spring in my beloved Central Oregon is finicky, fabulous, and requires constant positive self-talk."

Jack is not bothered by the weather. The weather is fine, as far as I am concerned.

I had a few errands to take care of this morning. Had to visit Paul the Computer Guy's shop to drop off an external hard drive that wants a new case and controller, then to Bend Mountain Coffee downtown for a light breakfast, and a drop-in at Dudley's to trade in a few books that I've read.

It was cold, snowflakes were flurrying.

I wondered why this weather is so troubling to some, but not to others. It doesn't bother me, I enjoy it. It is, in a word, bracing.

I like to think that it is something in my Caledonian heritage, but in truth I have no idea why I don't find the weather insulting. It can be inconveniencing, but there isn't an emotional component attached to it.

However, I am troubled that others are troubled. Bruce Miller dislikes the weather and will complain about it dependably, and Mrs Elliott seems to feel put-upon.

That those around me are bothered by the weather bothers me more than the weather does.

Hey! Whaddaya Expect? It's a 27 Year-Old Vehicle!

2011-04-07T15:08:00.001-07:00

Our camper van, a 1984 VW Vanagon with the highly-functional Westfalia pop-top camper interior has gotten leaky. There are these four levers on the dash that control distribution of air to the various vents. The one that controls the air on the feet of the driver and passenger no longer works. The cable connecting the lever to the flaps that close off the air has broken, leaving the vent open.

I took the van to Gary Young's Old Volks Home off south 3rd, and he said he'd be able to replace the cable -- if I could find one -- by reaching up into the dash from under the van. But he'd misunderstood which cable was the broken one. He thought I meant the cable that controls the hot water that goes into the heater core. That one can be replaced from below. But the footwell control cable can't be gotten to without removing the entire dashboard.

This is a difficult job and can take an experienced mechanic the better part of the day. Jack is the anthesis of an experience mechanic. Rather clumsy, in fact. So I won't be tackling that job, and will let Gary take care of it.

Not that he's particularly happy to do it. Most jobs on these practical vehicles are straightforward. Dash removal is considered an ugly one. "I'm too old and not as flexible as I used to be," says Gary.

While the dash is out, there are two other things that want looking at. First, the heater core should probably be replaced as it is 27 years old, too. If that old core develops a leak, the whole damn dash would need to be pulled again. So I'm reaching out to find a new core.

And finally, there is this great big plastic heater box hiding in the dash which houses the heater core and the flaps. On a box this old, the foam gaskets that seal the flaps when they are in the closed position have rotted to the point where they leak, causing cold air drafts in the van. That box is glued or plastic-welded shut and is going to require some work to get open. Gaskets are probably no longer available, but hardware store weather stripping will suffice.

One thing lead to another. These matters must be attended to. Sometimes that's how it goes. I can view this as an opportunity to do some much-needed maintenance, or as an unwelcome financial burden.

But we love our van and we get a lot of pleasure going camping in it. It only has 86,000 miles on the clock, so I'm gonna get the work done that needs being done.

Jack and Mrs Elliott Take a Vacation

2011-04-07T15:05:00.001-07:00

Last week I came across an article online by a family who took a camping trip on Hawaii, the Big Island, by renting a VW camper van. I knew that Mrs Elliott likes places like Hawaii.

I forwarded a link to the article to her, and said, "How about this idea?"

"Perfect," she said. "I know there's no other way I'm going to get you to Hawaii!"

I've been to the islands three times before and frankly, resort life does not appeal. Laying about pools, shopping, being cooped up in a hotel room with nothing to do and in company with someone who likes to watch a lot of TV and who has different viewing tastes thank I ... these things make me loony.

So we contacted Happy Campers, the folk that rent the VW vans, and made our reservation. Mrs Elliott tracked down the good prices for airfare, and we'll be on our way.

She likes to camp, I like being in nature.

I got my little computer with an offline blogging app, my mp3 player, a brand-new Kindle e-book reader -- enough gadgets to keep me happy -- and all I'll need in addition is a small charcoal BBQ and a place to park.

Keep you updated.