Electrician and Wind and Memories

The bathroom light would not come on this morning. The fan and heater and outlet all worked so I called an electrician. He did not know when he could be here so here I sit, waiting, 5 hours later. The Hog rider had a lunch meeting, to return after lunch to pick me up. We were going to ride to Shaniko, Antelope and that area. It is warm, 70's, but the wind is beginning to pick up so I'm guessing the ride, although still fun, would not be comfortable in the wind. I should have washed clothes and hung them on the line, but the electrical box is right beside the washing machine; I didn't want him to have to put up with that if he had showed up quickly.

One year ago, we made the decision to make our first trek to the River Run in Laughlin, Nevada. We'd have to go through a few states and weather conditions to get there, but our Eye on the Prize was 90 degree F weather there.

As we left home it was raining. Sixty miles south it was still raining and becoming colder. One hundred miles south it was snowing and we were riding in slush. We stayed the night in Klamath Falls, awaking to an inch of slushy snow on the Hog. We continued on south, even in the spitting snow and cold. The thought of our children calling out Dumb and Dumber to their loving parents began creeping through my mind, could they be onto something? After seeing 2 snow plows, one of which had been in a wreck with a UPS truck, one of us pressured the other to stop at the next motel. There actually was one in Adan, California. It was snowing pretty hard when we stopped at the motel. The startled look I received from the young man at the front desk was probably because I had on leathers, helmet, dark glasses and came in from a snow storm. They must have needed the business pretty bad, they let us stay. The rate was very reasonable and the room was huge. There was even a stall for the War Pony. We immediately cranked up the heater. There was a store down the street, that and a gas station, were about the size of the town. We grabbed some sandwiches and soda and went back to continue the warming up phase.

Our cell phones did not work down in that hole. One of us thought about calling our daughter-in-law, the only person we knew who had a landline, but the clearer head prevailed and we were convinced no-one would be worried about us.

The next day we awakened to more snow. We waited a couple hours for the sun to come forth but it was not to be. As we were packing up the pony, a pickup pulled up beside us. The guy asked where we were headed - we told him the River Run. He said he had planned on going on his Harley but family obligations prevailed. After some discussion, he told us what the road conditions were, told us we were Brave and Braver (or something like that) and sent us on our way.

He was absolutely correct! The road was really bad for about 5 miles. There were some inches of snow, with ice underneath. We have never asked the Pony to traverse such a path before and hope to never again! The War Pony was great, the driver was great, and the scenery was fabulous! We were on a slight incline, overlooking a stream down below. We hoped the Hog would not go down, we would not be able to pick him up on the ice, and there were no other dummies, I mean brave people, out and about.

Just as he said, after the long 5 mile ride, the road cleared up and we were on our way again! We stopped in Susanville for breakfast. As soon as I turned on my phone, I heard panicky calls wondering where we were and what happened! Somewhere along the way the tables have turned and the childlren are worried about their dumb parents, when, for so long, it was the other way around!

More about that trip tomorrow!