[DeTomaso] Chris Kimball 2013 POCA Fun Rally Journal, Day Two

[fastgrandma]

Sooo?  Still not a problem for me and I'm a couple years older. :)

I'd like to see some of Chris's milkshake recipes!

Judy


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Thomas <mbefthomas at comcast.net>
To: 'fastgrandma' <fastgrandma at aol.com>; chrisvkimball 
<chrisvkimball at msn.com>; detomaso <detomaso at poca.com>
Sent: Tue, Apr 23, 2013 5:26 pm
Subject: RE: [DeTomaso] Chris Kimball 2013 POCA Fun Rally Journal, Day 
Two

Remember, he's over 50 . . .

-----Original Message-----
 From: detomaso-bounces at poca.com [mailto:detomaso-bounces at poca.com] On 
Behalf Of fastgrandma
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 11:58 PM
To: chrisvkimball at msn.com; detomaso at poca.com
Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Chris Kimball 2013 POCA Fun Rally Journal, Day 
Two

Chris, how does an 8 hour drive turn into 12 with just potty breaks???
Just what are you doing in there? Even us gals don't take that long!!
LOL   That basically leaves you to speed up one of two things.

Judy




-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Kimball <chrisvkimball at msn.com>
To: Pantera list serve <detomaso at poca.com>
Sent: Mon, Apr 22, 2013 10:56 pm
Subject: [DeTomaso] Chris Kimball 2013 POCA Fun Rally Journal, Day Two

Monday,
April 22, 2013


After a
restful sleep at the Hermiston Comfort Inn and Suites (restful, 
undoubtedly, because there was a door separating the two 
snoremeisters), Brian awoke about
7:00 and I woke up at about 7:45.  The
amazing thing about that is I woke up without the aid of an alarm.
Those of you who know me know if I get up before
9 AM it’s a true sacrifice.  I guess it
must have been the anticipation of the free breakfast—blueberry waffles 
were included, you know.


Brian was concerned
because he realized his plan of packing his shirts last to help prevent 
wrinkles had backfired.  The good news is, his shirts won’t have any 
wrinkles.  The bad news is, that’s because they are still hanging in 
the closet back at his house.  A thought flashed across my mind.  I 
remembered the story of Jesus telling his disciples that if someone 
asked for your coat to give your cloak as well.  I realized I had 
packed enough shirts for me to wear a clean one each day, and I could 
probably wear each shirt twice, and let Brian use the extras.
What better way to demonstrate Christian love and charity.


Inspired by
such spiritual thoughts, I told Brian he should just buy a bunch of new 
shirts for the trip.  He liked that idea.  It reminds me of the Bible 
story about getting new wineskins when you forget the old ones in your 
closet.


It turned
out Brian did pack some “emergency shirts” to be used if he needed to 
crawl around under any Panteras, so for now he’ll just wear those.  
Once we get to the Fun Rally, there will be all sorts of cool shirts 
for him to buy.


Buoyed by
this thought, we went to breakfast.


In addition
to waffles, they also had sausage, cereal, yogurt, assorted pastries, 
and scrambled eggs.  Well, it was more like scrambled egg.  Brian and I 
didn’t get to the dining room until 8:40 or so, and all I can assume is 
that every other hotel guest had gotten up at 6 AM and immediately 
headed to the dining room to descend like locusts on the food.  The 
good news was, there was still plenty of blueberry waffle mix, and 
several gallons of syrup.


One odd
detail to note about our time at breakfast:
The television would only receive one channel—CNN.  The reason I knew 
only one channel was available is I tried to change it, but the only 
other thing on was another channel with no dialogue reporting on a 
continuous snowstorm.  Now, I enjoy news as much as the next guy, but 
those of you who know me know that CNN isn’t my favorite news channel.  
I went to the front desk and asked if they might be able to adjust the 
set so I could see people reporting news so I could decide.  I was told 
the Choice Hotel conglomerate had a one-channel policy.  I was almost 
compelled to point out the similarity between that and China’s 
one-child policy, and how China’s arrangement hasn’t worked out so 
well, but I thought discretion might be the better part of valor, so I 
just smiled and thanked the nice lady behind the desk.


