Gearing up

I will be sleeping in the back of my rig Friday night. I am buying a 72" cot today that fits into my 73" long bed. At least I hope it fits, otherwise, later today I will be out in the barn building a platform.

The idea is to have room under my sleeping area to store supplies for the nine days I will be gone. The canopy will keep everything dry and secure.

Not that I expect rain or problems with folks helping themselves while I'm out for a walk or fishing. But then again, I will be in cities toward the end of the trip.

And a quick glance to my left tells me that there will be precious little room in the truck bed for maneuvering, not with all of the stuff I will be taking "just in case." Yet, if the end of the world comes while I'm in the mountains, I'll be able to last a couple weeks, or longer if hunting and fishing are still good thereafter.

You know, I don't believe I have ever been camping by myself. The wife is calling it my vision quest. I suppose I should leave open that possibility, although I will admit some trepidation about what that may offer aside from some experiments with night photography.

All this to say there will be radio silence for a bit longer than normal for these pages, yet no doubt there will be stories and photos upon my return.

If I return.

And yes, the flags are packed.

Pssst! Poker!

I've started a list of things to do before I leave next Friday for nine days. I mentioned my plans a while back, and as a reminder, I'm Boise-bound. Not for the whole nine days, or seven days if one subtracts driving time, but it is my final destination. Several of the days in between will be for fishing, camping and photographing, with a few more days investigating artists and their scenes in cities on the east side of our state. I hope to get at least two articles out of it all.

Anyway, the list: Not just things to do (that list is sure to grow once the wife and I sit down to chat later today) but things to pack in the back of the rig for comfort and safety in my travels. That part of the list, more of a group effort, will no doubt get longer as well.

But I've buried the lead.

One item not on the list, instead a mental note, was to play some poker before taking off, for there will be a game in Boise.

The gentleman I will be seeing there is traveling to that city on business. While we have never met, he is a member of the defunct Poker Academy family. We share common interests beyond poker, which is part of the reason I am going, yet he travels with a larger group with similar interests, and several of them play poker. He says, "It's like shooting fish in a barrel." So, besides looking forward to finally meeting this guy, I'm hoping to get lucky and win some gas money for the trip home.

Last night I checked "play poker" off of my list.

Readers will also remember that my passion for the game has subsided; and for those of you who play, you know this means skill has gone out the window, potentially putting me in that barrel. This was partially in evidence last night, especially when it came my time to deal. I won't go into detail but let's just say that there was some gentle ridicule.

Anyway, this game was the monthly home game I've written about a good number of times. The usual suspects were in attendance along with a couple people I didn't know. And with fourteen people there, we had two tables going for a good portion of the night. There was the usual drinking (1.5 beers for me) and jocularity, quads, suck-outs, etc., including a string of bad hole cards for yours truly.

I called the wife after the first three hours to check in and inform her that I was up four dollars from my fifty buy-in. I had been up twenty after queens in the small blind got rid of the limpers preflop and a bet after a flopped Broadway demoralized the one flush draw. In other words, I was having my usual experience: small pots for big hands.

There is one house rule for this "Dealer's Choice" game and that is we can only play NLHE for the first two hours. Some players have complained that NL Omaha hi-lo, while a pot builder, is a bit of a drag. The complainers are nits but this, after all, is a friendly game so they are obliged with a compromise. Yet, after that second hour, O-8 makes up at least 50% of the hands called.

We were into the second hour of such play and I still was largely card dead and down to $45 or so, five bucks down. Several players had to leave so we consolidated tables. Mike, the host, sat to my right. He was pretty drunk and short-stacked with about $30.

On his first hand (O-8): "Let's have some fun," he exclaimed. "I'm all in." I insta-folded my middling hand of all clubs but he did get one caller and his hand A2sKK held up to scoop.

It came around for me to show off my skill at dealing again and while I had been calling NLHE for the sake of the cheapos, I decided that just this once I'd call O-8. I looked down to see A-A23d. I limped with the rest of all eight players. The flop came 7K5.

The BB led out with $6. Now, I had never played with this guy before and in that he had been at the other table until very recently, I had no read on him other than he had squinty eyes, was missing at least his two upper front teeth and was a generally happy-go-lucky guy. But none of that mattered, for by the time the betting came around to me, there had been a raise to $12 with two callers. I made the third and the BB made the fifth.

The turn gave me my nut low. The BB led out again, this time for $10. The raiser, most likely seeing the low come, just called, as did one other player, Randy. Starting to smell being quartered, I just called. The river was another 5 and the BB threw in $20. I figured him for a boat. Two folds, including the raiser (!), which just left Randy and me.

Randy just sat there staring at the board, then back at his hand, then back at the board, his hand... you get the idea. This delay gave me time to think, and the longer I thought, the less I worried about being quartered. I had seen Randy push the betting with some pretty shitty lows in previous hands. Maybe he was holding a five, but more likely he had A-3 or A-4. He eventually called and I threw in my last $20. I'd settle for the split.

Toothless said, "Two pair." and showed his King. Ah, a HE player through and through! Randy indeed had a shitty low and I scooped a huge pot.

A few hands later, again O-8, I looked down at A-T-A2s. Everyone limps and on a flop of 4-7-8, Mike on my immediate right says, "All-in." with his $56.

One spade on the board but I have the nut low. "Call." Everyone else folds. Runner-runner spades for the scoop again. Mike had flopped the straight with his 5-6.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is how I made my traveling money for Boise.

Day job

I have a new essay up. I can't remember if I've been good about letting you folks know about these like I used to. Heck, I used to post on a daily basis, remember? Getting lazy or something.

