Well, as usual , things haven’t worked out according to plans.

I was supposed to drive down here to the coast of Southwest Washington and go Salmon fishing with my brother and my cousin like last year.

I didn’t even get all the way out of town after work and taking care of some last minute shit before that went all to hell.

I had stopped and gotten a fishing license then swung by the house to unload some crap out of the truck, then reload some other crap, before taking a shower and heading out.

Then right at the last minute I remembered that the drivers side headlight in the truck was pointing right at the ground because the adjuster was messed up so I swung into my local parts house to snag one and put it in.

Normally a twenty minute task.

Oh hell no.

How about an hour and a half?

It turned into a shit show but I finally got it in, eyeballed the adjustment and hit the road.

Less than five minutes later I call my brother to let him know I was finally on the road when he tells me that his health has taken a turn for the worse and on top of that, the wind was supposed to start blowing hard down on the coast and my cousin had trepidations about going out and everyone plus the new boat taking a vicious beating trying to fish through a bunch of wind and white caps.

So my fishing trip pretty much got cancelled before I got out of the city limits.

I damn near turned around and went back home but I actually have some other business to take care of down here do off I went.

It turns out I guessed pretty damn close on the headlight aiming after it got dark on my way here so that was nice.

I finally pulled in here about nine thirty last night and I was absolutely beat from the hell week at work all week plus fighting that headlight adjuster then driving two and a half hours to get here.

i stayed up a couple of hours visiting my brother and went to bed after eleven.

You would think that being so tired that I would fall down and nod right off which I did for a little while but I wound up getting woke up six times last night with my left leg just freaking killing me.

The muscle right next to the shin bone where you get shin splints just went ape shit cramping and just plain hurting to the point it kept waking me up out of a dead sleep and no amount of pain pills was touching it.

I know damn good and well that it was after four this morning before I finally got enough relief to sleep.

I wound up grabbing the heel on that foot with one hand, grabbing the toes with the other hand and cranking my foot down with all my strength to stretch that fucking muscle out enough for it to quit cramping.

Miserable shit I’m telling ya

I woke up at seven, went back to sleep and finally got up

My brother had been up long enough to make some coffee so I snagged a cup and stepped out on the porch to have a smoke with it and get woke up.

My truck was parked about six feet away from the porch steps and I just happened to look over and see that the right front tire was almost completely flat.

Sweet.

There isn’t Fuck All around here for repair or tire shops but there is a gas station about a mile down the road.

My brother dug around in the little shed behindu Aunt’s place and found some tiny and very ancient air compressor that worked just enough to get the tire kinds round on the bottom and that was enough to get me to the gas station down the road.

While I was there, I Googled around for the nearest tire shop.

Forty five minutes away on the other side of Astoria and we are five miles North of Long Beach.

So I called them up and asked if they could get to it and they said come on in.

This was a Les Schwab tire store and the only damn thing within fifty miles even open.

So I took off and sure as shit almost forty five minutes exactly, pulled into their parking lot.

Afte a few questions they got it right in and got on it.

Les Schwab has an excellent reputation for taking care of the tires they sell but the ones on the truck are Firestone tires which they don’t sell.

Trust me when I say, being over a hundred miles from home, they being the one and only joint open, I was way beyond caring what it was going to cost.

Amazingly enough, the young fella comes out about fifteen minutes after they pulled it in and starts to hand me the keys!

Whut?

He says that they found the valve stem leaking and put a new one in, No Charge,!!

I was flabbergasted.

Then I asked him if they had checked the pressure in all the rest of them plus the spare like I had asked them to do and he said no but I’ll be right back.

A couple minutes later here he comes, tells me they are all at sixty pounds and hands me the keys.

While he was gone I dug in my pockets and in my wallet and had come up with ten dollars in cash and handed it to him.

I told him thank you very much, I really appreciated them getting it right in and then not even changing me for the fic.

Put the money in your pocket and maybe it’s enough to buy a cheeseburger.

While I had been waiting, I Googled to see if there was a local Harbor Freight in the area and bigger than shit there was one just five minutes down the road from there.

Off I went and was expressly there to get one of those battery jumper/ air compressor/ work light and phone charger thingies.

I picked up one of those and some wrenches, screwdrivers, duct tape,rags, and a few other things to throw in the truck just in case this kind of shit happens again when there’s no place around to get things taken care of.

As in like tomorrow.

A Sunday when there isn’t a damn thing open, anywhere.After I got out of Harbor Freight, I noticed that I had burned a half a tank of gas since yesterday with all the running around so I went back into Astoria to fill up.

Believe it or not, has was eighteen cents a gallon cheaper there than it was in Vancouver and almost ninety cents a gallon cheaper than the station I went to up the road to air my tire up at.

Crazy.I snagged a cup of coffee while I was there and then started to go back through Astoria to get on the four mile long bridge to come back into Washington state.

me being me, I got within a half mile of the bridge and spot a Used Tool/ Second Hand store and had to stop in.

Amazingly enough, instead of having a Complete Runaway in the place which I could have very easily done, I restrained my self and only picked up a used five gallon Jerry Can im decent condition plus a vintage ten inch Diamond brand crescent wrench, a rusty old pair of Lineman’s pliers and a very cool and small vintage Y style gear puller body and screw. No jaws but the whole bunch of it only cost me fifteen bucks.

Like I said, remarkable restraint.

Then after I drove almost all the way back to where we are staying I saw a sign that said Beach Access.

Besides bring famous for the annual Hot Rod gathering that they put on every Summer, Long Beach Washington is also famous for having a beach that you can supposedly drive on.

As a last second decision, I pulled off the highway and drove down to the beach.

No joke , I see trucks and even newer SUV’s

oit on the beach so I went and pulled off the gravel into the sand and my truck instantly sunk into the sand and stopped.

Oh here we fucking go I thought to myself.

I’m fucking stuck in the sand and I can literally open the door and step out onto the gravel road I just pulled off of.

D’oh!!

Instead of panicking, I put the thing in neutral and shifted into Four Wheel Low.

Since it has automatic hubs, I didn’t even have to get out of the truck.

I put it into reverse and very gently eased into the gas.

Damned if it didn’t just back right out.

OK, now I’m feeling emboldened so into neutral again, into Four Wheel High and off I go.

That sand was some weird stuff. I literally had to keep my foot clear to the floor to keep going at MAYBE twenty miles an hour, just to keep forward momentum. I was all over the place doing it too.

After about a half mile I stopped and got out to take a picture of my truck on the beach just for the memory.

Since I was having to keep it floored to stay moving the engine was working really hard and I noticed the temperature starting to climb. The clutch fan kicked in and kept it from overheating but I couldn’t see any point in abusing the thing just for entertainment purposes.

It is my daily driver after all.

So after about a mile of beating on it I made a very long turn to come back and finally made it back to the gravel access road and drove on back here.

I still have someone to get ahold of here in a minute and then I am going to see about going out and having some Chinese food for dinner.

y little brother is still feeling like shit so he is going to pass on that. So there’s what I have been up to while CederQ has been running amok.

Sometimes you just gotta watch and wait…