This blog post never made it to fruition. I was just browsing through some old posts and stumbled on this draft... it's from October 2010. Here it is.
I purchased my second vehicle last week. A 1995 Ford Ranger. Two doors, camper shell, manual. I would like to present David Douglas.
Here Fumie and I are sitting on the tail gate at Shelf Road, it's the only picture I could find of David.
My first car, a 1988 Toyota Camry was named by my dad. Lidia. I bought Lidia from my friend Alyssa for $400. The back 2 doors didn't open but I thought, hey I always wanted a 2 door car. The speedometer didn't work, you just had to feel out what you thought 30 mph was or 70 mph was. Then the Avalon, yeah, my dad named her too, Phoebe. I went back to driving Lidia when the opportunity to but the ranger came along. When I bought the ranger I knew it needed a name pranto.
The name came after a visit to a pick-your-own pumpkin patch. Named after a dog. The dog belonged to Jake the farmer, off of Hwy 34. Jake grows a lot of pumpkins, also veggies. Firewood... and apparently he naming genius when it comes to naming dogs. He named German shepherd David, now the name sake to my 95 Ranger. And the Doug just came naturally. David or Doug, both too good to be true, but with the help of my good and faithful friend, Cake, I mean Kate, we decided on David Douglas.
The Maiden Voyage
Last weekend I went on a spur of the moment trip up to Pingree. I wanted Ally to get her jollies out, as my dad says, and at the same time give myself a little vacation from the ranch. I packed haphazardly. Throwing everything into a box. Thinking.. humm... headlamp, check. Sleeping bag, check. Sleeping pad, check. Food, check. Warm clothes, check. With those few things I felt I pretty much had all my bases covered.
I was anxious to get out of here since I wanted to arrive with some day light left to set up camp. I made one trip to the truck, throwing in my box, Ally, and my hiking boots. Came back to the Hillcrest Trailer, looked around. Went into my room to grab a pillow, I mean if you're going to car camp, you may as well, right? Did my final go around and loaded up.
It's a beautiful drive to Pingree. Up through Buckhorn Canyon, left on 44 and about an hour later your looking at the Mummy Mountain Range.
I don't know how it happened, even with all that looking around, I forgot the box of food. Yes, all of it, well, all I had was a little beef jerky AND Ally's dog food (at least I brought that).
After a really rough night,* I called the day at Cirque Meadows, totaling a womping 6 miles. Prematurely headed back to the Ranch, and took a nap and ate some food.
Well worth it? Always.
The rough night, it was the roughest night. In October it's already quite cold up in the mountains so Ally and I were seriously bundled up in out sleeping bags. I had on multiple layers of clothes and was totally cinched into my mummy bag. We were sleeping in the back of my truck, which you can't lock the shell, and were feeling really vulnerable. I was thinking, if someone wanted to come in here and give us a hard time, I would be totally trapped... well while we were going to sleep, we could hear some people a few sites down blasting Nine Inch Nails and System of a Down... not the most enchanting music to fall asleep too... and it just left me thinking, what if those are the people that I'm worried about and what if they decide to give me a hard time?
Well sometime after falling asleep, I don't know what time it was but I think I was dreaming it or it may of actually been happening. I hear foot steps outside of my truck. I jolted straight up as Ally begun to bark. Whatever I heard, she heard too. I tried looking out the window but saw nothing. I thought about letting Ally out to attack whatever it was we heard but decided against it on the off chance it was a moose or something.
I laid back down on my sleeping pad making sure my Leatherman tool was close at hand. Somehow I managed to go back to sleep. And nothing else ever became of the mysterious foot steps.
