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

[Julian Kift]

Look forward to seeing you here in Phoenix after that drive then Judy.

> To: mbefthomas at comcast.net; chrisvkimball at msn.com; detomaso at poca.com
> From: fastgrandma at aol.com
> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:14:50 -0400
> Subject: Re: [DeTomaso] Chris Kimball 2013 POCA Fun Rally Journal, Day Two
> 
> 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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