Burning Man 2007

Another successful year at Burning Man. The trip down & back was thankfully uneventful this time around. Our geodesic dome was a success! We made lots of friends, saw some cool sites, and had a great time. Click Here: To see the gallery from the event.

From Outta Nowhere!

On the way back from Burningman we where hit by a drunk driver. Fortunately everyone walked away from the accident. It could have turned out so much worse. It happened on Friday evening (9/1) outside of Crescent Lake, OR on Hwy 58. We had been stopped at a traffic revision light (the two lane highway was closed down to one lane, and there was a traffic light at each end of the section regulating east/west bound traffic). We were stopped for about 2-3 minutes when out of no where we heard screeching tires. There was just enough time for Kirk and I to look at each other, and for Kirk to yell "what the hell?", then BAM!! We were pretty jarred for at first, as we asked ourselves if this had really happened. I checked myself for injuries, nothing but a sore neck from the whiplash movement. Then I was pissed… I jumped out of the car and stormed back to the rear of the truck/tent trailer to see who/what the hell hit us. I found a second gen Toyota pickup with it's front bumper deeply lodged into the back of my newly remodeled tent trailer. At the moment I was fuming, I just wanted to punch this jerk in the face and verbally rip him a new one. Somehow I managed to keep my cool and politely ask the driver (a late 20's/early 30's Hispanic man) if he was okay. He said that he was okay, and asked if we should pull the vehicles off to the shoulder of the road. I quickly surveyed the damaged to the trailer and blazer and they appeared to be in operational order, at least enough to backup and pull off the road. I asked the other driver for his information, and attempted to copy it down, but I was just too shook up and angered by the incident. I asked Kirk to take over, while I stormed off and had a smoke. Then the other guy has the nerve to ask me for the cigarette. "Come on! You just took the ass end of my trailer off, and now you want a smoke. Damn man!" I gave him a smoke anyhow. The trailer just looked horrid, back end smashed in about 3 ft. and the trailers rear bumper was smashed in and twisted up like an old thorn bush. I wasn't sure if this thing would even be towable. The life saving item I believe was that Justen and I had swapped out my old 1.25 in. tow receiver for a full size 2 in. This baby held like a tank. Nearly no damage to my rear-end, just a bent hitch insert. If I had left the small hitch on it would have busted for sure. Then only God knows what would have happened then. With a propane tank and large deep cell marine battery mounted on the front of the trailer, and by rear gas tank nestled behind the tow package, it would have had all the ingredients necessary for a good explosion. I've heard horror stories about this type of thing.

After we finished swapping information I decided to call 911 for a tow, as I didn't think I was going to be able to tow the trailer out of there. Good thing I had some cell service. I talked to the operator, and then a police dispatcher. Kirk managed to flag down a trucker and get the approx mile marker for our location. The dispatcher said they would send out a tow truck. Barely even a minute later a police officer pulls up with his lights on. I turned to Kirk and said "Damn that is some fast service". I talked briefly with the officer and explained the situation. He immediately took the other guy aside and asked him how much he had to drink tonight. The guy disputed that he had drank anything, but a second later the officer found an open beer in the truck's cup holder. "What's this?" He then administered a sobriety test, which the guy failed, and arrested him. Two more cop cars arrived and administered a breathalyser test, which I can only assume he also failed as he wasn't released from cuffs and his comfy looking rear patrol car seat.

While all that was going on I found that the trailer damage while enough to total the trailer, wasn't enough that it needed to be towed. I found a second tow hitch insert in my truck (I borrowed one from my neighbor, because I couldn't remove the ball from mine, so that I could turn over the 2 in. drop insert into a 2 in. rise insert). The tow truck that arrived to tow off the drunk drivers truck said that if installed that 2 in. drop hitch and was able to follow him 4 miles to his shop, he could swap it over for me. After the officer gave me a copy of the paperwork and headed out, I installed the 2 in. drop hitch. It was just enough to get us up the road to the tow shop. They quickly swapped over the hitch for me at no cost (which was greatly appreciated), however I gave them a $20 tip for the work. Kirk and I reinstalled it and we were off.

The rest of the ride to Eugene went quickly. Kirk and I were gitty from the shock of the event. It's like when you hit rock bottom and you have no where to go, you just don't care. Kirk mentioned that aliens could land right then and there and abduct us and he wouldn't think it was unusual. This was definitely the last crazy incident in an epic road trip adventure. It's been a little over a week now. I've been dealing with the aftermath of this accident almost everyday. I've had to coordinate with my insurance, the other guys insurance (I'm so thankful he actually has legitimate insurance), my medical insurance, etc. I have some neck and back pains as a result of the accident. My doctor recommended physical therapy, which I've been evaluated for. So for the next month at least I'll be going to physical therapy three times a week to ensure that my neck muscles heal properly. I did finally get an adjuster to come out and look at my truck, not a whole lot of damage, but I'm being adequately compensated for. I'm still working with them to get reimbursed for the damages to the trailer, for some reason they have to get some regional person to evaluate it. I'm also supposed to be compensated for pain/suffering once I finish my medical treatments. Hopefully this will all be taken care of and finalized soon, so everyone can put it behind them.

