Friday morning we finished loading our RV for the long drive to Smelterville, which is just outside of Kellogg Idaho, to compete in the Eddy Brown Memorial steel pistol match.
We arrived late in the afternoon, drove out to the range to check it out, then came back to camp out beside the river for the night.

I whipped up a quick meal of bacon, hash browns and eggs for our supper which we ate while watching the river. It was so relaxing to just sit and watch the water flow by, especially for Mr C after such a long drive.

The water was so calm you could see the far bank, and trees mirrored on the surface of the water.

A couple of guys drifted on by, one rowing the boat while the other was fly fishing.

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Early next morning, we drove out to the range and on our way in, we passed by the old zinc smelter facility. The range is located further up the valley from this facility and we were told that many inches of the contaminated topsoil had been removed and replaced with clean soil.

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The day was a little cool at 7am but soon warmed up.

The 'Friends of the NRA' set up, as a fundraiser, breakfast and lunch in the building. They had all kinds of breakfast rolls, they cooked hamburgers and hotdogs on a BBQ and had coffee, soda and water.

The hills on either side of the range rose straight up, and as the day wore on and the sun beat down, it became very uncomfortable in the trapped heat.

Thank goodness we had some shelter from the burning sun, but there wasn't all that much relief from the heat. I wet a large men's handkerchief with water, and tied it around my neck, and that helped cool me down a little.

The long drive to get there, the heat and pesky flies at the range, were all worth it, as I came home with this award for placing second. Mr C placed first, and another person in our squad placed third in .22 rimfire. Two other members of our squad also went home with awards for winning in other classes.

Our worst fears realized

I am still being a wimp, the tooth I had pulled on Monday is now a dry socket. The stench is awful, the pain being controlled by over the counter medications, and the worst part, the infection is in my right sinus. This morning I went back to my dentist and had more medication applied to the socket, a medicated wad inserted and sent home with anti-biotics. I stopped at the drugstore on my way home and bought a neti pot to flush out the sinus. I have to take very good care of myself or there could be serious consequences due to the infection of the sinus.
I am glad my two clients canceled for today, so I can stay at home and rest.

Groan!! I am not usually a wimp but....

I am wimping out to day.
A week ago, I went to my dentist to have him take a look at a crowned tooth, I thought had decay right at the gum line. Sure enough, there was decay so the crown had to be removed. This crown had been put on by another dentist many years ago so Dr Bob did not know what he was up against. It was not an easy job to remove the crown. After much work with what felt like a hammer and chisel, the crown finally broke free. Dr Bob showed me why the crown was so firmly fixed in place, it had a post down the center and a whole lot of glue. I was sent home with instructions on how to take care of the uncrowned tooth, actually just a little of the root was left sticking out from the gum line, and given an appointment to be back in a weeks time (yesterday) to see what we had.
Dr Bob took a look and said the decay had eaten away a good portion of one side, there was not enough left to be able to work with to reinstall the crown, so the rest of what was left of the tooth had to be removed.
Having a tooth pulled was not something I was looking forward to, but knew it had to be done. After deadening the area Dr Bob got to work. He worked and worked on getting that root out, I thought he was going to have to put his knee on my cheek to get leverage to pull that stubborn tooth. At one point he asked if it I was OK I signaled that I was not, what can you do but signal when you have a mouth full of Doctors fingers and dentistry tools, Dr Bob injected more of the good stuff to deaden the area some more and went back to work.
The root finally came loose and Dr Bob showed me why it was such a hard one to remove. Instead of the usual pointed root, it had a rounded end, what he called a ball. Well that was all over, so I thought, but evidently there was not as much blood flowing to form a clot as Dr Bob would like ( you need a blood clot to help in the healing process, other wise you could end up with a dry socket, which means more problems) Dr Bob had to traumatise the area around the empty socket to induce more blood to flow, there still wasn't a whole lot, so he placed a wad of gauze in the gap and sent me home. We were hoping the wad of gauze would hold any clot forming blood in place.
As the effects of the shots wore off I started taking an over the counter pain killer and went to rest on my bed. I was feeling quite traumatized by now and my mouth was hurting. I managed to get some sleep, but this morning my injury site is very, very sore so I will have to keep on pain killers for a while yet.
Dr Bob and I discussed putting in an implant but I looked in the mirror this morning and the gap is far enough back to where you can't even see it when I smile, so I am opting for letting it all heal up and not going through any more traumatic surgery just to have a tooth there.
Now all I have to do today is get through a two hour shift on my job, then I can come home and relax. Dang! I don't ever remember ever having been laid so low after any previous dentistry.

