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Thunder on the Snake–Day 2
Submitted by Barron Barnett on Tue, 09/06/2011 - 20:29While laying fast asleep in my tent suddenly something jostles me awake demanding my undivided attention. I listen and all the sudden I hear what sounds like rain pouring down on the tent. I think to myself, “Interesting, there wasn’t any rain in the forecast.” Then as quickly as the downpour started it stops. Now I’m confused, wondering why a down pour would start and end so quickly out here. Then the downpour begins again and the realization sets in, that’s no downpour, that’s a sprinkler.
I dive out of bed and spend the next 15 minutes keeping the sprinkler from hitting the tent anymore and finally the sprinkler recedes. I won the battle, but I didn’t realize I was about to completely loose the war. A second set turned on, one of which came up between the rainfly and the tent. At this point I call it hopeless and tell the wife what’s going on. The solution is to pack up and head out. That’s exactly what we do. At 0200 we start packing up all of our equipment back into our rig.
Thunder on the Snake-Day 1
Submitted by Barron Barnett on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 20:19We camped out at the Clearwater Casino to make our commute to Hell’s Gate marina that much easier since we needed to be there at 0700. We rolled in, got our boat assignments and set about trying to find our boats. I got pictures when I could, but sadly I usually ended up busy during the most exciting parts so there weren’t any pictures done.
This was a failure on many levels. Some of the boats didn’t have their numbers up and finally in the end it was hop on any boat you can to get where you needed to go. I never ended up on my originally assigned boat and in hindsight that was a good thing. The boat I was assigned to didn’t have any EMTs on board, the one I ended up on did. So in the event of an emergency the EMTs would have had a communications line they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
We rolled up the river and got on station on the high side of Wild Goose. At about that time the race was actually starting. I set up the antenna and radio and about that time a sheriffs boat came over. Here’s why HAM radio will never die, he needed me to relay out messages for him.
Because You Can…
Submitted by Barron Barnett on Mon, 08/29/2011 - 19:21Many might ask the following question. Why would you ever strap a turbine jet engine to a boat to drive a jet pump? The answer is the most simple of all answers, because you can. There is a second part of this answer though. Because it’s awesome!
The wife and I volunteered to help the local ARES group do the communications for “Thunder on the Snake”. What the hell is that you ask? It is a 30 mile (one way) white water jet boat race. Until I got the email asking for help, I didn’t even know about the sport. Now I firmly believe NASCAR is for pussies. I apologize for some of the pictures not being the sharpest. My safety boat got on station as the race started. I had to spend time getting the radios operational and didn’t have a chance to even look at my camera before the first boat showed up. Didn’t have the lens I would have use and didn’t even have chance to glance at the camera settings before he was on top of us. Here’s the first boat, on the first leg, of the first day.
Getting Ready for Tomorrow
Submitted by Barron Barnett on Sat, 07/09/2011 - 12:32I’m finishing up the last of the prep work on the boat and am working on some MP3 playlists for the boat tomorrow while I cool off. Any recommendations of must have music for the water? I listen to just about anything but pop. Forecast for tomorrow is 90s, water temps approaching 80, it should be a blast, just need a good soundtrack for it. Drop your suggestions in the comments!
I picked up the tie’s for Joe for Mecca. My truck bed is currently full of creosote packed timber.
That’s going to be dropped off on my way to the lake. Hope everyone has an awesome weekend. Send me any ideas you have for music for the boat.
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