Year: 2021

Reverting to Form

A couple of weeks ago, at the end of the regular baseball season, I was pretty pessimistic about the Red Sox’s chance of making the playoffs. Well, they somehow managed to make it to the Wild Card game against the Yankees.

I figured they had no chance of advancing because of losing most past winner take all one game tries against the Yankees. Well, surprise, they won 6-2, advancing to the Division Series against the Tampa Bay Rays

I expected the FRS to lose to the Rays in the 5 game series, possibly in a sweep of the first three. They lost the first game 5-0, but the offense came alive in game two and they won by eight runs, 14-6. They also won the first game in Boston on a walk-off home run in the 13th inning. In game four they got a walk-off 9th inning sacrifice fly to win the series three games to one. Well, now they were on to League Championship series against the Houston Astros.

Now I’m starting think they got their mojo back. But, they lose game one. It was a close game and this is a seven game series, so it is not a big deal. In the second game the Red Sox hit a Grand Slam in the first two innings and coasted to a 9-5 win. Game three saw another Red Sox grand slam and by the 3rd inning they were up 9-0 and won the game going away 12-3.

Now I know they got their mojo back. Game four they they get two runs in the first inning to answer the Astros one. I tell my wife around inning 4, that the Red Sox are going to lose the game. The score stays 2-1 all the way until the eighth when the Astros tie the game 2-2. Any hopes I have of a walk-off win are dashed as the wheels come off and Houston scores 7 runs.

Well, Chris Sale, Mr. Pitching Ace is on the mound for game five maybe we can win this one. I said maybe because he hasn’t really been that sharp since coming back. He does pitch pretty well until the 5th inning when he gives up 3 more runs. By the end of the top of the inning the score is Astros 6 and the Red Sox don’t even have a hit yet.

After this loss, the series goes back to Houston. Unless they find a magic lamp with a genie in it or make a deal with the devil tomorrow, why bother getting on the plane. They have reverted back to pre-playoff level lassitude and will be coming right back to Boston on a plane after Friday’s Game Six.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

ALCS Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 18, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1959 Chevrolet
Corvette		 1988 Toyota
Land Cruiser		 1985 BMW
M635CSi
Old-School cool. Another Land Cruiser? Just beautiful.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 2012 Porsche Cayman R Sold for $90,500 on 10/19/21
Off-Road: 1982 Toyota Land Cruiser Sold for $43,500 on 10/15/21
Touring: 1941 Ford Pickup Sold for $39,500 on 10/14/21

Here We Go Again

Like our trip all over the state of South Carolina to capture an image of every Post Office in the state, we’ve decided to do the same thing in our new home state of Oregon.

The one for Oregon will differ in a few ways. 1) We are thinking that we aren’t going to chase every single one in the bigger towns, like for instance, Portland’s 2 dozen. 2) Every single one of them may not have the same automobile in the photos, the Miata might just be a Mini Cooper or maybe even a Jeep Wrangler. And 3) I’ve taken a state map and highlighted all the places there are Post Offices where we’ll put a pin in each spot we take a picture.

By my count there are 364 actual Post Offices in Oregon or around 90 fewer than in South Carolina, but that doesn’t make it any easier than the 454 in South Carolina because Oregon has 98,466 square miles, or roughly 3 times the area to SC’s 32,020. In South Carolina we could reach any corner of the state on a weekend jaunt. The furthest Post Office from Aiken was a mere 216 miles away from home, the furthest away here, Imnaha, is 300 miles more than that.

Also adding to the challenge here in Oregon is that dirty 6 letter word, Winter. Back in South Carolina we could drive practically year round, here there are going to be about 4 months where the weather will keep us home. On the flip side of that is in SC we were still working, so most of our trip were confined to weekends, but now we are retired, so if we wanted to we could take a month and just get a big bunch of the Post Offices. And if this COVID thing clears up we just might do several couple week trips next spring and summer.

Either way, we figure it is going to take us at least the next 4 years to finish the project. And because we actually started with some local P.O.’s last June it will take us 5 years total which is the same amount of time it took to finish South Carolina. You can keep abreast of our progress by checking in here on the blog and all the photos will be in the Oregon Post Office gallery.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Columbus Day Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 11, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2012 Porsche Cayman R 1982 Toyota Land Cruiser 1941 Ford Pickup
Fight me on this if you want, but this is the best car Porsche makes. Fit for traversing the African savanna or Savannah, Georgia. Needs a tonnaeu cover though, not a lot of space in the cab for luggage.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible L71 4-Speed Sold for $285,000 on 10/10/21
Off-Road: 1977 Jeep J-10 Pickup Honcho Package Sold for $25,000 on 10/9/21
Touring: 2005 Mercedes-Benz CL600 Sold for $35,000 on 10/6/21

10011100010000000 Miles

For our 101101th1 Anniversary we decided to throw caution to the wind and take a little 3-day mini trip to the Oregon Coast. We had a free night at a Holiday Inn so the first leg (80 miles) of the journey was just over the mountains to Medford where we spent Sunday Night. The second leg (215 miles) was to our next overnight stay in Gold Beach. The last leg (226 miles) was coming straight home. To make the drive a bit more interesting we opted to hunt out some Oregon Post Offices along the way.

