Jun 15 2010

Notes from the camera

Quite often as we go, I use the camera as a notepad, snapping shots of things we see so that later when I’m writing the blog I’ll remember the little things that happened during the day. This works well except when I borrow Eleanor’s camera and then forget to download the photos that evening. By the time I remember, the blog has been written and the photos are obsolete.

But sometimes they are just a little too interesting to toss away. So today I present to you a little compendium of misplaced images from the past couple of weeks, as retrieved from Eleanor’s point-and-shoot digital camera today. These are the “little moments” that made up our days.

Item #1. You can still buy the wrong diesel fuel if you’re not careful. It is commonly believed that all diesel fuel now sold is the newer “Ultra-Low Sulphur Diesel,” (ULSD) which is required to protect the emissions systems of 2007 and later engines. In California that is true, but other parts of the country still have until this fall to switch over.

Putting the wrong fuel, confusingly named “Low Sulphur Diesel,” (LSD) in a late-model diesel such as ours can be an expensive mistake. We recently found the LSD stuff at a highway rest area along I-90 in New York. There’s always a label disclosing it, but you have to look closely.

Another tip-off: LSD is about 5-10 cents cheaper than the going price for ULSD, so it looks like a great deal, double-check that it’s the right stuff. This station didn’t sell ULSD, so we had to go elsewhere. Diesel owners beware!

Item #2: yogaFLIGHT can be good for your health. We were stressed out, sweaty, hungry, and grumpy after Day 2 of Alumapalooza. I had just spent most of the day parking trailers in the hot sun, between thunderstorms that threatened to send us all to the Land of Oz. And then slaDE insisted we go do their yogaFLIGHT deal, which was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment.

But then it occurred to me: what better test for yoga than to try it when you feel at your worst? So I emptied my pockets, took off my shoes, and let slaDE do his thing. Suddenly I was floating in the air, listening to his incredibly calming voice, feeling completely safe and wishing it wouldn’t end. Stress gone. I’ll be joining their yoga class next year when we do Alumapalooza again.

I am hoping we can cross paths later so that they can teach us their style of partner yoga in a private session. Maybe in Tucson this winter.

Item #3: Three genuises are better than one. This image demonstrates guys doing guy stuff. In this case, meticulously setting up a camera for a group shot outside The Spot To Eat diner in downtown Sidney, Ohio. slaDE offers useful advice, I scrutinize, and Sean does the positioning. It took less than five minutes for our combined Dream Team to set up this shot atop a newspaper box, without benefit of a tripod. Ladies, keep in mind how useful we are.

Item #4: Your GPS doesn’t know everything. I’ve mentioned in prior blogs how you can’t trust the GPS when towing — especially when you get close to state parks! Follow the official brown signs instead.

This shot shows our Garmin advising us to get back to Route 8 in the Adirondacks. According to it, we were wandering around in the forest somewhere.

Fortunately, we made it back to Route 8 quickly, as evidenced by our current speed. Note that the GPS has us traveling at 554 miles per hour. I don’t normally tow the Airstream that fast, but we were in a hurry.

Item #5: Eleanor continues to cook. No shocker here, but since she hasn’t done a video lately I thought you might want to know that we are still benefiting from Eleanor’s culinary treats. The latest is a rhubarb-raspberry bread pudding, seen here. Lou gave us a bunch of cut rhubarb from their patch last week. We used to have a rhubarb patch of our own, and have missed it over the years.

Normally she makes a rhubarb crisp or pie, but there wasn’t quite enough so she came up with the idea of a bread pudding. We happened to be in the Christmas Tree Shop over the weekend and Eleanor picked up a few things to make the pudding interesting. The rhubarb sauce was the kicker: pour it over the pudding and … well, I shouldn’t say too much because it’s too late for you to try ours. But trust me, it was a very successful experiment.

Jun 13 2010

Paused in Vermont

Eleanor and I have completed our childless travels and arrived at summer home base in Vermont, and are once again reunited with Emma.

On Thursday Eleanor and I drove the final leg from the Syracuse NY area east to the Adirondack State Park, and spent the day peacefully zigging and zagging along the quiet tree-lined roads through this mountainous area. You can’t go terribly fast in the Adirondacks, but were happy to tow the Airstream at about 45-50 MPH and stop at some of the many pull-outs along the way. With just the two of us in the trailer, we could even stop and have a light lunch and a nap, with a beautiful river flowing past our bedroom window, before proceeding along the way.

The weather steadily declined — as it often seems to do when we approach Vermont (a coincidence, I’m sure). By the time we arrived, there was a heavy downpour. We ditched the Airstream halfway parked in the driveway and went inside my parents’ house to have dinner. After dinner the rain abated enough for us to go out and establish our summer parking site. As usual, a few of the large mature cedar trees lining the driveway needed to be trimmed back to allow the Airstream to fit. The Airstream will spend the next two months parked here.

On the other hand, I will be moving on shortly. It’s difficult for me to get serious work done in this location, because of cell phone and Internet connectivity problems. On Friday and for the next few days I have a borrowed office at another location to use, but this is only a temporary solution. My visit to Vermont will be brief, just long enough to see everyone, especially Emma. I’ll be flying back to Tucson later this week, and spending the next six weeks there.

