More trip notes

Now - the continuing saga - this part is more fun....fun??? Ok, maybe not - but more interesting - I'll try and cut down on the rambling a bit though since I know this is getting long. It would be a better read if I had pictures.....but I only took like 5 pictures...during the last 10 minutes of our stay :( My camera doesn't take very good pictures so I have no incentive to carry it...

Sunday - It dawned a beautiful sunny morning - we took advantage of the free breakfast and then went to try and piece together the car so we could continue on our way before the noon deadline to get out of our hotel room. Upon getting the block heater into the open so he could look at it, Trevor discovered that one half of the retention tab had broken off - so off we trekked back up the street to the Cenex gas station/hardware store/western store/feed store.... The hardware man was VERY helpful, and although they didn't have the right type of block heater to replace ours, he rigged up a screw with a holder that would work and put a neoprene washer on to try and seal it. With thankful hearts, we walked back to the car and installed the part - then added some water and started the car. Water came from the block heater in a small stream - the washer just didn't quite seal well enough - so while Trevor removed the part again, I trekked back to the place for some silicone and a couple gallons of water. After adding silicone to the assembly - we were satisfied with just a slow drip of water coming from the area - but the car was not running well - we decided to get some water and see if we could limp it into Boise. We topped up the car, filled all our jugs, packed up all of our stuff and stopped to pray before leaving town. By the time we were 4 miles out of town we had to stop and fill up the water- and discovered we had already burned all the water in the system - we decided this was no way to go, so we turned back for Dillon and before we reached town we had to stop again. The engine had eaten about 2 gallons of water in 8 miles! Now, feeling somewhat defeated and knowing that something serious and expensive was wrong - we started brainstorming how we could get to a place where Trev could work on the car to keep the costs down. It was almost noon now - and knowing everyone we knew would be in church or meeting, we stopped in at Pizza Hut for the buffet to kill some time. When we finished, we limped the car back up town to where we could reach Internet signal and began checking out our options - we were 6 hours from Boise - we did find that there was a U-Haul place in town where we could rent a truck and trailer if needed... We also discovered that we were only 3 hours from Aberdeen where Trevor knew some people - so later that afternoon we called with a plea for help. Much to our relief, Marc and Michelle were able to come with their truck and trailer to haul us back to where Trevor could work on the car. Once they were on their way we still had a few hours to kill, so we wandered around town a bit - looked at all the cars and trucks on the new and used side of the dealership lot, then over to the farm machinery on the John Deere/New Holland lot across the road and checked out all the tractors a balers. We also spent over a hour in the Cenex store - I tried on some boots and would have bought some White's Packers for winter riding if we hadn't had an expensive car repair ahead of us!! I did however buy a new pair of jeans - one of the things I had planned to buy on the trip. I didn't even buy Wranglers this time - Carhartt jeans....they fit really good!! Eventually it started to cool off as the sun fell behind the mountains and we wandered back to the car - from here I talked to my friend Rachel and get contact info for her sister Dorothy who is going to college in Dillon and we arranged to meet for coffee. We weren't there for 10 minutes before Marc and Michelle arrived with the truck and trailer to rescue us. We all went out to help load the car and ended up having to half push the car onto the trailer as it had absolutely no power. Once the car was strapped in place, I hugged Dorothy good bye, with promises to pass the hugs onto her family that I planned to see later in the week. Then we settled in for our trip to Aberdeen, with pleasant conversation along the way. During the course of the day, my grandparents made arrangements to pick me up the following morning and take me to Boise so I could visit with my family as planned while Trevor stayed in Aberdeen to repair the car. We arrived in Aberdeen around 9pm and un-loaded the car. We were a weary couple as we had a bite to eat(very good elk sandwiches!!) and headed for bed.

Monday - Grammy and Papa arrived mid-morning to pick me up and after loading my stuff and dropping Trevor off at the shop to work on the car, we set off for Boise via Twin Falls - where Papa had arranged for us to have a quick lunch with my cousin Josh and his two boys (the youngest of whom I hadn't even met before!) It was nice to have a little visit since I hadn't seen Josh in almost 3 years! After our stop, I drove the rest of the way to Boise so Papa could rest - they had had an early morning! On the way through the city we picked up dessert for the family gathering that night. We were almost all together that evening at Grammy and Papa's place - Aunt Bonnie (with her canine friend Sophie), Aunt Judi and Uncle Dennis as well as Becky and Lance joined us for Grammy's favorite Taco Casserole and Jody, Rob, Amy and Casey joined us for dessert. It was a nice visit!

