For anybody not up on “jeremy & annette trivia” for us this decade began outside Astoria, Or. at Fort Stevens State Park in a yurt. We had booked two yurts well in advance with two friends we knew from our time in Columbus Oh. The four of us sat in one of the yurts drinking an assortment of beer and wine and speculated on how the coming decade might unfold. The beer ran out and i volunteered to venture forth and buy some more. Only a short drive outside of the park on my way back toward the town of Warrenton i spotted “Corky’s Corner” store and pulled into the muddy parking lot. I sat for a moment and watched the suspended four-way flasher that marked the intersection. I was on the Southeast corner. In front of me, only a short drive North was the Columbia river. I got out of the car and stood completely still. The rain was light, but endless…. the kind of rain where you’d be soaked in ten minutes, but you’d feel like a wuss if you put on a coat to cross a parking lot. The night was inky black. The few streetlights seemed like floating orbs with their light not reaching the ground; the night swallowed it. The wet breeze smelled of salt and seaweed. It was a warm night… maybe 45 degrees.

Corky’s was a rundown place without much to recommend it beyond the fact it was there, and had overpriced bad beer in the cooler. I was the only customer. At the counter with the beer, an assortment of brands all made by the same company, i noticed a small black and white television tuned to Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve. It was two minutes to midnight in New York City.

“Could you turn the sound up?” i asked the man behind the counter who i later learned was Corky himself. We both stood and watched the little screen… watched the ball drop. It seemed cold in New York. It seemed horribly crowded.

“Man,” said Corky, “I’m really happy i’m not there.”

I felt my reflex to defend NYC twinge, but it passed. I paid for the beer and headed back out to the car.

I thought about how this trip had gone so far, the first evening seeing Umpqua Lighthouse, seeing the now destroyed cooling tower of the former Trojan nuclear plant, the christmas lights the park host had strung on the yurt where we stayed…. the ocean, the dunes, the salt air, the wateriness of it all.

I was glad to not be in Times Square, too.

A few days after flying back to New York from PDX we were on the road from New York City to Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was a wonderful trip that took four days and didn’t cause weather-worries until we made it to Green Bay after coming “over the top” of  Georgian Bay in Ontario. We had stopped at the home of Annette’s parents in Barker, NY and from there it was shorter (and way nicer) to head North into Canada. Even in January.

We stopped at some towns in Canada along the way:  Sudbury (home of the positively unbelievable INCO nickel smelter), Espanola, Blind River, Thessalon, crossing back into Michigan’s UP at Sault St. Marie – “The Soo.” The snow began south of the pretty little town of Marinette, Wisconsin and kept going more or less until nightfall as we neared Green Bay. Driving the 1989 Volvo wagon became a largely random event on the snow-covered streets. I remember thinking “how could the Swedes possibly build a car this bad in snow given their climate?”

But we found a motel and slid into the parking lot none the worse for wear. The next day most of the snow, which had been wet and heavy, was cleared from the major roads and we toured the industrial city for about an hour. Yes, we drove by Lambeau field.

Later that day we arrived in Minneapolis and began our new lives in a 500 sq ft apartment that would be home for about half the decade. That’s the above photo… it’s part of the living room… on the day we departed Minnesota for Idaho.

Ok. Avatar. I believe Roger Dean should be credited and paid for inspiring the visuals of “Pandora.” I’m not alone in that opinion as many many websites will attest.

If i owned a movie theatre i would run a double feature: District 9 and Avatar. Like salt and pepper both films form a kind of yin-yang experience. District 9 has a far more compelling story and follows the best traditions of good Sci Fi by combining the ordinary with the fantastic. Avatar provides jaw-dropping visuals and near seamless integration of CGI and live action, but with a story so lame, so predictable, so depressingly ordinary one can’t help but wonder how the budget was sliced up…. CGI 99%, writers 1%?

That concludes the movie review for today.

Next: another christmas has come and gone. I was more of a slug this year than normal. I seem to have discovered as yet unexplored reserves of slug-ness. New Years comes next and i can say without reservation i’ll be happy to see this year and this decade come to a close. Oh, i’m not complaining about my circumstances. I’m just observing that this year has been particularly hard on parents and this decade has been largely horrible for the fine US of A. It’s been a particularly bad decade to be a soldier.