I then
called the Choice Hotel amalgam to ask if they really did have a 
world-wide, CNN monopoly for their dining rooms.  The 
customer-relations specialist with whom I spoke said each local hotel 
can be individually franchised, or be part of a larger, multi-unit 
group.  Each hotel or group of hotels can apparently allow/censor 
whatever news channels they deem appropriate/dangerous.  I thought it 
was pretty ironic that there was only one channel in a hotel with the 
word “choice” in its name, but then I remembered; I was in Oregon…


After
breakfast, Brian and I went out to assess any damage done to our cars 
 from the previous day’s traumas.  The only damage Brian noticed on his 
car was a thick layer of caked dirt covering every square inch of every 
painted surface.  It rained during the night, and then either 1) the 
dust storm through which we drove yesterday was still extant and had 
followed us, or 2) someone had dredged a river and dumped the silt on 
Brian’s car.
I was feeling quite smug as I removed from my car the cover I so 
insightfully brought on the trip, until I saw, in the bright light of 
day just how much paint damage the stupid tumbleweed had caused.  The 
front of my car now has the automotive equivalent of acne.  The devil 
weed that smacked into the front of my car left in its wake dozens of 
small, white dots.
Those of you who know cars know that can only mean one thing—THROUGH TO 
THE PRIMER!
Even Griot’s Garage products can’t fix that.  Now, when people look at 
Pandora at car shows, I’ll probably re-live the embarrassment I 
experienced as a 20-year-old touring with a band.  After a performance, 
a young kid came up to me and instead of telling me how much he enjoyed 
the music, or how much he liked my drum set, or what a great drummer he 
thought I was, he simple asked, “What are all those red dots on your 
face?”  Dermabrasion hadn’t been invented yet.


We checked
out of the hotel and headed to the gas station next door to fill up.
Those of you who know me know I always loved the cartoon show The 
Jetsons.  Even so, I was somewhat reticent to filling Pandora’s gas 
tank with “Astro Space”
gasoline.  For you youngsters; Astro was the name of the Jetson’s dog.  
Oh, you probably don’t even know who the Jetsons are, do you?
Well, just Google it!


Brian
noticed that his clutch was behaving strangely.
He suspects it might be a faulty plunger or something.  It is losing 
hydraulic pressure, which isn’t a good thing.  We put out an SOS to all 
the folks heading to the Fun Rally to see if any of them might be able 
to bring a spare hydraulic clutch master cylinder.
I think things will work out OK, because Pantera owners always come 
through in the clutch.

The drive
today was much nicer than yesterday’s.  I only saw one tumbleweed, and 
it was across the road before I came within striking distance.  Due to 
Brian’s responsibleness, there have been no speeding tickets thus far.  
Those of you who know me know I probably won’t be able to maintain this 
snail’s pace indefinitely—I fear on some long, straight stretch we 
encounter over the next week I may give in to my inner Speed Racer.  
It’s the adrenaline rush I crave.  Today, in fact, going 80 I found 
myself getting drowsy.  The only thing that kept me from slipping into 
slumber was a combination of loud music, Corn Nuts and Junior Mints.


For lunch, I
decided to take a random exit leading to a random town.  The sign said 
“Huntington 1 mile.”  I thought Huntington sounded like a nice name for 
a town, and that’s where we should go for lunch.


A mile or so
 from the exit, we arrived in the town of Huntington, Oregon.  When I
say town, I’m being generous.  There was one gas station (“it costs too
much
to have the gas delivered to the station, so the guys go get it
themselves and
bring it back into town”), one bar, and one café.  That’s about it.  We
asked a local the population of Huntington
and were told, “it depends on which day of the week you’re asking.”


Fortunately,
the café was quite quaint, having been built in 1890.  I had been
remodeled since then, and
modernized all the way up to the 1970s.
The food was delicious, and very inexpensive.  My lunch consisted of a
huge BLT (with bacon
2” thick), a salad (see Vicki—I really do eat nutritious food once and
awhile!)
and a lemonade—all for just ten bucks, and that included the tip!
Brian’s cost a bit more, but that’s because
he ordered the fresh marionberry pie for dessert.  Did I mention Brian
doesn’t eat ice
cream?  The bonus of the day was that the
pie was alamode.  Thinking quickly, I
recommended—for Brian’s health and well-being, you understand—that the
ice
cream be brought “on the side.”  Being
the kind, generous man that he is, rather than let it go to waste, Brian
offered his ice cream to me.  It reminds
me of the Bible story of the five loaves and two ice cream cones.


After
stuffing ourselves silly, we headed back to I-84 East, deciding to
forgo the
questionable gas offered by Huntington, but not before answering all the
typical questions about our cars.  The
manager of the café and the server were both so taken with them, that
they left
the café and walked a half-a-block down the street to get a closer
look—leaving
Brian and me as the only souls left in the entire building.  During the
ensuing discussion, the women
commented that the cars looked “real spendy.”
I downplayed the bottomless pit of expenses one must incur when owning a
Pantera, and told them Panteras aren’t really that expensive.  Within
seconds, the younger of the two had
Googled “Pantera” and seen the prices of some for sale.  Her next
statement was, “Not that expensive?  Your car costs more than my house
is worth!”  What this means isn’t that Panteras are
expensive; it means the economy of Huntington may just be smaller than
the town
itself.


