Sunday Musings......ROAD TRIP! OREGON! Saint Helens! Portland! Train Tunnel!

Today the Kidlets sang and spoke in their Primary Program at church.  Matthew about blasted the congregation out because he put the microphone in his mouth to speak (or it sounded like it) and Rachel was the loudest singer in the congregation just singing at the top of her lungs - it was cute.

So anyways, after a very personal spiritual experience today that made me think of my standing before God and really left me speechless - I decided to gather what I could together and take the kids down to the river to go throw rocks and dig and go metal detecting. 

I'm not sure that metal detecting is an appropriate Sabbath activity, but then I'm not Puritan so, for now it gives me time to think. 

Anyways, I found that metal detecting on a rocky beach is pretty much impossible given the tools that I have.  I have a small hand rake, two hand spades, my sifter and even a half-shovel - but for someplace rocky I'd actually need a probe.

But meanwhile I did get to look cool showing my kids how to skip rocks and how to skip three and four at a time and such. 

I did get to drool a bit as a Sherrif's Patrol Boat went by a couple times as we sat on the shore of the Willamette (Wih-LAM-et).  I spent a LOT of time on fast boats in the Navy.  So anyways, when I finish my Ph.D. I get a North Shore or Alumaweld Jet Boat.  It was a nice piece of equipment, though from the way it was moving I could tell it didn't have any special modifications to it.  Our boat in the navy had a nice .50 Cal on the front of it.   Actually, to go back to memories, have you ever seen translucence at sea on a pitch black night?  Where the algae emits light when you touch it?  You swirl your fingers through the water and it leaves glowing trails in the water that fade away quickly.  Under the boats at night the light was so bright at night it looks like you have a light system running under the boat - it's that bright.  I could read by it if I leaned over the side on a pitch black night and could keep from bouncing overboard and my book from getting wet.

Actual Light at the End of the Tunnel (1/2

 mile)

Sand Island Marina

Sellwood Bridge at Dusk

Sellwood Bridge

My helper

Willamette at Dusk

Anyways, yesterday, Rachel and I went out for a while and explored a tunnel on a railroad track that I've always wanted to look at that runs near Cornelius Pass.  It's kinda creepy going in - honestly though - I'm still paranoid from the military that I do pack everywhere I go.  So I walk into this tunnel in the middle of a forest and there's gang-banger graffiti on the walls all the way in until it gets dark and they can't see anymore to graffiti (wusses) and I find myself listening and watching and tensing up like I'm clearing a building or something again.....I just marvel that I can be on such high alert all the fricking time.  I swear I'll be dead by forty due to heart strain.  I even saw a man pull his wallet out the other day at the fall festival through a crowd and I honed in on it was assessing to prepare to draw because it looked like he was pulling a gun at the angle he was holding it.   I'm only glad I'm not like some veterans who do lose it and don't take the time to assess.  I'm also grateful that my assignment required perfection in the execution of my duties because my assignments were high profile and required me to make sure of everything before I act - never mind I can feel fuses blowing at times trying to hold it together when people get "up on me" like the not-so-nice gentleman at the WinCo yesterday who was in a hurry because it was half-time which makes him the most important person in the world automatically and entitles him to ride my rear like some gay guy trying to hit on me in a bar with body language and let me know how special I am while he goes after the cashier and harps on old people for being too slow.  Anyways, I didn't go too far through the tunnel because tunnels are damp and the ties had mud coming up in between them and with Rachel coming with me it was getting to where I was worried she would slip in something and we'd have a train come along and not be able to get out of the way in time or see to get out of the way (That'd be my luck)

Then we made it out to Saint Helens and went to a small park long enough to do some metal detecting on the river.  It was a small beach -I just covered the sandy area and found a dime and saw some nice boats there.

Rachel's first find

I'm so desperate for a boat I might actually just for the heck of it buy a raft - something I can go paddle around in the off-season and go out to some of these islands. Of course then I'll need a life preserver for the kidlets and if I take my minelab something waterproof and floatable to keep it in because I'm not about to just ditch a thousand plus dollars piece of equpment into the drink due to something idiotic happening.

Anyways, here's a picture of Rachel - I'd given up digging something and she continued on and found a pipe!  Her first find!  The Minelab does good but I think it could use a software upgrade because the places I search have so much debris and trash it's hard to sort through it all - though it does way better than my Garrett Metal Detector.  Whatever it is - it is cool to find things - although after two wedding rings and a lot of money I'm kind of spoiled. All I want is more!  That's all.  Is that too much to ask?

You'll have to forgive the formatting of the google blog - not sure what's up with it but - well it is what it is.  Simply because it is.