Buffington Family Reunion `06

I traveled up north for my family reunion this last weekend. It was a pretty good time. We camped at Belfair state park on Saturday night with my sister Brandi, her son Aiden, and my Mom. This made it a lot easier for us to get up early and stake out a section for our family's picnic on Sunday. On Sunday a decent sized group of my family showed up for the picnic, some had driven all the way from Great Falls, MT for the event. I had a chance to visit with my older relatives (aunts, uncles, great aunts, 2nd cousins, etc). There was also lots of good foods to eat! I was a bit disappointed that many of my cousins, who live local to the event, weren't able to make it. Seems this is a continuing occurrence. Making me think that this tradition might end someday down the road when it's left to our generation to organize it. I can remember a long time back attendance to the family reunion was enormous. There would be around 100 people there, all of which we share blood with. Softball games, potato sack races, water balloon toss', BINGO, raffles, and a myriad of other corny fun kid games were organized. It was a fun event to look forward to every year. Lately the event is a shriveled shadow of what it once was. Usually it's just the older folks that make the effort to come to the event, and their numbers are quickly diminishing due to the reality of mortality. This is pretty saddening to me, especially after seeing the dedication of folks attending Darci's family reunion. Her family travels hundreds of miles from all over the country to attend their annual family reunion campout over Labor Day weekend. Folks driving RV's up from Arizona, taking flights in from Texas, even using their military leave (from serving in IRAQ) to attend the event. For some it's the highlight of their year. They all camp out on a stretch of family property west of Eugene, OR. The field looks like a mini Woodstock some years. Everyone pitching in to cook for the group meals each day, coordinating to play a round of golf on one of the days, bringing their music instruments to entertain, etc. You can really feel the love they share. Especially when people leave on the last day. Whenever a family leaves, everyone else runs out to the far stretch of field by the road, lines up in a long line, and does a celebratory bow with arms out stretched (much like the "We're not Worthy" bow from Wayne's World). I feel it's important that we try to organized something like this for my family. The majority of the youngest cousins are now grown adults, and the older cousins are now married and having children of their own. It's really time to draw the family closer and ensure the events survival for the next generation. Since my father has been the one to take on organizing the event for so many years, it only seems fitting that I lend a hand and try to help. After all this isn't anything new to me, as I've had plenty of experience organizing our stubborn group of friends for parties and campouts. Next year I'm going to try to organize the family (primarily the younger folks) into dedicating the whole weekend to the reunion. Doing a group campout from Fri-Sun, ending the event with the reunion picnic Sunday afternoon. I think it would be a great experience. We can get the little kids together to play, while the rest of us share good conversation and really get to know each other better. 361 days until next year, sounds like I have plenty of time to get the ball rolling on this. Wish me luck!

Estacada Camping Trip

This last weekend we camped along the Clackamas river, approx 40 miles past Estacada. Justen left early in the day and scouted the many state/federal camp grounds as well as some free spots off hwy-224. We ended up with a really good spot. It was right off hwy-224, with the Clackamas river on one side and a small creek run off on the other. The creek made for a safe and fun play spot for the kids, easing my fears of them playing along the fast moving Clackamas. There was two established fire pits and many tent spots around the camp, and no one else for miles. The only down side was no toilet facilities, which was only really a minor complaint for the ladies and kids. While I don't prefer shitting in the woods, I'll gladly take that over the poorly maintained and highly used vault toilets. By the end of the trip all the kids conjured their fear of doing their business in the woods, and the complaints from the ladies became less frequent. This trip was the maiden voyage for our tent trailer which we recently acquired. We had to take it down empty as I haven't had the time to finish the interior paneling and new cabinets. I hadn't yet upgraded my s10 blazer's toy package from a class 2 receiver to a class 4, so I was a little worried about towing it. Especially since we did a rush packing job and the trailer weight was unbalanced. It took quite a bit of concentration to tow it out on the windy hwy-224 and I found myself going to hot into some of the suggested 25-35mph corners. But we made it safe and sound. On the return trip I took the time to equally distribute the trailer weight and it towed great. I was amazed at the difference. It was so nice to have the trailer on the trip, we slept in amazing comfort. One hurt irritation though occurred on the last day when we were packing up the trailer. One of the support rails that holds the slide out beds, pulled straight off the wall. I found that it was only hanging on by a few stables. How cheap is that? A structure that is made to support 300+ lbs is stabled to the wall? I'm constantly amazed at how cheap these campers are build, and they charge so much money for them. I'm actually glad this happened, since the camper is still bare I'm going to pull all the support rails off, reinforce the walls around them, and secure them properly with some lag bolts. This baby is going to be a tank when I'm done and will last for years to come. For this trip I also made a Ladder Golf setup. An amazingly simple horseshoe variant game, made out of $25 worth of hardware supplies & some old golf balls. I'd seen this game being played before at a couple different car camp grounds. I did a little research and decided to make myself a set. It was great success and a lot of fun to play, even though I think I only won one game the entire weekend. Thanks to Heath and Justen for your assistance and use of your shop tools! Overall it was a good trip. The weather report had stated mostly cloudy and chances of showers for the weekend. However it ended up dry, sunny, and hot all weekend. Although not hot enough to jump into the cold snow run-off river water. I only wish more of our friends were able to make it out to enjoy it all with us. Maybe next time, I know we are overdue for a large group trip to the Trask!