Tuesday - I slept in to try and recover from the eventful weekend! I had a nice breakfast visit with my Grandparents and then we had a game of Upwords, for old times sake! At lunch time, I met Becky at a local Sushi place for a great lunch and she took the afternoon off so we could hang out - and hang out like girls we did - we hit the mall with Rob in tow - poor guy he got dragged around as we looked for pair of shoes for me and then Becky took me to her favorite Bra store (Us Bateman girls all have to share our bra finds, since we all have rather large needs....)... by now Rob went to wander for a bit on his own - but then, who could blame him? He WAS raised with 4 sisters, but even that couldn't prepare him :D Becky bought me both the shoes and the bra as an early birthday present - Thanks so much Beck!! After our successful shopping trip, Becky and Rob headed back to Becky's and I headed to the local Christian book store where I of course spent much more money then I had intended...but it was worth it! Rob made a supper of tortillas for us that night at Becky's and we spent the evening visiting and playing Rock Band - only about the second video game that I really liked!! That evening I made it home before my grandparents did! I enjoyed the freedom of being able to stay up late and sleep in by spending time on my computer and reading my newly acquired books! When I talked to Trevor about the car that evening it was back in one piece with many new parts (head gaskets, water pump, thermostat, spark plugs, etc....) but still running rough - so they planned to hook it up to a computer the next morning to try and diagnose the problem. Ok - enough for another day...I'll finish the story later! but here are some pics of the snow that has fallen this winter.

Me driving the 350 moving snow before we left. The snow in our yard....

Drifting snow today - sunny and clear but the roads are nearly whiteout conditions with all the blowing snow - its terrible!!

A long tale to tell...

Well – many days, many miles and many adventures have passed since the last post here…I started writing stuff down on paper during our trip to keep myself busy and so I wouldn’t have to think so hard when it came time to do this, so lets get back to where I left off last time!

The Cradle – After the last post I had a few problems with the finishing of the cradle…I ended up destroying the bottom piece that holds the legs together – late on Monday night. I went to bed extremely frustrated! On Tuesday after prayer meeting, Trevor helped me make a new piece while I put the finishing touches on the rest of the cradle. Wednesday night I did the finish sanding and pre-conditioned the wood – then stained it. I ended up staining the basket and stretcher a medium brown with a hint of red and leaving the legs a blonde colour – I need Amy to send me the pictures she took of it! On Thursday evening along with packing and cleaning I managed to put a clear coat of finish on the whole cradle. It was a long week of late nights – but everything got finished!

The Trip- We left Pilot Mound at 6:30 on Friday night and headed West. There were blizzard warnings galore for Southern Manitoba and North Dakota….a great time and place to be driving through those places. The first hour was good driving, but just before we crossed into the US, we hit high winds and snow creating intermittent total whiteouts – what fun! As we crossed the border, the border guard warned us of an oncoming blizzard and cautioned us to be careful along the way. The next few hours were VERY windy and in the open, it was almost constant whiteout – with only the occasional glimpse of the white or yellow lines. The Lord really held us on the road – as I don’t know that any other force could have done that! Along the way I finally relaxed enough to fall asleep, but when I awoke the conditions were worse then before! I was very glad that Trevor was driving! After a few more hours, we reached Williston (sometime around midnight I think???) where the weather wasn’t as bad – and here we were able to find a hotel room at the second hotel that we tried – the first one was full and told us there was only 1 room left in town!! We slept well after a stressful evening!

Saturday – In the morning we stopped for Trevor’s favourite breakfast at McDonalds and picked up a few things at Walmart before hitting the road around 9 AM. We drove straight through with the exception of Potty stops and a quick stop at the Montana Silversmiths outlet store in Columbus MT. It was a great store with lots of highly marked down stuff along with some normal priced merchandise. I got a great purse – I’ve been looking for a western purse forever but they’re always extremely expensive – I’m glad I waited because I love this one – and I got it for $26!! Original price - $150!!!

It looks just like this top purse - minus the rhinstones along the edge of the dark leather - and the tooling is painted like the purse in the bottom picture!

