A Little Work, a Little Play

Since we are staying here two weeks Bud wanted to try and get the bed of the truck fixed where the miss-installed shock absorbers damaged it. We were going to look for a welder to mend the hole, or perhaps just use a steel epoxy, since the hole was small. But when Bud talked to the folks who sell and install Line-X bed liners, they said to bring it in before he did anything. So Monday, we ditched our trip to a disc golf course and drove to Spokane. We found out they could repair the small hole and pound out the other dent when they put in the liner. So Bud called Red Desert Off Road back. He didn’t know these folks in Spokane and said he’d get back to us. He had hoped we could take the truck to someone in his network, but the nearest place was about 5 hours away.

So Tuesday, while Dennis from Red Desert checked into how to handle things, we drove to Sandpoint, Idaho to play disc golf at Baldfoot. The course is run by volunteers, there was a requested $1 donation per player to play, but we didn’t see a box for the money. Turns out there’s a slot in the grey post of their rubbery basket statue; we happily put our money in it.

They have put a lot of work into this course. It’s 18 holes through the woods, about two miles of walking. There are concrete tee pads, good signs and well constructed paths. It was pretty challenging for a couple of oldsters, there were a lot of ups and downs, especially if your disc went astray. Matey got to run loose practically the whole time and we didn’t lose any discs.

Wednesday Dennis called and said he’d set things up with the shop in Spokane, they should be calling Bud. They did and Bud took the truck in yesterday. The bed looks like new (aside from the dusty footprints). The shop in Spokane billed Red Desert Off Road directly. Any business can make a mistake, a good business steps up and fixes it with as little pain to the customer as possible. Thank you Dennis and Red Desert Off Road!

Matey and I stayed home. I did the wash, almost as much fun as sitting in the shop waiting for the work. We did a long walk in the morning; on our short evening walk we saw this sky.

Today we went to play disc golf again. We did a lot of driving, and not much playing. We went to an 18 hole course in Deer Park, Washington. The reviews said it needed to be mowed. It did! We played holes 1 – 7 and our shoes and socks and all of Matey were covered with sticky weed seeds. We played holes 14, 15 and 18 just to get back to the truck, then spent about 45 minutes getting the seeds off. I’ve tackled Matey three times and he’s almost clean. Then we drove up to Chewelah, WA to another course. On the way it rained hard enough to use the wipers, first we’ve seen that in a long time! It was still drizzling when we got to this short course and a man was mowing the front of it, the rest of the course was as tall as the last one, so we decided to just drive home. Home was over a ridge of mountains, so it was a nice drive. This is looking down on the Pend Oreille River from the east side of the ridge about 10 miles from here. An adventure gone astray is still an adventure.