Some of you may be wondering why I would exchange a cool and pleasant summer at the lake in Vermont for the scorching heat of Tucson. I’m actually looking forward to it. Alone at home in Tucson I’ll have the ideal environment for working: privacy, few distractions, high-speed Internet, reliable phone, no need to get dressed before noon, etc. Much work has to be completed over the next few weeks, including preparation for Alumapalooza 2011, another top-secret event we hope to announce later this summer (you’ll be the first to know), two more book projects, the new magazine (due out in November), and of course the Fall issue of Airstream Life. It’s time to get seriously glued to the desk for a few weeks. I’ll crank up the 5-ton air conditioner and probably pay an enormous power bill this summer, but I’ll have the experience of the annual summer monsoon in Tucson, which I’ve never seen. Some evening I may even get out for some lightning photography. It will be an interesting change.

I won’t actually be alone the entire time. Eleanor will fly out to meet me for a few weeks, later in the summer, and I also expect Brett for a week. There will be travel involved, perhaps quite a lot, but it will be in the Honda Fit with a tent in the back, and occasionally hotels. So I’ll keep the blog going with The Continuing Adventures of TBM (Temporary Bachelor Man) right here. One thing we will discover is whether the Honda’s tiny air conditioner can handle 100+ degree days. The Mercedes can chill a fevered antelope on a 100 degree day with no problem, but I am less confident in the Honda’s ability as we cruise down I-10 in full sun in the low desert during July…

While I am gone, Eleanor and Emma have their own plans. Emma is signed up for a pile of day camps, including topics such as digital camera photography and Photoshop (which means she’ll be looking for her own laptop soon). She’s also got swimming lessons at the local pool and sailing lessons on the lake courtesy of Uncle Steve and other friends. Eleanor has arranged several trips to see old friends. Nobody will be bored this summer.

Airstream travel will resume in August sometime. Until then, Eleanor and Emma have to get two months out of an 18-gallon black tank. There is no way to dump sewage here, and Eleanor is not going to haul the Airstream to the nearest RV dump 15 miles away. (That’s a complex process that involves a very tricky backing maneuver to get it into the driveway again.) That means they will have to use the bathroom in the house almost exclusively, which is fine except when you’re feeling your way in the dark across the driveway and up the patio steps in the middle of the night.

They will also contend with no air conditioning on those frequent hot and humid days (the voltage is too low to run the air conditioner), and limited water (we can’t leave the hose connected across the driveway). Eleanor’s phone will work only intermittently here. I am not sure that I am getting the short end of the stick, at least regarding conveniences, by going to Tucson. I only wish I had a spare tow vehicle out there, so I could take the Caravel out for a few days in Arizona’s White Mountains, but perhaps that problem will be solved at another time.

May 26 2010

South Bend, IN

Like South Dakota, South Bend gets all the credit. You never hear about North Bend, Indiana, do you? I’m not even sure there is a North Bend. Sounds cold up there.

It’s not cold in South Bend. We’re still getting that humid and warm weather that has followed us since we left Denver on Sunday. The pollen is out in force, too, augmented by fluffy storms of cottonwood seeds. It’s actually pretty nice to sit in the car for a few hours with air conditioning and a cabin air filter.

Our travel today brought us past the least pleasant portion of our journey: the truck-dominated concrete corridor of I-80 as it passes south of Chicagoland. It was bumpy, congested, occasionally slow, and often ugly. We paused only briefly, to drop off Glassie the fiberglass dog to her new owner, Brad.

Here’s Brad posing with Glassie (still wrapped in her protective cocoon of recycled paper), and Eleanor and Emma on the auspicious moment of delivery, in the parking lot of a Harley-Davidson dealership. Sorry, Glassie was a bit camera-shy so if you want to see a picture of her you will have to check out Brad’s blog. If we are all lucky he will post a picture there someday.

The rest of our route was absolutely not worth talking about, but the destination has made the day’s drive well worth it. We are again courtesy parked with friends, this time in South Bend, IN, under a giant shady tree and near a 34-foot Airstream that belongs to our hosts.

This particular stop is memorable because it was Day One of the Tour of America blog. We stopped here right after picking up our Airstream Safari, totally intimidated by the huge new trailer and trying to figure out how everything worked. We did not have the slightest inkling at that time that we would end up living in that trailer for three years!

This is the first time we’ve come back to this spot since then, about four and a half years ago. Some things have changed, but our good friends here have not, and that’s all that matters. We’ll have a nice time parked in the driveway. Our plan is to stay for two nights, then head up into Michigan for a night to make one more pre-Alumpalooza stop.

May 22 2010

A windy day in Nebraska

Just a quick post so my mother won’t worry about us …

We spent the day towing across Nebraska as quickly as possible. We don’t have anything against Nebraska, but we made a conscious choice to spend more time in Denver and that meant something along the route east had to be sacrificed. Sorry, Nebraska.

