{"id":81411,"date":"2012-02-05T22:20:37","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T03:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/81411\/disasters-djoko-pass\/"},"modified":"2012-02-05T22:20:37","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T03:20:37","slug":"disasters-djoko-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/81411\/disasters-djoko-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"DISASTERS d’Joko, This too shall pass"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The weekend off.\u00a0 Beautiful, unseasonably warm winter weather.\u00a0 A full tank of gas.\u00a0 Where, oh where in the Evergreen State should I go on the next Tour d\u2019Joko?<\/font><\/p>\n

My last three trips had been to the east, hiking mountain trails (or trying to) in the Cascade Range.\u00a0 I wanted to see something different this time.\u00a0 Different terrain.\u00a0 Different subjects.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"\"As you can see by the map to the right, representing the comfortable driving distance from home (the yellow circle) for a Tour d\u2019Joko day trip (recent tours represented by the orange stars), the next trip should be to west.\u00a0 I was also thinking I wanted to see something cultural, something historic rather than just scenic.\u00a0 Out of the woods and off to historical places.<\/font><\/p>\n

I was hoping to find perhaps a restored Indian fishing village, or something of the like.\u00a0 There are several sites here on the coast where archaeologists have uncovered Native American sites hundreds, even thousands of years old.\u00a0 The ones I knew of were way over on the other side of the Olympic Peninsula.\u00a0 Driveable, but a bit of a stretch for a one day trip.<\/font><\/p>\n

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An island in the Puget Sound (one of almost 200) caught my eye.\u00a0 Indian Island. <\/strong> Aha!\u00a0 There should be relics of some sort there, right?\u00a0\u00a0 A quick check of the Washington Trails Association\u2019s website, indicated that yes, there is a nature hike on Indian Island.\u00a0 It\u2019s short, and you really can\u2019t go anywhere else from there on Indian Island as Indian Island is closed.\u00a0 Closed to the white man?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Closed to anyone.\u00a0 99% of Indian Island is a military installation.\u00a0 A munitions dump, if I remember correctly.\u00a0 No one allowed in.\u00a0 Damn.\u00a0 A whole island?!? What do the Indians think about this?
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\"\"No worries, as just adjacent to Indian Island is Marrowstone Island, sparsely populated, reachable by bridge and home to Fort Flagler State Park.\u00a0 Aha!\u00a0 I have a yearly pass that allows me unlimited access to state parks!\u00a0 The next destination had been found and off I went!<\/font><\/p>\n

The first difficulty I encountered was with my equipment.\u00a0 The flip-out screen on my video camera has finally given up is functionality.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bad connection wire.\u00a0 For months now, I\u2019ve had to angle the screen at just the right spot to get a picture, otherwise, it just would go black.\u00a0 Lately, I\u2019ve been unable to see the image of myself if I was pointing it at me (which explains some of the weird framing and zooms in recent videos).\u00a0 Now, basically I just have to point it at what I want to record, and guess.\u00a0 I just hope I\u2019m recording what I want to, because I can\u2019t see it.<\/font><\/p>\n

I also can\u2019t see if I\u2019m actually recording.\u00a0 There was a point in the video below where things turned for the worse.\u00a0 I had been marching along the old military installation of Fort Flagler, recording beautiful vistas, historic buildings and massive weaponry where I went back to the van to drive over to the other side of the fort.\u00a0 I started the truck and it immediately died.\u00a0 I started it again, there was a screeching noise and then the horrible sound of metal hitting the pavement beneath my engine.\u00a0 Something large and important had just fallen out of engine compartment.\u00a0 The engine was running but making a really bad continuous sound.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hopping out, I notice also a big puddle of coolant that had not been there before.\u00a0 Under the engine, I found a spring and a fist-sized wheel looking thing, obviously part of the belt assembly.\u00a0 I later learned this was my \u201ctensioner\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The truck was undriveable, and here I was in a state park, 100 hundred miles from home and maybe 20 miles from the nearest decent sized town.<\/font><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ll spare you the details of the three-hour wait for a tow truck, suffice to say that when they did arrive, the mechanic\u2019s shop my roadside assistance service found for me was awesome.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t get back to the\u00a0 their shop until after closing on a Saturday night, and they\u2019re closed on Sundays and Mondays.\u00a0 They were nice enough to give me a ride back to the ferry.<\/font><\/p>\n