Speaking of lazy, I went fishing. Nothing. Except I did manage to step in the same pile of fresh cow shit twice, once for each shoe. Cast about until my back hurt. Rained. Still is, two days later.

Yeah, I'll go again.

It was our 15th wedding anniversary Monday. Seems by now we'd know not to open the champagne until after we had something to eat.

The photo thing I mentioned is still trying to find resolve. The buyer has been contacted and needs to be contacted again. The image fails, which is a shame, because it really could have been a nice shot.

I'll get around to commenting on others' posts. I promise.

Amateurs Anonymous

Hi, my name is Spot.

(Hi, Spot!)

And I'm no photographer.

Oh, I make photographs, take pictures, shoot snaps, whatever. But I'm not a photographer.

(Don't be so hard on yourself, Spot. You take some real nice pictures!)

No, I do jpegs. Add to that I have a lousy 75mm - 300mm lens.

So, when I finally, more than a year after posting images, make a sale on a commercial website that specializes in art, and the buyer wants the image at the listed size of an impossible 45" x 67" for a relatively puny 8.5 megabyte file...

Well, it just looks like shit. I can pass off the soft focus, but the compression...

Gonna take a lot of bullshitting to pull this one off. Don't think I want to do that.

But I did change my camera settings to RAW and jpeg.

Just three years after the time I should have done so.

Looks like I'll be shooting more burned fields late this summer.

OK, feel free to pile on.

Pretty much for the birds

The rains have passed for the time being, and the sun is heating things up, meaning that the weeds are taking off. The Scotch Broom has seed pods so I'll be cutting it down and then drenching the stumps. The tansy, thistles and blackberries will just get painted.

In fact, the process has begun. Yet, around every corner there seems to be more than last year, even with me being diligent and all. Never mind the flower beds around the house. Those have to wait until the wind dies down. Tomorrow, perhaps, even though there are plenty of flowering types going to seed.

We're starting to make noise that we'll be here another year, at least.

Which isn't a bad thing, all things considered.

All taken with my Canon PowerShot SX50 HS at 1200mm.

It's kind of a crappy photo, so this is going to be one of those instances when words —albeit most likely shy of one thousand— will have to do.

We were seeing patches of snow in the shaded areas along the road, so I'll guess we were somewhere around 4,000 ft up the mountain. I have tried to see if I could pinpoint the exact location of this spot in the road on Google Earth, and believe I have found it.

If so, we were close. We were very close to having a spectacular view of miles and miles of mountains and the valley below.

As you can see, the road sticks close to the mountainside. And, if this was a better photo, you'd be able to see the small waterfall beside the road instead of a faint blur. You can, however, see the little mound of rocks and gravel that has accumulated at its base. And you can also get a sense that the road eventually jogs a little to the left, again, following the mountain. About 150 yards further, it then winds to the right around the mountain.

In the shadow. However, you can see the washout.

At the first set of markers the road looks to be fairly wide. Yet, by the time one hits that second set, the road has narrowed, I'm estimating to about ten feet. I say "estimate" because we didn't make it that far.

Again, what you can't see is that I am on a repaired road, one that shows evidence of many washouts. I was standing on just such an area when I took this photo. We had in fact driven up to that first marker, and from my cab I could see that fresher repairs lay ahead.

I have a little experience on these mountain roads. If one wants to get a view, one has no choice but to explore them. Yet, when I hit that first marker, I was overcome by a sense of dread. Not nerves. Dread.

And I said so to my niece.

It may have been the fact that I could not see around the bend. It may have been the sight of the waterfall so close to the road (culverts don't always channel all of the water and erosion can occur). But I felt doom was immanent and knew I had to stop.

You might remember a post from last fall about a fishing trip I took out to the coastal river I like. If so, you will recall that I had a similar feeling then, only not nearly as strong. I sensed impending danger yet continued to fish. "Just one more cast and then I'll go. Okay, maybe just one more." And then the state cop showed up to check my license. I had it, but I also had bait, which both he and I knew was illegal on this stretch of water. I was fortunate that my jig was bare and the shrimp behind a boulder. Ignoring that feeling again was not something I was going to do, especially when magnified by a factor of five.

Now, mountain roads are usually dotted with turnouts, not so much for folks to pull over to see the sites but more for that rare occasion when one meets oncoming traffic. The idea is one vehicle pulls over to let the other go by. And, should one be caught between two turnouts, a skill in driving in reverse is recommended. I can do it, although I'd rather not, especially when the road is narrow only because there is nothing on either side of it except steep mountainside.

Although I had decided to go no further, I had no recollection of where that last turnout was. And in that we were already using switchbacks, I imagined it was further than I cared to drive using only my sideview mirrors.

I surveyed the road in our immediate vicinity. Twenty yards back was an area that looked like it might hold potential for a K turn or five. Yet, it was also clearly an area that had been repaired after a wash.  I paced it off in relation to the size of my wheel base. I figured I had about two feet between me and the canyon floor. I instructed my niece as to those parameters and put the rig into low four-wheel drive. Steering was a bit rougher but I knew I'd need every edge I had.

It's tough to put your trust in someone else and rely on her perception of the situation, but she's an intelligent young woman and understood the gravity of the situation. Regardless, better me than both of us taking the quick way down.

It took us four tries to turn the rig around and off we went, but only after I took the picture. There was another road we passed on the way up and I thought for a moment to see where it went.

Naaaahhhh. Time to go get pizza.

I never promised you a rose garden