A Little Gasoline ~ A Little Exhaust:

Hey, Peeps!

Well, I've been posting lots of pretty pictures, and wrote you a little story about Ft. Rock, but it seems as if I haven't really given you an update in a while.  I'll begin by saying that I am so glad that yesterday is over.  I think that I was lucky to survive the day, and I'm not exaggerating one bit. 

I was doing fine, until I hopped in the car to go get some gas and a corn dog and some potato balls.  I ate the potato balls and then drove the 45 minutes to Redmond to buy a part that Cary needed for work.  I had just gotten past Sunriver when I began to smell exhaust fumes.  I got past Bend before I figured out that I'd better open up my sunroof, because it was kind of cold to open all the windows.  By the time I got to Redmond, my tongue was numb and I was feeling weird.  I got out and tried to see if I could notice anything funny with my tailpipe, but nothing jumped out at me.  I went in, paid for my part, took an Excedrin (just in case I was getting one of those weird migraines that renders me blind, which is not a good thing, when you are driving).  

I sat in the car for awhile, with it off, and changed out all of my CD's.  I was feeling better, and had I found some old friends in the CD case, and was especially happy to know that I would be singing along to Terri Clark on the way home.  I opened all my windows and the sunroof was still open, just in case it was an exhaust leak and not a migraine.  Good thing that I had a heavy sweatshirt on, because I didn't use the heater either.  It was also a good thing that I had my sunroof open, because I saw those awesome shadow shots of the power pole (you can see that in the post below). 

Well, two things happened.  I really do think that I had an exhaust leak or Cary says it is probably the catalytic converter, so we have to take my car in to get checked out.  The other thing is that the Juniper trees in the Redmond area really wreck havoc on a lot of people, even if they don't normally have allergies.  So, with all those windows open, my eyes were watering, my throat became sore and then felt like it was closing up.  Great, just great.  But, maybe my throat was sore because I was singing at the top of my lungs with all those windows open to Terri Clark?  Perhaps it was a combination of the two. 

I made it back to the shop to give Cary his part, and he and Brian couldn't find anything obvious with the exhaust system, but by that time I couldn't even say my words right.  I went home, parked that silly car, went inside, opened my bottle of Merlot and put the corn dog on the counter. 

I laid on the couch, reading the most excellent book that I have read in a long, long time (Case Histories by Kate Atkinson) drinking my wine, recovering from my exhaust fume ordeal.  I decided to take an antihistamine to combat the Juniper trees, and things were going much better.  I was safe and sound, in my spot.  My health issues were addressed.  

About an hour later, I thought, hey, you know, I think I'll eat that corn dog.  Bad idea.  It surely couldn't have gotten rotten in that cold car, and it was only 3 hours old.  Was that corn dog poison?  Well, maybe or maybe not, but I spent the next several hours on the pot until I decided that I'd better go ahead and throw up.  I felt much better after that, and was able to work on my blog ... which was really cool, since Blogger had taken a nap for a couple of days and I was Jonesing to get back on here. 

Then, and this next part is very bad news, the fire trucks and ambulances screamed past our house, but they were going kind of slow, so we figured that they were looking for something close by. I thought that I heard AirLink too, but Cary thought it was a semi ... anyway, they were all doing their jobs because of what turned out to be a fatal wreck a mile away.  Traffic was diverted onto our road, and may I just say, drivers please slow down when you get diverted.  Our road is not the highway.   The wreck happened at State Park Road and Highway 97 ... which is where we cross each day to get to work.  I don't know the details of the accident yet, the news people are being kind of quiet about it.  I am praying for the families. 

So, back to us.  At 8:30, we received a call from Jack, our security guy, and jumped up in our p.j.'s and got in the truck and drove down to work.  I forgot my cell phone, but I did have my camera.  I'm trying my best to always be a good reporter, and to never leave home without it.  Cary had his cell phone though, so we were covered.  Apparently somebody had been driving back and forth slowly and the guys chased them down, but they got away ... we must have just missed them as we came in the back way.  They did get the license plate written down though.  People have been stealing our stuff, and we are going to catch them.  Cary already did catch one pick-up full three guys with a load of copper wire in the truck bed a few weeks ago.  There was a warrant out for one of the guys and the sheriff took him away.  Jerks.  Thou shall not steal.  

So, I went to bed at about 11:00 and Cary was already asleep.  He woke up at 3:00, all was fine and then he went back to bed.  I woke up at 5:45 and discovered that we had been visited by "The Bear".  He or she had knocked over the top of the bird baths (the one with the food has a crack in it and we keep it full of birdseed and peanuts).  The Bear also came right up to our front step to where I keep the birdseed in a little clear garbage can with a clamped lid.  The Bear had it tipped over and spilled some of the food; but he or she couldn't quite open it or got scared away.  And our guard dogs, who can spot a jogger from a mile away and bark their heads off, didn't even alert us to the bear 5 feet away!  Whatever.  I have to have a talk with them. 

So, those are my stories for now.  We are going to meet up with our friends from Portland, Steve and Merri today, and I am so looking forward to that.  I hope that you all have a great weekend!


Kathy M.


P.S. ~ Cary is thinking that it wasn't a bear and that maybe it was raccoons.  We really did have a bear last year messing around and we saw the tracks.  I didn't see tracks this morning ... but it wasn't a dog and it wasn't deer (deer are polite and dainty eaters).  Still, it made for a good story.  The rest of the stuff is accurate though.  Like I said at first, I'm just glad that day is over!


P.S.S. ~  This is very sad; here is a link to the article about last night's wreck.  The man who died was an off duty La Pine Fire Chief.   Please pray for his family.  Thank you.  La Pine Fire Chief James Palmer dies.

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