After some
picture-taking (I took pictures of the old building; they took pictures
of our
cars) we said goodbye to Huntington.  A
couple of hours later we stopped in Boise to fill up, and almost got
blown away
by the 400 mph wind.


During the
trip I have been trying something new.
Some time ago, my sons David and Donald convinced me to get a
new-fangled Windows phone.  Yes, it does
windows.  It also allows me to talk to it—and
it answers!  This is very handy when
arguing with someone smarter than me.  I
can simply ask my phone for the answer to virtually any question, and
within
seconds, I’ll have access to the internet and literally thousands of
incorrect
and conflicting results.


The phone
has the capacity to store as much music as my iPod, and has GPS
capability,
too.  Although I have a great GPS I’ve
come to trust over the years, the thought of combining my music, GPS
and phone
in one convenient and loud package (the new phone runs through my car’s
stereo
system) was very appealing.  Before
leaving for the trip, I tried calling Vicki from the car using the
phone in a
hands-free mode, and she could hear me talking, and I could hear her
loud and
clear through the 1500-watt stereo.  When
she started singing, I actually had to turn it down a bit.


This was
looking promising!  There was still one
problem, however.  I wasn’t sure where to
put the phone while driving.  Anyone who
knows Panteras knows there aren’t too many convenient, flat surfaces on
which
to put things.  This is where the miracle
of “as seen on TV” comes in.  Not long
ago, I saw an advertisement for a device called “Gripgo.”  The ad
claimed the unit would suction-cup
itself to a car windshield, and suspend any cell phone as if by magic.
The guy on TV proved how effective Gripgo
really is by sticking an expensive cell phone to it and then holding
the entire
affair out a moving car’s window and shaking it violently.  One wonders
how many takes, and how many cell
phones, it took before they filmed one that worked.


I enlisted
the help of David and Donny to research Gripgo, and we went to the font
of all knowledge;
internet reviews.  We watched on YouTube as
a mild-mannered gentlemen demonstrated the stickum power of Gripgo.
Gripgo was so sticky, in fact, that partway through
the video, the gentleman became a bit less mild-mannered when he was
unable to
free his cell phone from the Gripgo’s miracle sticky surface—sending
him into a
momentary burst of profanity.


I was moved
by his description of Gripgo, and ordered one.
It arrived the day before I left for the Fun Rally.  It came in a box
with Chineses writing all
over it, and had obviously been stepped on by every man, woman and
child living
in China.  Amazingly, the product inside
the decimated box was undamaged.


The Gripgo
works great, as did the new phone/GPS/music arrangement, until after
three
hours the phone battery gave out.  Apparently,
when asking the phone to perform three different functions, the battery
wears
out three times as fast.  Who knew?  Plus, I left my phone’s car
charger at
home.  Good thing I also brought my regular
GPS.


Another
thing I accomplished before leaving for the trip was to replace the
dash-board-light
dimmer knob in the Pantera with a volume-control knob.  Why would I do
such a thing?  The reason is simple:  Once I started using LEDs in my
dashboard,
the dimmer knob became useless.  When I’m
listening to my iPod, radio, phone, or other devices, often the volume
of different
songs stored from different sources varies wildly.  Having the control
within easy reach makes
adjusting the relative volume quite easy.
It’s funny how such a small thing can make such a big difference in
listening pleasure!

Brian and I
arrived in Twin Falls Idaho an hour ahead of schedule.  That was
because there was a time change
about which I had forgotten.  The bad
news is the time change means I lose an hour of sleep tonight.  D’oh!


As we
arrived at the hotel we saw Clarke and Wilma Hamm arriving, too.  It
was a nice coincidence, and pretty much
guaranteed we would all share a delicious meal at the Golden Corral.
Yes, it’s the same Golden Corral about which
I waxed eloquently last year.  It’s
exactly the same as it was then--$12 gets you all you can eat.  The
four of us shared a table and consumed
enough food to feed the entire population of a small city.  I’m back in
the room now, typing this
journal, and I’m not using a table.  The computer
is simply resting on my protruding stomach.
Not really, but I feel that full!

Tomorrow is
a long haul; about 8 hours of driving time.
When you add in the time needed for bathroom stops, that mushrooms into
at least 12 hours of travel…


So until
tomorrow—drive safely! 		 	   		
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