I love my new camera.

I am getting better at using many of the features on the Kodak Easyshare max Z990 I recently purchsed. I think this photo shows this.

There and back in a flash

This post is all about a road trip we took showing some of the contrasting landscape we drove through, and it is done so my family and friends in New Zealand, can see just how different the territory is between Western and Eastern Washington.
Friday late afternoon, we left Whidbey Island for the long drive to Moxee which is just the other side of Yakima WA, to compete in a pistol match on Saturday.

We arrived at the range close to 8pm after stopping and enjoying a dinner at Big Red's 50's style diner. We parked our RV and settled in for a quiet night before Saturday's pistol match.

From where we park the RV there is a spectacular view out across the countryside, and the sunsets are more than spectacular.

As day slipped into night, we could see lights from the community in the distance light up, twinkling softly against the shadowed mountains far behind.

Ty timing Mr C

Saturday dawned bright and sunny and we knew we were in for a scorcher of a day. We left Whidbey Island in the upper 60'sF and they were forecasting the upper 80'sF for Moxee. I was less than happy with that news as I do not do well in the heat. You can see the high berms surrounding this bay, and I can tell you, if there is no breeze, you feel that you are being slowly baked in an oven.

Sure enough, it was hot, hot, hot. I found an old, past it's best umbrella in the RV, which gave me some much needed shade, as I wrote down the times for the guys on our squad. When it came time for me to shoot, I made haste and got it over and done with as quickly as possible, so I could get back in my shady spot. Fortunately it was only a five stage match and we were done shooting by about two pm, and back on the road for home. But, we did stop on our way out of town at Dairy Queen for a large Blizzard. Yummy! and just the thing to cool us down.

From where our RV was parked looking back up towards the first bay.

A view out across miles and miles farmland and orchards to the mountains in the far distance. If it were not for irrigation, this vast land would still be a dry, sagebrush covered desert.

With Yakima behind us, we had miles of driving through hot dry sagebrush covered terrain, climbing a couple of very steep passes before dropping over the other side into greener farmlands.

I have always loved this view of miles of rolling farmland, with the spectacular mountains in the distance.

Such a lovely view, and I really prefer green to brown *grin*

I was in awe of the wind turbines my brother took me to see when I was back in New Zealand a few years ago, especially when I stood at the base of one, and now here we have them in Washington, harnessing the power of the wind.

There is a lot of construction going on, on Snoqualmie Pass, in fact, quite often there is a report on the TV that the road will be closed for an hour or so, so the workers can get some blasting done. They are removing thousands of tons of rock to widen the highway to three or perhaps four lanes.

We certainly have beautiful scenery in Washington State and when driving Snoqualmie pass you will be in awe. Of couse if you live here, after a while you are inclined to take it for granted, but I can imagine how visitors would view these majestic mountains.

How can you not be in awe at such beauty?

Back to reality, driving the freeway.

Mr C had a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel, of our non power steering RV, as we went through Bellevue. For a change the traffic was a little lighter, but still no fun to drive with some of the idiots on the road.

What a welcome sight, there is Whidbey Island across Puget sound, and the Mukilteo ferry dock just down the hill. We were lucky that there wasn't more traffic waiting to get to the island. When we left on Friday and drove up this road, the vehicles were backed up in the ferry lane, for miles. There would have been a two hour plus wait for their turn to board the ferry for the crossing.

There she is, the Cathlamet and we will board her in just under an hour.

At last, we are driving the dock to take our place on the ferry.

There are two, actually three decks on this ferry, if you count the passenger deck up above. On the left and right, there are upper and lower decks, with two lanes a piece, then in the center, are three lanes. This is where all the larger vehicles are parked, semi trucks, RV's etc. then smaller vehicles take up the remaining space. It is only about a 20 minute crossing to Clinton, Whidbey Island, then just a 15 minute drive from the ferry dock to our home.

So family and friends, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed going on this mini, ummm! vacation with us. *grin*
Oh! by the way, in the pistol match, I finished 4th out of 8, in my class.