In about an hour i’m off to see Avatar in IMAX 3D. I’ve already seen the movie in regular D. Avatar represents a new high-water mark for CG imagery. However it represents a low-water mark for script writing. The blogosphere is already going nuts upon nuts pontificating on the blatant racism, the cartoonish corporate greed, the over-the-top military-for-hire goon squad, the pathetically predictable story, and the absolutely state-of-the-art computer generated imagery.

Me? I’ll keep quiet until a get my second viewing in. I wanted to go earlier… compare the 3D version with the 2D version and double check some scenes, but this ain’t Citizen Kane… there’s not seventeen thousand pages of subtext to wander through, so i think i’ll be ok letting some time elapse between viewings.

Next, Annette and i survived our trip to New Mexico and even have a brand-new Chevy Duramax diesel pickup truck to show for it. We’re now broke, but we have no additional debt and we own our retirement home and the means to take it anywhere there are roads. Given the fact my mom died while her yurt was enroute to Hawaii i’m sure you can understand my reluctance to sit on cash while denying myself something i want and might very well outlast me.

What follows, in no important order, are some images from New Mexico. It was a great trip and we hope to return.

So i’m comparatively cash-rich right now, but that won’t last considering i just spent about $700 on a replacement equalizer hitch.

The van came to me in Minnesota by way of a convoluted route involving two previous owners. I nearly wrecked driving the van up from St. Louis when all four wheels of the van crossed ice filling the rutted roads of Iowa . I went through a period of garden-variety buyer’s remorse and was later convinced i’d made a life-altering mistake that would lead to financial ruin.

Those phases eventually passed and what followed was a picture postcard VW camper relationship complete with seemingly endless love/hate cycles.

Early on Annette and i camped from the van every chance we got. We closed our time in Minnesota by doing a multi-day “loop tour” of the whole state.

After surviving the rather harrowing trip from Minneapolis to Boise in early spring we continued using the van to explore the latest in a series of adopted home states. We discovered what parks where near enough to provide a quick escape for a weekend and what parks were not worth the trip.

The van performed flawlessly, that is to say it was always slow, rather ponderous to drive, got fair to middling gas mileage, required a sizable investment of money and time to keep up, and invoked moments of terror when it stumbled or sputtered while we crossed some comparatively remote region.

We lived out of the van for weeks at a time and visited a raft of beautiful places all the while never worrying about rain or wind. It was our step-up from tent camping.

But now it is gone. With any luck the new owners will enjoy the car as much as Annette and i enjoyed it. I can only hope they’ll care for it, listen to its sounds and keep whatever promises they make when it acts strangely but still returns them home.

The plan was to depart Sunday for two nights at Redfish Lake and then relocate for two nights at Stanley Lake. Despite having towed the trailer all the way down from Spokane this was to be our first actual camping trip with the vehicle. I was nervous.

The first two nights at Redfish came and went with no problems. In fact the first night was wonderful with on again-off again rain pattering on the aluminum roof. This model trailer comes with two “Fantastic Fans.” For anybody familiar with the often balky frequently broken and hard to repair skylight/vent on the VW Westfalia the “Fantastic Fan” provides endless amusement. First, they are self-opening/self-closing. Second, they have a rain sensor. Thus we now have a new way to describe the weather, “is it raining hard enough to close the vents?” “Think today will be an open-vent day?” The motorized closing mechanism is not massively over-designed and when engaged makes a distinctive noise while the hatch opens or closes. But both vents worked perfectly, opening and closing throughout the afternoon as the rain came and went. They each have their own rain sensor so they open and close independently. The rear vent seems a bit more rain-averse and tends to close first and open last. I was thinking of naming them “Spirit” and “Opportunity” after the mars rovers.

While at Redfish we took the shuttle boat to the far end of the lake and hiked back the 5 or so miles. This is the best direction to go since you get the big climb out of the way first and then enjoy a long slow descent back to the lodge, and second you don’t have to worry about catching (or missing) the boat back to the lodge.

On Tuesday morning we got up and leisurely broke camp. Annette and i worked up a series of checklists to help us avoid any costly mistakes like leaving the amusing fan vents open or possibly forgetting to latch a window and having it depart the trailer whilst underway.