Sunday instead of going straight to Medford we went an alternate route so we could start in Ashland and work our way north the short distance to Medford with stops in Talent, Phoenix, Jacksonville & Central Point.

Monday we headed north and west to get to the coast. The shortest way to our destination would have been to go south to Crescent City in California, but we were saving that for our return trip. I added all the Post Office addresses for the rest of our loop to the car GPS and because we abhor Interstate travel we selected “avoid highways” in the settings.

This worked out well for the first few Post Offices because they were close to OR99 which parallels I-5, but once we got to Merlin the GPS could not find a route to Wolf Creek, turns out from here the next 40 miles OR99 combines with I-5 because of the mountains. Donna looked at the map and realized there was a loop of 35 miles, instead of the direct 15 miles, that would get us to Wolf Creek with out using the Interstate.

Not being in a hurry, we headed west along a two lane road that ran along the Rogue River. It was very scenic and we passed several little county parks for the first 20 miles. Everything was fine until we crossed a bridge over the river to head east to our our next Post Office. The road got a little narrower, almost 1-1/2 lanes instead of two and clung to the side of a mountain on the left and a steep drop on the right with no guardrail. Our forward progress slowed considerably, hoping that some large truck wouldn’t be coming our way around the next corner.

A mile or so in, rounding a corner, we came upon another Miata coming our way. I don’t know who was more surprised, us or them, but we squeezed on by with a wave and kept on going.

A couple of miles later our 1-1/2 lanes dropped to a solid one lane. Now it was getting scary, but even when the road did widen back to a lane and a half there was still no way to turn around and go back. For the next 10 miles the width of the road varied back and forth and fortunately the only other car we came upon coming at us it was on one of those wider spots. What would taken maybe 20 minutes on I-5 turn into over an hour of white knuckle driving. After arriving in Wolf Creek we took off the “avoid highways” setting and we vowed to not do that again. We’d stay on back roads when they stayed close to civilization.

As we were getting closer to the coast and having already photographed 15 Post Offices, by mutual agreement, we opted to not do the last few on the way to the hotel and not any along the coast at all. This would be saved for a weeks vacation either next spring or fall where we’d get all the Post Offices along the entire Oregon coast.

Because I had the odometer to trip so I could see tenths of a mile as Donna called out mileage to my next turn, I didn’t notice that the CTBNL had gone past the 80,0002 mile mark.

About fifteen miles from the actual coast the cooler misty weather made us put the top back up and when we did get on US101 the fog/mist/clouds made actually seeing the beach impossible.

Tuesday morning in spite of the off and on light rain, we did walk down to the beach and take a fairly short out and back walk because, after all, we drove all this way to see the ocean.

On the trip home we did stop and get the remaining four Post Offices on US199 from the border back up to Grants pass. Bringing our total for the weekend of two dozen or about 6% of the total of around 375 Post Offices in the state of Oregon. All in all , even with the white knuckle side trip and cool misty weather, we had a pretty good time.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Back in Black Edition of SORT
As of Monday, October 4, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1967 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible L71 4-Speed 1977 Jeep J-10 Pickup Honcho Package 2005 Mercedes-Benz CL600
Just phoning this one in as I’m on the road and don’t have a lot
of time to do this after driving around Oregon most of the day.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1973 Porsche 914 Sold for $12,000 on 10/4/21
Off-Road: 1967 VW Type 2 Sold for $61,000 on 10/3/21
Touring: 1965 Porsche 911 Sold for $168,000 on 10/4/21

Putting the F in FRS

After last year’s miserable showing of 24-36 and last place in the division during the COVID shortened season, the outlook for 2021 was just hoping for a mid-pack finish in the division. But something wonderous happened, the Red Sox were playing great baseball. At the All-Star break they had the third best record (55-36) in all of baseball and were leading the division by a game and a half over Tampa Bay. The Yankees and Blue Jays were 8 games back. They had 5 players make the All-Star team.

Something changed in the second half of the season, the All-Stars stopped playing like they were and the stellar pitching cooled way off. Since the break the FRS has reverted to playing like it was anticipated they would – mediocre. They are playing exactly .500 ball with 36 wins and 36 loses. Unfortunately every one else in the division started playing great. A month after the All-Star break Tampa was in first by 3 games. By the end of August the Rays were ahead of the Red Sox 9 games and the Yankees had past them too.

We are heading into the last three games of the 2021 baseball season. And the Sox are hanging on for dear life to the second Wild Card spot. The last three games are against the Washington Nationals who are the fifth worse team in baseball having won only 65 games and losing 94. But winning all three of these games is not assured as they just finished a 3 game set against the Baltimore Orioles who are 52-107 and the Sox lost 2 of those. The way they are playing they don’t deserve to be in the playoffs.

The F in FRS stands in for an expletive, but in this case, because I expect them to choke, I think it really stands for something our previous President reserved for the New York Times (among others) – Failing.