Trevor got a $50 belt buckle for $10 too! Sometime in the afternoon I started driving so Trevor could sleep. We took a short cut on a two lane highway to save a few miles since it was a beautiful day and the roads were clear. It took us through a gorgeous area in the foothills between two mountain ranges with tons of black cows along the way and horses too! Shortly after 5 PM as the sun was getting low, I crested a hill just as a semi entered from a side road and started slowly up the next hill. I slowed down quickly, but when I was sure it was safe, I stepped on the gas, planning to get past while the coast was clear. The engine red-lined for a second as the sluggish transmission didn’t shift properly, and finally the car took off – that was when I noticed copious amounts of smoke behind me!!! Something didn’t seem right, so I nudged the sleeping Trevor and asked whether I should be worried???? By the time he was awake and aware – the smoke had dissipated and things seemed somewhat normal for a mile or so – then the car began acting strange. We could see the town of Dillon, MT another few miles ahead and we hoped we could limp the car into town, but after a couple more miles it became evident that the car would be going no further! As I pulled over, the car stalled and smoke was pouring from under the hood. Once we popped the hood, we could see that the whole engine was steaming or smoking. During the process of looking at the car – a truck pulled up – it turned out to be the driver of the semi I had passed when the problem started. He noticed that we had problems and when he reached his yard he got in his pickup and came down the highway – knowing we wouldn’t get far! During the course of the conversation we found out that he wand his family have the biggest sheep ranch in four states – with over 9000 head of sheep! I could have probably chatted with him for a day or two about sheep stuff, but as it was, there were more pressing matters – such as a dead car and nightfall rapidly approaching! We tried adding some antifreeze – but it just poured right out on the road. Mr. Helle volunteered to tow the car into town where we could decide what to do next. Once our car was in the parking lot of the Ford dealership – we got directions to local hotels and restaurants and thanked him for his help. We unpacked what we needed and walked the three blocks to the nearest hotel. We checked in for the night – made a few phone calls to those expecting us down the road and discussed the possibilities. Later – Trevor walked back to the car to see if he could find any obvious problems. I was pretty bummed out at this point and decided to stay at the hotel with my trusty laptop and do some surfing. Trev came back with “good” news. The block heater had popped out of the block – causing us to loose all our antifreeze very quickly. We went for supper with slightly lighter hearts – hoping we could just replace the block heater and be on our way. We were just thankful it wasn’t the previous night we had broken down. We headed for bed early after that stressful day! I think I’ve written about enough to bore most of you – so I’ll cut it off for now – stay tuned for the rest of the story !

Cradle progress

So here is the cradle - in progress. Its a slightly imperfect version of the origional - in fact it would probably ship to a factory second's store if this were mass production(after all it IS my first major woodworking project...with a sincere lack of tools but also a sincere thankfulness for all the ones I borrowed - because the only thing I own is the cordless drill and the hammers :P ) - but for me its been a great learning experience, alot of fun and sometimes a frustration. I am in need of suggestions on the finishing of the cradle - utimately the decision will be up to its intended owner - Amy - but I'm in a quandary about what I should do. The basket (or actualy cradle part) is made out of quite nice wood - solid 3/4" birch plywood which would look really quite nice stained... However, the rest of the piece (legs/posts/stretcher) are made of regular dimensional lumber - you know spruce and fir - the stuff usually used to frame houses and patch barn doors. Here are the options that I have thought of (keep in mind I have only until thursday night to do all the finish sanding and whatever surface treament I choose as well as clean the house and pack my bags!)

Option #1

Varnish the whole things with a clear coat varnish - which will bring out the natural colors (although they will be 3 different colors)

Option #2

Stain the whole thing with a colored stain - which will allow the grain the show through but somewhat mask the different colors.

Option #3

Stain or paint the posts and legs with something to cover up the inferior wood - but still varnish the basket

Option #4

Paint the whole thing and cover up the pretty wood...

On second thought - this freaking blogger website is having issues - I just spent a half hour trying to upload these - but I guess you just get to click on a link to my increasinly favorite website - HERE

Vacation!!

So over the last month or so, work as been very slow for Trevor - he has been getting quite bored and all the employees have resorted to things such as building stairs and cabinets for the shop in order to keep themselves busy. Since I could really use a break from work too, we decided to make a trip to Boise in February rather then waiting until June.

So in two weeks we will be off - on a 5000km road trip....its going to be a lot of driving and a lot of fun!! We're going to hit North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan!! One big loop - a lot to see and a lot of people to see along the way! I'm very excited.

Oh and for the big "reveal" as most of you read Amy's blog you will already know that I'm going to be an Aunty again!! YAY! Amy is due for the end of July - and the project that I plan on is going to be a cradle. I'm not sure if I can get it done before we leave in 2 weeks, but I'm going to try as it will cost around $50 to send it to her otherwise!

Here is a picture of the project:

It will look slightly different - without as many fancy curves....but this is the style :D Wish me luck!