We arrived at Stanley Lake and located our site, a nice level spot with good shade and view of the lake. After setting up camp and un-hitching the truck we decided to do a bit of drive. I wanted to show Annette Bear Valley where i had been earlier in the summer and then drive on to Dagger Falls. So… off we went.

After our off-road tour we arrived back at the campsite and discovered the receiver-end of our snazzy equalizer hitch was gone. I stared at the empty receiver much the same way, years earlier, i stared at the vacant parking space where my suzuki samurai only moment earlier had been parked.

After the initial shock wore off the realization of what this missing piece of equipment meant took hold. If we couldn’t find the hitch we might have to leave the trailer while we scavenged some replacement. We quickly agreed to re-trace our steps, so we repeated everything we’d just done.

On the dirt road back toward Dagger Falls, scarcely two miles in from Hwy 21, i spotted the chrome steel barrel lock lying peacefully in the middle of the road. I jumped out and collected it. It was still locked. Another mile and we found the chrome steel receiver pin also lying nonchalantly in the afternoon sun. But that was it. Continuing on revealed no hitch lying in the road or off in a ditch.

We stopped and checked in at the Stanley Ranger station. They were all sympathetic and set up calls to the other ranger districts, but nobody had called in a found hitch. They gave me some bailing wire to better secure the locking hitch pin, but that was basically all they could do.

We returned to the campsite dispirited and dreading what might come next. But as i got out of the little truck i remembered i had a spare plain ball hitch in the tiny cargo compartment behind my seat. It wasn’t the snazzy equalizer, but it was a ball on a shank and was rated for 6,000 pounds. We were saved! All i had to do was install the receiver and figure out what orientation best worked with the trailer.

After some inventive block use and up and down from the power tongue jack i learned flipping the shank so as to arrange a rise in the ball height worked best. We hitched up and headed home a day early.

The trailer towed fine. It didn’t sway at all, it didn’t sway in turns, it followed perfectly. The missing equalizer torsion bars permitted much more up-and-down movement as the trailer and the truck went over bumps, but at no time did it feel excessive. We crossed train tracks. We crossed the undulating surface of the Hwy 21 bridge over Lucky Peak reservoir.

We made it all the way home. Or just about. 100 yards from our front door, on our street, we went over a speed bump at maybe 5 mph, and heard a gut-wrenching crash and ear-splitting grinding of metal on pavement. The trailer had popped off the ball and come crashing down on the tongue jack. I jumped out of the truck and ran to the back. The tongue hadn’t touched the ground, the breakaway switch hadn’t tripped, the safety chains hadn’t been extended, but the tongue jack was bent forward at 45 degrees off vertical and the metal plate where the jack crossed the a-frame of the tongue was a trainwreck of bent metal. Again all i could do was stare while a metallic taste filled my mouth and my gut writhed.

I won’t bore you, dear reader, with the sordid details of what followed beyond saying with the help of our neighbor Ken we got the trailer back on the ball and towed it, slowly, onto the concrete of my driveway. A close inspection of the trailer revealed no damage, but the unmistakeable feeling of dread, that we’d broken something, that it would never be the same, filled both annette and myself.

That was all on Thursday. On Friday we towed the trailer to “Camping World” and met with their collision expert and my Progressive insurance rep. Only time will reveal what comes next. Will a bent tongue jack reach my $500 deductible? Will it be as easy to fix as the RV collision guy seemed to think? Will it ever work the same? Did we bend the frame? What about the equalizer hitch? Can the loss of the hitch be part of the claim? Questions questions questions.

I have no idea what inspired me to call Colonial Airstream in Lakewood NJ on Monday, Aug. 17, but for whatever reason i rang them up and inquired about their stock number 8667. I’d already spoken with Patrick earlier last week, but this time i got Lauren and was told, with little ceremony, “sorry we took a deposit on it.”

“But, but… i spoke with Patrick last week… and it shows in stock on your website.”

“Yeah, well, we took a deposit on it this morning and we update the website in the evening.”

Silence.

“Ok, then. Well… ” i was grasping at straws here, “Patrick has my contact information. If the sale does not proceed, please have him call me.”