I arrived at the ferry terminal just as the boat was pulling away from the dock.\u00a0 I had to wait an hour for the next one.<\/font><\/p>\n

Turns out my water pump failed, which lead to the tensioner snapping off.\u00a0 Not a huge repair, but significant enough.\u00a0 I won\u2019t be able to get my vehicle back until Wednesday, but they said to just let them know when I\u2019ll be arriving on the Peninsula, and they\u2019d pick me up for free at the ferry terminal again.<\/p>\n

The wait did give me plenty of time to record one of my favorite song\u2019s about the water\u2026 The Little River Band\u2019s Cool Change.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n


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(BTW, the music video above is uploaded in HDTV.\u00a0 To see it in high-def, click the YouTube icon in the corner, and then star-shaped button for resolution)<\/p>\n

To top it all off, I get off the ferry to find I had missed the last bus home by 15 minutes.<\/p>\n

Now, when I got home, 6 hours after my car broke down, to top THAT off, I fished around for my house keys and realized I left them attached to the car keys, in the ignition of the car.. 80 miles away.\u00a0 Damn.\u00a0 After failing in trying to break into my own house, I called the landlord\u2026 who graciously opened the door for me\u2026 an hour later.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be okay without a car for a few days; I have plenty of practice, right?\u00a0 I broke the bike out of the storage shed today and peddled down the road to go get a payday loan to pay for this car repair.\u00a0 To top all that other stuff off, halfway there, my bike got a flat tire.<\/p>\n

I pushed the bike into the service station and bought a can of fix-a-flat.\u00a0 How was I supposed to know that fix-a-flat isn\u2019t for bicycle tires?\u00a0 I ended up with white foam all over the bicycle and me as the stuff just exploded out of the punctured inner tube.<\/p>\n

The, to top off all that topping, I get to the payday loan place and\u2026\u00a0 they\u2019re closed.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Online, it specifically said they were open Sundays!! Even Super Sundays!!!!<\/p>\n

I push the bike over to the bus stop to go home and I had missed the bus\u2026 again by two minutes, and had to wait an hour for the next one.<\/p>\n

See, all the while today I was patting myself on the back on how well I had handled yesterday\u2019s obstacles.\u00a0 Yeah, it was a difficult situation, but I approached it with aplomb, patience and acceptance.\u00a0 Yeah, a new water pump with labor is going to run me $500, but it\u2019s only money.\u00a0 I can make more.\u00a0 Sure, I was stuck in another county along way from home, but the conversation I had with the mechanic on the way to the ferry terminal was fascinating.\u00a0 Awe talked about music, technology, life and eventually, politics.\u00a0 He was a Tea Party kind of guy, and as much as I wanted to vehemently defend the progressive POV, I had to hold back, knowing my baby was going to be in his hands.<\/p>\n

Why relate all these troubles in what has been almost a Job-like weekend of little disasters?\u00a0 Like I said, the money thing sucks, but it\u2019ll pass.\u00a0 This too shall pass.\u00a0 If anything, what upsets me is that the little monologue that I gave in the cab of the can whilst holding the unidentified metal pieces that had fallen out of my engine was NOT recorded because of my camera problems.\u00a0 That would have been one of the best Tour d\u2019Joko moments of all time (and I\u2019ve made a LOT of these travel vids).\u00a0\u00a0 Money, transportation, material things, these all come and go.\u00a0 The art of the video blog, that lasts forever.<\/p>\n

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The weekend off.\u00a0 Beautiful, unseasonably warm winter weather.\u00a0 A full tank of gas.\u00a0 Where, oh where in the Evergreen State should I go on the next Tour d\u2019Joko? My last three trips had been to the east, hiking mountain trails (or trying to) in the Cascade Range.\u00a0 I wanted to see something different this time.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,8,837],"tags":[81,398],"class_list":["post-81411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-music","category-nature-2","tag-joko","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}