Methow River 05/10

Well this adventure started off with a lovely pain in the trailer! Friday afternoon I dropped the Blast Shelter on to the back of Bart and with in a few minutes I made the right turn out of my driveway headed towards the river for our annual Methow trip.
That's a when I looked back in my mirrors and realized I had no lights on the trailer. We pulled over, checked the plugs, cursed the wiring, and sized up the situation. Apparently the Blast Shelter's harness was just a wee bit too short for big Bart and I manged to not only pull the harness out of the plug but some where along the line the wires have also been severed as well. What a swell start.

After some messing around with the wiring in the parking lot for about an hour or so (time flies when you're having fun!) I decided to admit defeat and take the Blast Shelter home and thanks to Stacy we were able to grab her seriously sweet tent trailer for the weekend and only 3 short hours after leaving the house the first time we were finally on the road.

The camping at Alta Lake State Park was great as usual and the Sweet River Bakery in Pateros once again didn't disappoint with their legendary granola recipes, big -A! fresh cinnamon buns and lattes each morning on the way to the put-in
Oh yeah, and the rafting was pretty good too. The water levels were better than normal for the Methow and at significantly higher flows that we ran it at last spring. The rain & snow stayed away from us until we hit the road and were heading home.
So aside from now needing to rewire the Blast Shelter before next weekend's run all was good for this whitewater roadtrip.

Stats:
Methow, Class III (III+)
Miles Logged: 17 / 17
Flow Data: 6850cfs / 5950cfs

Meet B.A.R.T. -- "Big A** Rafting Truck"

This weekend there was no rafting on the books for me. Instead I made a last minute 1800 mile solo road trip to Reno to pick up our new/used truck. After selling the Avalanche I realized my need for another truck to handle all my gear while pulling the Blast Shelter over the knarly Cascade Mountain passes. So I went on the search for a full size (big enough to tow anything anywhere), 5-passenger (gotta' have a sweet shuttle vehicle), 4-wheel drive (won't let a little snow stop us), black (because it's gotta' match the Blast Shelter of course!) truck.

So I managed to round up a 2000 F250 Super Duty with all the options including the big-boy tow package, automatic transmission and the rocking a big-block V-10 engine. It had everything I was looking for (even the hand painted pin striping matched the Blast Shelter!) and since I knew who was selling it I got one hell of a deal. Some arrangements were made to get the truck and a couple days later a spontaneous road trip to Reno followed. After getting things taken care of with the truck I took my mommy out for a Mother's Day lunch followed by dinner and a beer with my dad then followed by many more beers with Philly and some old friends followed by a very long nap I was back on the road to Washington!

After I made the 812 mile drive back I fixed up a few items on the truck, did some preventative maintenance and adding a few custom touches it looks like I'm just about ready to drag the Blast Shelter all over the NW (or anywhere else for that matter) just as soon as the river levels start rising in the next couple weeks.


*I'll work on some better pics for those who care - or you can get your butt outdoors with me and meet BART for yourself