Capturing The Spar

I had planned a long weekend of painting on The Mountain.  Gary Knutsen was volunteering as a Smoky out of Sunrise Visitor Center for four days and invited me and the Artmobile to join him in White River Campground.

While I'd been to Sunrise several times in as many summers, I hadn't driven that serpentine route in 40 years.  And I hadn't had the Artmobile--a 2002 GMC Safari van--that far off-I-5 since I'd purchased it two months ago.  It was a test, for both of us.  We both passed, but barely.  Thursday afternoon, I crossed the parking lot from

My acrylic painting of The Spar

the visitor center in a drenching rain.  It 
 seemed to worsen by 5, so I headed down the mountain to see if Gary had arrived at the campground.  

On the way I skirted a half-dozen sand-and-small-rock slides.  Since this was only two days since a record 2-inches-in-12-hours rainfall, I imagined the slides were indicative of the bathtub beginning to fill.  I was mindful of the Oso mudslide last spring.  I decided I wouldn't be coming back up that hairpinny road on Friday. 

Besides, I learned something about GMC's cost-saving design.  Although I had geared down to second and sometimes first gear in the automatic transmission, I used the brakes a lot.  With years of experience in Wyoming and Montana, I consider myself a careful mountain driver, not one to overheat the brakes.  But on the first hairpin turn--like a U-turn into the next lane--I found the brakes okay but the power steering absent.  So the first turn found me making a wider-than-comfortable turn that took me to the edge of the pavement.  Two more hairpins to go.  On each I came to a full stop, then eased the brake and found I had a bit more wheel in the turns.

I had known the power-steering pump would be needing replacement soon, but the mechanic had assured me it would give me plenty of notice before that time.  This obviously was that notice.  I found Gary under a rain-hammered tarp in camp beside the White River.  I told him I was heading down the hill while I had some steering left.  I had no driving trouble the rest of the way into Tacoma, despite the persistent rain.

Next morning, I had the pump replaced.  The mechanic said it was a surprise to him to learn that GMC uses only one pump in this model van to power-boost both the brakes and steering.  Its capacity was down, so on those hairpins I had enough full power for one, or the other--not both.

At 5 Friday evening, I was so delighted to have the Artmobile back in safe condition, and only for the price of an arm, not a leg too, that I took my acrylic paints down to Old Town.  I hadn't painted with these in three years, using oil pastels in the mountains and then watercolors, until June, when I lurched into oils for the first time.  I set up in front of The Spar tavern and painted a 16x20-inch canvas.  I presented it next morning to Kathy Manke, queen of The Spar, who promised to find a place to hang it.  (Probably in a broom closet--the walls seem filled, already.)