The goal was 400 miles but we actually stepped it up a bit and covered 500 miles, from the capitol of Colorado to the capitol of Nebraska (Lincoln). A terrific wind all day made the drive more interesting. We hardly noticed it, but we sure heard about it from other RV’ers and truckers during rest stops.

So we broke out the video camera and tried to get a few shots of the conditions. You can see the video here. The wind was running about 30 knots from the south all day, gusting to 40 knots occasionally. It could have been a white-knuckle driving experience, but the rig performed beautifully. I’m very pleased — it’s doing exactly what it is supposed to do. The wind knocked down our fuel economy a bit (to 12.5 MPG overall for the day), but otherwise all went well.

The really good news is that we encountered no thunderstorms today, and tomorrow’s weather looks good too. No t-storms means no chance of hail or tornadoes, which are two things that would kill our Airstream. I am always thinking about thunderstorms when we travel in the mid-west in the summer.

We’ll get an early start on Sunday so we can spend maximum time at our planned courtesy parking stop in Iowa over the next few days. Right now, we’ve got to get some rest. The trailer is rocking in the wind and it’s hot and humid, so it may be a slightly challenging night for sleeping. A cool shower before bed, and three vent fans running on MAX are prescribed for this evening…

May 15 2010

Colorado Springs, CO

We were lucky — the weather driving up I-25 from Las Vegas, NM to Colorado Springs, CO was nowhere near as bad as I had feared. A few sprinkles to wash the Arizona dust off the car, and gray scudded skies were the worst of it. Even in the Raton pass the wind was not bad at all, which made the trip only mildly uninteresting, which is better than extremely interesting when you’re talking about weather.

I am really enjoying the rear-view camera we installed on the Airstream. I leave it on most of the time we are towing, and it acts basically to replace the rear-view mirror. The wide angle lens is ideal for backing up because I can see things to the sides and above the trailer (like tree branches that might scratch the top) but the corollary is that it is not so good for seeing vehicles at a distance as they approach on the highway. No matter — it is still great to have early warning as vehicles approach to pass, or when somebody is tailgating. It’s also great that I can now back up short distances (like at a gas station) with positive assurance that nobody is standing behind the trailer in the blind spot. We don’t have a blind spot anymore.

I’ve found, however, that there is no substitute for Eleanor standing beside the trailer to guide me in when backing into a campsite. The fish-eye perspective of the camera makes judging distances almost impossible. I tried it here at Cheyenne Mountain State Park yesterday and it was clearly not going to work. So we’ll continue to back into tight spots the way we always have, using hand signals.

Last year I blogged about Cheyenne Mountain State Park, saying that it was a great addition to the Colorado State Parks system, and clearly many people agree. We had to book our weekend reservation weeks in advance, and even then we could not get a contiguous 3-day stay. So today we had to hitch up and move to a new site for our next two nights. It’s still worth it. Like some other Colorado State Parks, the campsites are primo: landscaped and manicured sites with pink concrete pads, full hookups, beautifully laid out, hiking trails everywhere, and almost every site has a view. Plus a good laundry, store, an awesome visitor center, picnic areas, etc. I should stop talking about it or the next time we won’t get in here at all…

It’s particularly ironic to be enjoying the great state parks of New Mexico and Colorado when the goofball politicians back in Arizona are busy devastating the state park system there. If you want to camp in Arizona, be aware that the state park you planned to visit may be shuttered or operating on a limited schedule this year. Other states are enjoying record attendance in their parks (SD) (NC) (VA) (FL) (MO) and can clearly see the economic benefits of state parks, but some of Arizona’s state legislators have seen an opportunity to raid a fund and cut a budget item. Which will be the most sustainable long-term choice for the state’s economy?

Well, we’re spending our money in Colorado now, and thanks to this state park in Colorado Springs we will stay for three nights when otherwise we would probably have stayed only one or two. If we hadn’t made reservations up in Denver for Monday, I would be booking a fourth night, because I’ve since found more things to do here. State parks are a long-term investment in a state’s future economy and quality of life.

Today we had planned as a free day, but the weather was not great for outdoor stuff, since it is cool and thunderstorms have been popping up. That’s when the errand list comes out. There’s always something that needs doing, whether it’s a little shopping or a bit of maintenance on the trailer. Since we just got started, I had only two items on the trailer list. The strut jacks on the Hensley hitch have been binding lately, and that’s a problem solved with a few shots of silicone spray. As we pulled into Colorado Springs, I also noticed the distinct squeaking that tells me the hitch ball needs lubricating. With a Hensley, that’s a job most easily done while the car is still connected. I’ll do that on Monday when we get to our next stop, and maybe shoot a little video to show you how we do it.

When we were full-timing we were often asked how we decided where to go. There’s a long answer to that, which involves juggling a bunch of priorities, but part of the answer is that we try to get ideas from people we meet. That’s what happened today, when we met up with blog readers Al and Jo. They told us about the work they do with Canine Companions for Independence, training puppies to become service dogs. We learned that these service dogs go through a lengthy training before they can become service dogs, and when they are done they actually have a graduation ceremony. So attending one of the ceremonies got added to our list of “interesting things to see” and we might even get to see one this November.