Of Rides and Riding

So, the last trip with the last "stuff" from the west side of the mountains is done. I'm over the hill (literally and figuratively). The house has closed escrow - YAY. Given that I'm going to be making periodic trips to Eugene for work, and that my truck a) gets great mileage for a truck, but still..., and b) it has 221-ish thousand miles on it, I thought I would look for a car to take those trips in.

Last week, I had to drive over to Portland area to meet with the folks that I'm doing contract work for, and thought while I was there, maybe I'd look. I found a Saab and a Subaru that looked promising. Now, I have always wanted a Saab, as long as I can remember. This one seemed like a good one, and I checked to see that there was a Saab mechanic east of the cascades (in Bend - he also does Subaru's). I called my sister (known as the "rational twin") to see what I should do.  She recommended the Subaru, since Saabs, while fun, are expensive to fix. I talked to my friend, Sandi, and she suggested calling the mechanic - Brilliant! 

So, I did. The guy didn't know me from Adam, but spent about 15 minutes talking to me about the pro's and con's of both cars.  He than asked me what I wanted the car for, and it turned out that he was selling one of his cars (he had 3) in my price range. I didn't look at the cars in Portland. I went back home on Wednesday, after staying with Linda Lou in Portland (see below), and Thursday am went to see the car.

I was in LUUUUV. It's a 98 Subaru Legacy GT, all-wheel drive sedan. While the odometer shows 189+K miles on it, it had a used engine put in at 180K, and a new clutch disk at 177K. The mechanic that owned it has worked on the car for years, and has all of the records. Since it is a 5 speed, it is very sporty, and it handles really well. It's very short, compared to the truck, but it has a lot of room. The back seats fold down giving access to the truck.  So, here it is:

The stereo is also very cool!!

I stayed at LindaLou's in the Multnomah Village area of Portland. We went to an awesome Thai restaurant, but before we ate, we went to the Multnomah Art Center, where the Portland Handweaver's guild was having a show. There were some awesome pieces (see Fiber Voodoo post for more pictures); Linda had 2 pieces (nuno felted) and there were a number of really lovely pieces.

I really like the colors in the second one, and the first one is cool because of the texture the felting made in the silk scarf.  Go Linda!!

The last trip over involved picking up Annie and bringing her home. She's now ridable, and is so different from the little mare that I dropped off in June. Since my trailer lights weren't working, I dropped it off at the Trailer Vet before I headed up to Portland.  When I headed back down to get Annie, I forgot to pick it up - what a moron... It was ok, since it wasn't done, anyway. So, I continued down, and Jordan showed me the "routine", and then rode her a bit.

Then I got to ride her. I was thrilled. I don't mount from the ground anymore (haven't for years), so I got a 5 gal. bucket to step up from (she's only 14 hands). She gave it the hairy eyeball, and then had to turn around to look at it when I stepped up on it (so had to move her back into position). She stands to be mounted, and moves out well to voice commands. She stops without resistance. We only had one "incident" - we were coming around the arena towards the bucket, which we had gone inside of before, and I wanted to go outside of it, but didn't give the message early enough.  She was heading straight for it, and got very worried. Her reaction is to jump forward slightly, and continue more rapidly. This form of "spooking" sat me down into the saddle, where I can't fall.

It took about 3 strides to get her settled, then we continued on, came down to a walk, and then stopped and removed the bucket!!

She's adjusting to life on the east side, where it has been raining so it probably seems like home. One of Correy's pony's thinks she is just beautiful... She shares a fence line with the rams, and that doesn't seem to concern her (I haven't had sheep while I've had her).

She is going to be a very fun pony to work with.  I found a very nice harness, which will the next part of her education.  More on that as it progresses.

I guess I have two new rides!!