Brown’s Camp

Yesterday we went to Brown's Camp.

Alex spent Friday night with Grandma and Grandpa Kennedy, along with Madeline and Everett, and went up to the camp Saturday morning. Well, Saturday afternoon, actually. The brakes on their motor home locked up as they were pulling out of the driveway, so they had to replace pads and caliper. Then they got a flat tire on Hwy 26 near Jackson Road. They didn't get to Brown's Camp until about 4:00 Saturday afternoon.

Sunday, Tiffany and I went up to spend the day and pick Alex up. It's been a very rainy weekend, and yesterday was no different. In fact, Hwy 26 through Beaverton slowed to 20 mph at one point. There weren't too many cars on the road – it was just raining so hard you couldn't see the car in front of you.

As soon as we pulled into camp, Alex asked me to ride him to the big mud puddle. He was talking about a small quarry that fills up with water about a foot deep that we found last year, and that he loves riding through. The problem is that it's about a 10 mile ride down gravel roads to get there, so I promised him I would take him later. We told him that it wouldn't be full this time of year, but he wanted to go anyway.

We unloaded the quad, bundled up, put on our rain gear, and headed out with 5 quads. I was riding Alex, Shelly rode Madeline, Cody rode Everett; Uncle John rode alone. We rode some pretty easy trails – mostly the Kids loops and a little bit of gravel roads. Shelly was having trouble riding with Madeline; I believe Alex is now easier to ride than he used to be. After returning with the kids, we went back out without the kids. This time there were four of us – myself, along with Uncle John, Daryl Kindrick, and Cody. We rode Military trail up to the helipad, then rode Sidewinder for quite a way. The trails were in pretty good shape – just wet enough to get good traction, with not too much wet clay or too many big mud puddles. In fact, we were looking for some more difficult trails, but couldn't find any. Eventually, we lost Daryl – it ends up he intentionally took off on a side trail by himself. We met up with Quarry trail and rode it back to camp, where Daryl was already waiting with a big grin . . . he had beat us back, and was proud of it. (He beat us back because we stopped for 10 minutes waiting for him to come back, but we didn't tell him so!)

We got back about 4:00 – just in time for Shelly, Cody, Madeline, and Everett to leave for Shelly to go to work. We all warmed up and had a bite to eat, then headed out for Alex's big mud puddle. I rode Alex – Grandma and Grandpa Kennedy, Uncle John, and Aunt Robin all rode their own quads, for a total of 5 quads. The quarry is about 10 miles from camp down gravel roads – pretty boring riding. It was also pretty high up, so we got pretty cold. About half way there we had to stop to let Alex warm his hands. I had just put my new handlebar covers on my quad, so my hands were warm.

Ten miles is a long way on a quad – it takes over half an hour. As we came around the corner into the quarry and Alex saw that it was mostly dry, he yelled "WHAT!?!" He was not happy about riding that far and not getting to see the water. We let Alex play in the large gravel piles for a while, and then decided that we would continue down the road and try to loop back to camp – even though nobody quite knew the way.

About ten miles past the mud puddle we stopped for a minute and my quad died, and then didn't immediately start, as though the battery was dead. We were headed downhill, so I asked Alex to get off while I push started it. Once it started, I saw Alex was already riding with Grandpa Kennedy, and didn't want to get back on with me.

Another ten miles, and we were back at camp. This ride totaled about 30 miles, and took us 2 hours. We got back to camp at 7:00, and it was starting to get dark.

Alex ate a little, then I took him out again – just us two. Like me, Alex likes riding trails slowly, looking at scenery and animals; on the long gravel road ride I had promised him that I would take him on some more trails, even if it was dark. With the headlight on, we headed a little way up Quarry trail . . . right at the beginning we hit a root that I hadn't seen in the dark. We headed down a small road and saw a large deer; the doe just walked away from us and we followed it about 50 feet back for a little bit, then it jumped into the bushes. We pulled up next to the bushes where it went in and there it was . . . right next to the road . . . headed away, but looking back right at us. We could have almost reached out and touched it. After 10 seconds, it jumped again and was gone. We headed up the road 100 yards then turned around to coast back and see if we could find it again. We didn't find it, but Alex asked if we can eat deer. When I told him we can, he said that if we "accidentally" hit it, we could take it home and eat it.

We headed for the Kids loop trails and spent a few minutes there. It was getting awfully dark, and Alex decided he doesn't like the woods after dark, so we headed back for camp and loaded up the quad.

We left camp at 10:00; Alex wanted to read a book in the back of the van. Because the gravel road out to Highway 6 is dark, and even Highway 6 itself is dark and windy, with lots of deer, I told him that he could turn his light on to read once we got to Highway 26, although that is 45 minutes from camp, and he wouldn't make it that far without falling asleep. He said that he wasn't tired and he WOULD make it that far . . . he fell asleep 10 minutes from Highway 26.

Somewhere around North Plains, Tiffany and I started hearing a squeaking coming from the back of the car. It was soft at first then got louder. It had a very regular interval of about 5 seconds. We thought of several things it could be, but discounted most of them . . . it could be Alex snoring, but when we got him to turn his head the noise continued unchanged. It could be a bird in the back, but the timing of the squeaks was too regular for a bird. It could be a cricket, but it didn't sound quite like a cricket. I didn't think anything was wrong with the van, and it wasn't the trailer because the sound was coming from INSIDE the van.

Finally, certain that we would be shooing SOMETHING out of the van, we pulled over at a Jack In The Box in Hillsboro to find the sound. Before opening the door, I realized what the sound was . . . the rear window wiper was on intermittent, and it had stopped raining. The squeak was the wiper trying to clean the dry window every 5 seconds.

We continued on our way and pulled into our driveway about 11:30. Leaving most everything in the van, we zombie-walked Alex to his room (he doesn't remember getting home) and went to bed ourselves.