The Barlow Road

lining up the 2007 model of the covered wagon on the old Barlow Road
On Sunday, Meg and I met up with a group of four other FJs to drive part of the historic Barlow Road. For a while, the end of the Oregon Trail was at The Dalles. From there, the settlers had to forgo a perilous journey through crazy rapids to get to Fort Vancouver and Oregon City. When the Barlow Road opened over the South side of Mt. Hood, it gave the settlers an option for a perilous journey over steep mountains. But, it was a much cheaper perilous journey...

For us, there is a fairly long section of the old Barlow Road that is unmaintained and in "primitive" condition. This part of the road is essentially how the settlers saw it back in the late 1800's. We just had a heater, MP3 player and reliable brakes. More pictures here.

Silver Falls

Yes, there is someone under that waterfall

The previous weekend (yes, I am posting in crazy order now), Meg and I went down to Silver Falls State Park. Silver Falls has many beautiful water falls. Some, you can walk behind. I was hoping for some great fall color, but this is Oregon and not Vermont. Still, it was a beautiful day, and we had a great hike around the park. More pictures here.

Smells Like Teen Pumpkin

It's that time of the year again. Just like last year, it was time to head back out to Sauvie Island and The Pumpkin Patch with Meg, Caitlin and Ken. This year, it was the perfect storm for Sauvie Island. It was one week before Halloween. It was about 70 degrees. It was sunny. Everybody in metropolitan Portland thought it would be a good idea to go to Sauvie Island. We got to the 'Patch without too much problem. They had a fairly good system, and while there were lines, everything kept moving nicely. We did the hay ride, corn maze, and got pumpkins. The problem was leaving. It almost took a full hour to get from the farm back to the highway which is only a couple miles...

We made pretty quick work of the pumpkins, as we attended the Mills' sorta-annual Pumpkin Carving Party. That was a great time and we ended up with this:



More pictures here.

Mirror, Mirror not on the wall...

It seems a lot of people didn't understand the hole-in-the-wall post. I'm not installing anything new in that hole(TV, another fireplace, etc.). The previous owner had glued a big mirror above the fire place. While it wasn't the most horrible decoration in the world, its time had past. To remove it would have torn the drywall to hell, not to mention breaking the mirror in the process. So, I decided to just cut out the drywall and replace that section. You can see the finished results with paint (not cut in yet) above.

So, what are the current renovations going on?

• New paint. 6 colors total, and this is just in the living room and loft. Colors chosen using my mom's quilt, which will soon hang in the living room, as a guide.
  
• Laminate hardwood flooring. The loft, stairs, hallway, dining room and kitchen will get this.


• Built-in desk. The loft will get a Kevin Mill's custom built-in desk that will go along two of the walls.


• New pellet stove. The old fireplace never worked well. The few times I tried to use it, it would leak smoke into the house. That will be fixed on November 3 when a new Avalon Newport Bay insert is installed.


• New TV system. And, I mean system. New flat panel TV and custom HD dual-tuner Linux box. More on this later...

Yes, the house is keeping my busy!

Goodbye Landline

After always living in a home with a landline telephone connection, I do no more. I maybe made a call once every other month. I did need it for the DSL connection, but now that I have FiOS, I no longer need it. So now, I don't have to pay $25 a month for the "privilege" of research companies and charities calling me five times a night.

I'm pretty sure everyone who reads my blog has my cell number. That's all I've given out for years. If you do call and get a "This number has been disconnected" message, send me an e-mail!

Power Tools!

Remember the mirror on the fireplace? Well, it's gone:

Wheeled It

Things got a bit tight at times...

This post is to answer Josh. Yes, it has been wheeled. While I couldn't of really said that prior to last weekend, I can now.
Cascade Cruisers (an Oregon based Toyota Land Cruiser group) put on an event last weekend and about 60 rigs showed up. The route was great and really showed how good the FJ is off road. I sure had some "pucker factor" at times when trees were just an inch off each side, but came out with no big-money damage. A bunch of pictures here.