Well, that was that. Our first choice, after months of back-and-forth and discussion and thinking and pondering and predicting, was gone. I decided it would be better to act now and go with our second choice rather than risk letting another one get away and then being forced to either wait until next year or engage some kind of a broker to find the model we wanted. Besides, i’d steeled myself for the massive expenditure; in my brain the money was already spent, that the object that money would buy no longer existed sort of didn’t compute.

I called Airstream of Spokane, verified the 19′ Flying Cloud “Midnight Sun” interior was indeed still there… and bought it. I admit my first thought after saying “i’ll take it” and giving my credit card number for the non-refundable $2,000 deposit was from the original Trek when Scotty points out “ay, the haggis is in the fire for sure now.”

The rest remains pretty much one big blur. They faxed the purchase agreement, i confirmed my insurance with Progressive, i went to the bank and got a cashier’s check for the balance, drove to Spokane and stayed at a rather gross Motel 6, got up and drove to Lake Coeur d’Alene and waited for the husband/wife team of Airstream of Spokane to come to work, drove back to Airstream of Spokane, met with the owner, did a solid 4 hour get-acquainted session, hooked the trailer up to the Nissan, did a test drive around the neighborhood, then drove back to Boise arriving back home at about 9:30 p.m. About 900 miles covered in two days.

Then on Friday i went to work and got a ton of stuff done, left to pick up Annette’s birthday present, dropped it at home, switched to the Nissan with the trailer still hooked up and drove back to work. At 2:30 Annette called from the airport to say she was off the plane and i should come get her. I rolled into the arrivals bay pulling the trailer to see a great big smile, and that brings us up to date.

That was on Friday. Today is Sunday. We’ve done very little with the trailer thus far. It’s hooked up in the driveway at the moment. We’re still getting acquainted with all the systems and noises and quirks. It is a beautiful thing… and we intend on having it forever, so there’s little purpose to rushing off on a short trip. Hell, i just drove it over 400 miles, so i’m not all that hot to haul it even more.

Editor’s note: as of today Colonial Airstream still shows stock number 8667 as “in stock.”

“Moon” is seriously good. If you’re on the fence go see it before it leaves. If you miss it, put it on your Netflix list. After you watch it tell me, honestly, you never forgot you were watching one guy.

As we did the first time we brought our cat Isa back with us. She’s not a big fan of the drive up, but once there i’m convinced she is the happiest cat on the planet. Pity her abilities don’t extend to catching flies as the black flies were thick up at altitude. There were virtually no bugs down at the reservoir… i guess they prefer the view from the top. We managed to kill no fewer than twelve in fairly short order. The good news is they were fairly easy to swat and, unlike the mosquitos of Minnesota or Maine, were finite in number. After swatting about 6 we noticed a definite drop in the buzzing. Once we’d racked up about 12 kills we were able to read for a solid hour with virtually no pauses for giant fly attacks.

Overall the weather was calm and hot. Saturday night was mostly clear and i finally managed to take some star trail photos. Sunday night surprised us with two very dramatic blows from the south. The first brought strong gusts and light, but stinging, rain. It totally caught us off guard and had us scrambling to close the door and the south-facing window. Later at night after we’d been asleep for a while a second front barreled through with strong gusts making the pine trees hiss. The cat took refuge under the bed both times. Both blows were as short-lived as they were dramatic, maybe lasting all of 10 minutes each.

Dinner the first night was caramelized sweet onions, faux mashed potatoes with steamed snap peas and my lame attempt to pan-fry a flatiron steak. The onions were awesome. For the second night we had pan-fried chicken breast along with pan-fried slabs of “jeremy’s southwest polenta,” diced avocado and tomato topped with green salsa. Breakfast both mornings  was scrambled eggs with diced ham and Tilamook marble cheddar cheese served with diced tomato and avocado. For the sunday breakfast i added two more pan-fried slabs of polenta.

When we camp it’s all about the food.

What happens to a sealed bag of Kettle chips when raised to 7500 feet.

Onions sauteing... the very essence of life in the bush.

Our neighbors... a nesting pair of swallows

Saturday night was reasonably clear… so i finally managed to get some star trail images.