I know Denise wants me to hurry up and finish this story so I will try to do that in this post. However, I'm not making any promises that it will end here.
Let's see, it's January 2007 and Randy and I have just met formally in a park n ride at 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Apparently he knew who I was prior that but it's easier for men to sort out who the five women are in a class than it is for five women to sort out 50 men. Also, Randy has a young face. He kept getting carded at bars until he was 40 so I probably thought he was 25 when I first saw him and immediately filtered him out.
On the ride to Blewett Pass, where the ski trip was planned for that day, I got to know him better and most importantly learned he was only a few years younger than me, not 15 years younger. Well, that's okay then. And it turns out he's a beautiful skier. I would say his form is actually quite pretty and graceful when he's on a line about which he feels confident.
Lee hadn't exactly worked out the route so there was some headscratching and turning around here and there until we finally found the route. That was fine. I'm not that good of a skier and it gave me lots of time to not exhaust myself by falling a lot. Fortunately Lee and Mike aren't that great either so I was in good company and paired myself with Mike at the end of the ski. We pretty much stuck together as a group as we went up with Richard breaking trail much of the way. Richard is a fireman and is very fit. I think Randy broke trail for a while too because he's good at it. I stayed in the rear because I was recovering from a bad cold and was still coughing up a lot of gunk. Yuck. I try to be polite about it but generally I can hold my own on the uphill so stayed behind either Randy or Richard when I wasn't trying to cough up a lung.
Eventually we found the summit of Diamond Head and had a nice lunch break. After lunch Richard dug a pit so we could look at the snow layers on the steep (yikes!) slope we wanted to ski. It looked stable so Richard took the plunge and skied down while we watched. The snow stayed on the slope so Randy followed then Lee, Mike, and I sort of skied, sort of fell down the slope. Whee! We were going to make another lap with Richard and Randy in the lead. Lee and Mike were tired. I was enthusiastic but had gotten snow between my skins and skis so couldn't keep the skins on. I think Randy and Richard made it mostly back up to the top before turning around to ski down. I remember them both skiing down beautifully and wish I had a picture to share with you but I didn't have a digital camera back then. Sorry.
We took a different route out, a route that through the woods and a little tricky and slippery. I think I started falling a lot more and was getting tired. Lee and Mike were definitely tired. This is where Mike and I stuck together while Randy and Richard figured out the route back to the truck(s). At one point Mike and I took a wrong turn but figured it out when we saw the highway below us. Oops. We found our way back before anyone started worrying too much about what happened to us.
On the way back, I was still in the backseat between Mike and Jay because the trip leader always gets the seat of honor. I was happy rubbing shoulder with two warm bodies because by then I was cold from sweating and falling in the snow all afternoon. We stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Cle Elum. I went to the restroom to put on some dry clothes. When I returned the only empty seat was next to Randy. Not sure if it was by design or by accident but who cares?
By the time we got to the park n ride in Lynnwood, we as a group had talked about other ski trips, places we wanted to go, things we wanted to do. Nothing like a long vehicle ride to provide the right bonding atmosphere. Randy and I made a non-specific promise to keep in touch by email. We may even have exchanged phone numbers by then on the pretext of doing more skiing.
Obviously we kept in touch. I invited him to go to an REI to find equipment I needed for the remainder of the class. We thought about snow camping prior to one of the field days for classes but the conditions were less than ideal so we bunked at the cabin of someone he knew in the area. We did these little innocent things until he asked me out to dinner on Valentine's Day. Then his intentions were crystal clear, although anyone who might've been watching us knew where we were headed.
Since then we've been on lots and lots of trips, skiing, mountain biking, backpacking, hiking and so on. Many of them were in the Toyota, which was getting less and less comfortable as time went on. After all, the driver seat had form fitted itself to my butt, which is apparently crooked so that the right side sinks a little (oh dear, what does that say about my butt?). The back begins to hurt a bit after a long drive. Also, there's a vent on the floor of the passenger side that continually blows cold air at the feet. Plus Randy is very tall so hunching in a Toyota is not comfortable.
