Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/693447
78 nJuly 2016n www.thunderpress.net THUNDER PRESS Where Am I? e "Where Am I?" game is for all THUNDER PRESS readers, what ever part of the country you hail from. Off ered each month is a set of clues within a riddle, and from those clues your job is to guess where our wandering reporter (and riddlemeister) Susan might be. Lo cations chosen are always in the Western U.S. or Canada. How does it work? e clues can be solved either by personal familiarity with the location, with the aid of a map, or by using the Inter net. When a clue is particularly important, and/or somewhat vague, we o en italicize that trickier portion to make sure your attention is drawn there. Where/when/what do I win? Very important: Do not e-mail your guess until the 8th of the month, so every one in our circulation area has a chance to get a copy of the paper. en on the 8th e-mail Susan at susan@tohonor.org and if you're the fi h correct e-mail you win. (Note: If there's no phone number in your e-mail where I can call you, your e-mail will not arrive fi h. Some law of physics or something…) Winners are profi led and pictured in the following issue. Good luck. Sometimes on the road you hunger for a satisfying breakfast And listening to other rider's tips can shine a light Sometimes it means travel in more population than we'd like to But a good breakfast can sure steer a day right I found a treasure NW of this state's capital An iconic raptor suburb of the big B The name suggests the matriarch of Joseph's clan puts on a fresh, local spread there Just off 55 on the river's shore is a new favorite for me Name the eatery—or better still, meet me there for some trash taters and a steelhead scramble. WHERE AM I? WINNER ROBERT BOHNA A rural retirement Robin Bohna knew the answer to the Where am I? riddle when he read it, recognizing Pendleton, Oregon, from the clues about underground tours and the round-up. On the 8th he saw THUNDER PRESS on the table at home, reminding him to e-mail in his guess. It was later in the day than he'd initially planned so he felt his chances weren't good to be number fi ve. He was wrong. Born in the Coeur d'Alene area in 1946, the Bohna family would move frequently due to his father's work on pipelines. "We lived in all the western states and Alaska, sometimes staying in one place three to four months, then moving again." He began riding motorcycles at age 16. Early on, home was in Spokane while Robin attended West Valley High. Then he and his mother moved to western Washington near what's now called the city of SeaTac. Robin took a job as a shoeshine boy at the Hyatt House near the airport when a customer riding a Harley-Davidson, even invited the lad to, "Take it around the block." But compared to his daily ride, a Honda Dream, the Harley seemed enormous and Robin declined the kind offer. However, the Harley-Davidson seed was planted by the exposure. Robin told himself, "One day." Mount Rainier High School in Des Moines prepared him for a short- term job at Boeing and a year at the University of Washington. It was at that point Uncle Sam had other ideas and the Air Force became Robin's mobile address and frequent fl yer miles account. After basic training in Illinois he began work- ing on fl ight simulators, often on duty during the quiet overnight shift. A fellow serviceman sug- gested Robin take the air traffi c control test when he got out; advice Robin would heed. He landed in Washington State again, at what was then called McCord AFB, fi nishing up his service time in 1969. He went back to Boeing, but it was soon in the throes of a still famous decline and employee layoffs. A billboard adjacent to Boeing Field in S. Seattle stated, "Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights?" It was a dark time economi- cally in the Queen City. Not long after, a letter came from the Federal Aviation Administration. He'd taken the air traffi c controller test but darned near dismissed hope of making the cut. Reporting to the Air Route Traffi c Control Center in Auburn, Washington, he would work in that fi eld until the industry went on strike. Then an unprecedented thing occurred. Robin explained, "On August 3, 1981 Ronald Reagan fi red me," along with 11,358 other air traf- fi c controllers nationwide. An executive order to return to work was disobeyed, so Reagan made good o n his threat that they return within 48 hours or risk dismissal. Further, those who remained on strike would be denied work as air traffi c controllers from that pink-slip-day forward. Some friends had done pretty well driving semi-trucks so Robin bought what he'd need to do the same. In ret- rospect he considered driving trucks a hobby. He explained, "A hobby is something you enjoy, but don't make any money (doing it)." Boeing became his employer again, working on fl ight simulators, then as a systems analyst and pro- grammer. A fortuitous stop at a Kent- area Mexican restaurant after work is where he found Barbara. The couple married in 1987. Robin retired from Boeing in 2001 at age 55 and his father invited the couple to move east to his Idaho spread. Barbara and Robin liked the idea so they put their Covington, Washington, area home on the market and in 2002 moved to the Wolf Creek area east of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. They added on a bedroom and furnace room, and commissioned a deep-water well. The neighborhood is 20 minutes outside of town with neighbors close enough, yet far enough away that everyone enjoys privacy and rural living with "deer grazing and even the occasional moose." Not long after their relocation, Robin was puttering in the garage with the door open when neighbor Wendell rode up on a new Sportster suggesting that Robin "get one too so we can go riding together." Robin said, "Thanks a lot Wendell," somewhat sarcasti- cally. It wasn't long before Robin took Wendell's advice and a 2005 Sporty found a new home. And then a Spokane deputy sher- iff's gently used '07 Softail Custom came available, the bike already "tricked out." The 2007 fi lls the bill nicely for Robin and he imagines it will be in the stable for the duration. A black cat, Ace, "that acts like a dog" is Robin's buddy. Barbara's pet is Max, a Yorkshire Terrier that weighs in at 20 pounds. 4 Last month's mystery location: Pendleton, Oregon