…tonight on ESPN
CritterCon 2025 (#18)
Trip Day One
In which we hit the road, stop at a not so Giant Jesus, slide around on our butts at high speed, see the earliest beginnings of two humongous toilet paper rolls, and eat a wide variety of potato dishes.
I was bleary eyed and wobbly when my bladder demanded that I wake up at 3:00 am, so my day has started an hour early. After tending to my morning needs and showering, I received an energizing mug of tea and a plate of bisuits and gravy from Jeeves. Thus fortified, I was ready to climb behind the wheel and get The Bus moving on our way by 4:30 am.
Now, I do not actually have to drive The Bus, because she can drive herself, or, if she’s busy, let out auto-driver, Data, do it. But I like driving on long trips, so I do it.
Since we would be driving through California for a few hours, I stayed in 2025. To be honest, driving north (or even south) Interstate 5 through my beloved home state is pretty boring, so I mostly listened to podcasts until we reached, not for the first time over the years, the town of Weed. From there, we turned off I-5 and headed for Klamath Falls, Oregon.
About halfway to our first destination, I moved us to 1964 because it was nearing 9:00 and our crew was eating breakfast. We got to Klamath Falls about 10:00 and headed to the east side of town and the First Church Of Our Lord Jesus Christ, where we unloaded to check out a Giant Jesus.
So, first off, it was a very nice representation of JC. Carved from several pieces of wood, as Pastor Walter Hopkins informed us, then assembled there in front of the church three years ago. He was very proud of it and asked us if we’d be staying overnight for Sunday services. I, in my guise as Reverend R.T. Crossman, told him no, since we had souls to save over in Idaho. He thanked us for coming, we took pix, then got on Sweetie and left.
As Giant Jesus statues go, this one was not so giant at a mere 15 feet tall. Still, it looked good and we can’t go see it in 2025, since the statue and the church burned up in a fire back in 1970.
On the D. Cross Giant Statue Rating Scale, this one rated as follows.
Size: 1 Barely giant at all.
Climbability: 0
Appearance: 9 Very lifelike looking and exceptionally well maintained.
Pose: 10 Realistic looking and in a really “Jesusy” looking pose.
Religiosity: 8 Hard to judge, since most of us aren’t religious, but the Pastor seemed to dig it.
Since our next stop was about 2 hours away, we all made our way to the Slide Room for the “First Annual Sliding On Your Butt Grand Prix.” With 17 in our crew, we felt we needed an 18th racer, for a nice round number. Enter Miss Daisy Jane Dawn Hudson-Jeeves, age 3 years 1 month. Daisy Jane is totally fearless and may well be inhabited by the spirit of Amelia Earhart or Sally Ride, given her love of going fast.
The race was 6 laps, with an average estimated lap time of 9 minutes. This proved to be way too conservative.
We started in 16 individual lanes, which within 100 yards would merge into 4 wide lanes. There would be curves, banked curves, straightaways, hills, overpasses, tunnels, and a double loop de loop. The track covered the floor, walls, and ceiling of the Slide Room. We would pass through light woods and flowery fields, all while sitting on soft pillows.
The starting horn blasted and we were off.
Friends, please be aware that small children live to make older folks look like “big dummyheads”. Those little farts were doing 90 by the time they hit the main track. Daisy Jane and Harry were neck in neck when they finished the first lap in 8 minutes, 8 seconds. The rest of the kids, plus myself, Blue, Annie and Mara, were close behind them. The rest of them were about 9 seconds behind us.
By the time our great-granddaughter, Vicky (a 4 year old pig) crossed the finish line .03 seconds ahead of Daisy Jane, there had been crashes, wipeouts, and a couple of leaps off the track. It was great fun for all concerned.
And then we had ice cream.
Our next stop was one we had first visited on our Dog Con 3 trip back in 2010. Allow me to repost what I wrote then.
“Our first stop once we left Bend was in the tiny town of Dufur, Oregon. It is there that you will find two establishments, across the road from one another, competing for the title of World’s Largest Toilet Paper Roll.
As told to us by Mrs. Emily Umbar and Mrs. Lenola Raspe, way back in 1960, their husbands Frank and Charlie (then both 20) began several good natured competitions, as friends often do. First there was “who can grow the biggest zucchini”, then “who has the fanciest workshop”. Eventually, around spring of 1964 and the “who can build the biggest play area for the kids” competition, the testosterone level hit critical mass.
Both men decided that they would build a tourist attraction. Both men decided on building a humongous toilet paper roll. The first year, they got pretty hefty size rolls made, but the near constant Oregon rainstorms soon destroyed them. That did not stop the two bathroom tissue gladiators, who used the next few months to build very tall, very narrow barns to protect their masterpieces.”
This place is a cherished legend in our family, so a chance to see it in the very early days was something we could not pass up.
Now, at this point in time, these two 4 footwide toilet paper rolls were not only not a tourist attraction, they were doomed when the first fall rains fell. However, once again in our guise as a regular bus full of Christian revivalists, we stopped to look at the two men running small gas engines to put more paper on their rolls. They were friendly enough and answered some questions. Then their wives came out and told us how they had put “these two fools” on a strict toilet paper buying allowance. We all laughed at that, photos were taken, and we chipped in a couple of bucks for new rolls. Having thus helped roadside attraction history along, we departed.
Since the rest of our trip for the day was across Eastern Oregon, a rather desolate area filled with conservatives (who at that time were gearing up to vote for Goldwater), I turned on our cloaking device, took us about 500 feet up, and set our coordinates for Boise, Idaho at 450 miles an hour.
It was around 6:00 pm when we arrived in Boise, and lo and behold, there was a Potato Days Festival going on. It being dinner time anyway, we availed ourselves of the many booths offering potato based dishes.
And there were a whole bunch of them. Any way you’ve ever heard of cooking a tater, and several you have not, they did. There was also music and games and even a small carnival. By 8:00 pm, stuffed full of starchy deliciosity and carrying snoozy kids, we got back on The Bus.
Once all of the younger crowd were in bed, we elders just sat around talking, mostly about how ancient 1964 felt. By 11:00, we were heading off to bed.
More blogging tomorrow.
Destination Sign When We Started: Great Wide Open
Destination Sign When We Stopped: Whoville
QM Radio Station: KMON Reggae
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