Then came the day that something was clearly wrong with the Toyota. By then I was replacing lots of little things. The brakes, spark plugs, all routine maintenance stuff. But something more wrong was happening and the diagnoses was the valves. This was in 2007 because I also had to have a tooth pulled, and what the heck why not drain my savings account right then. The valve job, which was quite extensive cost over $3000. Well, why not buy another vehicle? Buying another vehicle would've cost a lot more and I wasn't ready to part with the Toyota yet. Besides after that $3000-plus I'd practically have a new vehicle. Well, the motor anyway. The following year I replaced the shocks so that it didn't feel like I was sliding sideways over railroad tracks.
The Toyota had at least 160,000 miles on it at this point and was still our primary adventure vehicle since Randy replaced the Ford with a Scion, which was a nice car for daily commuting and getting to Seattle and for his mom to get in and out of. I wanted to wait until the Toyota was 20 years old (2014) or had over 200,000 miles on it before I replaced it. At the rate I drove, which was not much daily because generally I take the bus, getting to 200,000 miles would take a long tme.
In 2009 I bought a 2007 Chevy 1-ton, thinking it would be a good backup vehicle as the Toyota was getting a little more creaky but nothing was really wrong with it. But we bought a camper so the Chevy turned into an RV. Which was fine because generally I was just driving the Toyota to the bus stop and we'd use the Chevy on weekend trips.
But then just this year I needed to visit my grandmother in Spokane. I couldn't face taking Greyhound again even though I had done it for the last several years. I didn't want to drive the Chevy that far by myself. It's a crewcab and seems like a huge waste of space to drive alone. I was thinking of driving the Toyota although it's not comfortable for a 5-6 hour drive. Randy offered his Scion, for which I was visibly grateful. He had made plans to go mountain biking with one of his friends for the weekend so would take the Chevy and camper.
Except his plans got cancelled so he stayed home, with the Toyota in the driveway for his only practical means of transportation. Now the Toyota is no longer comfortable for me and is doubly uncomfortable for him so he stayed home all weekend, not wanting to venture out.
While I was spending all that quality time in his Scion to and from Spokane I thought about the few weekends we do spend apart. Sometimes he wants to ride his mountain bike on trails that scare me. Or ski lines that are too challenging for me. Sometimes I want go climbing, which scares him. Or go backpacking, which has little appeal. Or go cross country skiing, which he thinks is boring. And the thought of taking my Toyota to the mountains to do these kinds of things for either of us was starting to hold both of us back. If the choice was to stay home or take the Toyota, we'd stay home. Sad. Maybe even pathetic but the Toyota now has at least 180,000 miles on it. And a friend from work wanted to sell his 2005 Suburu Forester with only 33,000 miles on it for what I thought was a great deal.
So I bought it. And while having dinner with another couple with whom we are planning a week-long ski trip the subject of vehicles came up. Chris immediately said he'd buy my Toyota. I'd forgotten that on an earlier trip having mentioned it and that Chris said he might be interested. Ordinarily I avoid selling vehicles to friends. But I was honest about it and named a fair price for its condition. Now I know that Chris has a lower standard of comfort than I do because he's a duck hunter. Granted, I do lots of uncomfortable things but duck hunting sets the bar a whole lot lower in my opinion.
He didn't even want me to clean it out. I assumed he'd throw some dead animal in the back as soon as he had the chance. So a little more than a week ago, we made the deal. I drove it one last time and shared all I could remember about it. But like a comfortable, long-term relationship you forget all the inconvenient parts and adjust. I told Chris as much as I could but I've adjusted to that truck over the last 16 years so I'm sure he's finding out on his own the things I failed to disclose. For that I apologize. I am grateful that the Toyota is in good hands and will still go on adventures, Chris-style adventures.
I now have Suburu, which has been on one adventure with me — to Mt. Baker last weekend to ski. I know the first owner used it as a puttering around town car. The second, my friend, did a few things in it because I found his Forest Pass in the glovebox. We have many adventures ahead of us.