My next run down the Wild section of the Rogue was in 1985 with Judd Lucas and his brother, Curt. By then I had picked up a second World Famous raft, which I named Silver Sieve. The name says all there is to know about the raft.
Judd and I worked at a dental equipment manufacturing company, where I was surrounded by all kinds of aluminum tubing and barstock, I built a classy knock-down aluminum frame for Mariah. Judd and Curt used my old wooden frame on the Silver Sieve. When they hit Telephone Hole sideways, I saw the entire black bottom of their raft before they came back down right side up.
On the way home from that trip, we blew a trailer tire at Elk Creek on Interstate-5. That was the last time I went out without a spare tire. I had to unhitch the trailer and leave it with Judd and Curt while I took off to find a new tire. I went to Cottage Grove and tried every possible tire source there, but came up empty. I ended up going all the way to the far northwest corner of Eugene, where I found the GI Joe’s store, moments before they locked up for the night, despite the monumentally poor road directions that people in that town give. It was close to 11:00 PM when I got back to Judd and Curt. It had been warm in the early evening when I left them, so they hadn’t taken jackets out of the car. By 10:00 they were huddling behind the raft trailer shivering and thinking unkind thoughts about me.
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