Jun 19 2010

Temporary Bachelor Man!

There’s a new superhero in town …

… a superhero for modern times …

He’s TBM! (Temporary Bachelor Man)

Superpowers include the ability to make manly fires, type 100 words per minute, and hike tall mountains slowly. Note the details of his costume: A torch symbolizing his ever-readiness to do “guy stuff”; Wrist protectors look cool and guard against Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; Yin-yang symbol indicates his constant quest to balance work and play; Sunglasses protect against desert sun (shade hat not shown); Khaki jeans hide dust and sand; Hiking boots protect feet on long trails; Belt with the symbol “T”.

Yes, this is what a superhero looks like at age 46. (Actually, his musculature and hairstyle are just slightly exaggerated.) If I don’t look like this in photos from Alumapalooza, because I normally hide in my secret identity as a mild-mannered magazine publisher.

Although I am separated from Eleanor and Emma, there is plenty of sunshine and heat to keep me energized, and lots of stuff to do. In fact, my “to do” list is so long I wonder if I’ll work through it before Eleanor arrives in 19 days (noooooo, I’m not counting). I have house stuff to do, light yard work, and tons of magazine work. I also have a new bike that is just begging to be ridden in the cool early mornings, so I’ll try to stay on Eastern Time and get up at 5 a.m. with the dawn. It’s reliably 69 or 70 degrees every morning, and stays cool until about 8 a.m., so the cycling is primo for early risers.

Tucson is just loaded with interesting things for a TBM to do. One great perk of being here is that we have Saguaro National Park just 15 minutes away. When we are traveling we always gravitate to the National Parks, so why not visit them when they are right in our front yard? Last night a volunteer was leading a night hike through the park, which is a relatively rare offering. A small group met in the Visitor Center and then walked down one of the popular loop trails as the sun set.

If you’ve never done a sunset hike in the Sonoran Desert, this might seem sort of crazy. After all, it was still 100 degrees at 7 p.m. last night, and all the critters come out at night (scorpions, snakes, gila monsters, bats, etc.) But that’s exactly what we were hoping for. Our group was equipped with water bottles and flashlights — even a few blacklights to spot scorpions, since they fluoresce under black light. Also, the views from Saguaro National Park at sunset are absolutely stunning. The Rincon Mountains turn pink, then purple as the sun goes down. The saguaros make fantastic silhouettes against the twilight glow. A sunset walk in the desert is one of the “must do” activities when you’re out here.

We heard fledgling elf owls calling to each other from their nests inside tall saguaro cactus. We saw numerous bats flitting over our heads. We saw a pair of Lesser Nighthawks chasing each other. We talked about the traces of ground squirrel activity, and packrat houses along the trail. The two-hour adventure went very quickly. It was a shame we didn’t spot any snakes and found only one scorpion, but it’s still early in the season. As the monsoon gears up in July and August, the tarantulas will start to get active, too. There are a lot of interesting creatures that live here, and believe it or not, it is rather rare to see them (except scorpions, which get into people’s houses in rural areas).

According the the weather service, it is going to get hot by Wednesday. Since our back porch thermometer indicated 104.7 yesterday, I am not sure how only Wednesday gets the designation of Hot, but perhaps the delineation is at 105 degrees. Those three-tenths of a degree might make all the difference. But the difference I’ll feel is probably in the overnight lows, rising to mid-70s. That means no more cool mornings to open the windows and chill the house.

In cases like this, TBM seeks higher ground. I’ve got a hike planned for Friday or Saturday, starting at about 5,400 feet and ending just below 10,000 feet. The “Sky Islands” of southern Arizona always provide a cool getaway when you need it.

But in the meantime, I’ve got to don my costume and grab my torch. It’s time for TBM to do manly errands around town. Adventure awaits!

Jun 18 2010

The Bachelor Zone

… episode #1

Imagine, if you will, a man, torn from his beloved family and Airstream and sent to a strange land where nothing is as it used to be. Food no longer magically appears on the table, ready to eat. Uninterrupted naps are possible at any time of day. Things left out, stay out. Working by day in one’s underwear, and venturing by night to the local art cinema, become the norm. You’ve entered … the Bachelor Zone.

I have never been separated from Eleanor and Emma for the length of time that now lies ahead of me. Three weeks of complete bachelor-hood is the program for June, as I live in the Tucson house while they spend the summer in New England. I will survive only by my own skills (and those of Eleanor’s via telephone link, more on that later). I will pace the house wondering why it’s so quiet. I will buy my own groceries. I may get to a level of loneliness experienced only by prison inmates on remote desert islands in French novels, and end up giving names to the cockroaches. But I will persevere, because this is all part of the grand adventure of Temporary Bachelor Man.

On Wednesday Eleanor and I drove down to Manchester NH for a night in a hotel, so that I could catch the 6:20 a.m. flight to Tucson this morning. It was cool and damp in Manchester, the way June has been consistently in the northeast this year. Two easy hops, and by 10 a.m. local time I was stepping out in the morning sunshine of Tucson, with the temperature at 86 degrees and rising rapidly toward 103. Even without the three hour time change, the change was disconcerting. I had left Manchester wearing warm socks and a fleece, feeling like mold was going to grow on my skin from the relentless humidity, amidst the gray industrial/commercial wilderness that is so common in the northeast. Back at home base, I had the strange sensation of having never left, because out here in the desert the seasons are subtle and things always seem to look approximately the same. It was just like the day we pulled the Airstream out, back in May, except hotter.

The house has survived well without us. A thin layer of dust covers everything outside, of course, since it hasn’t rained in a long time. Inside, a few plants died and there was the unfortunate discovery of three dirty plates in the dishwasher, but otherwise the house just seemed empty. (The food on the plates has baked on in the sealed environment of the dishwasher, and the smell is … unpleasant. Fortunately,Temporary Bachelor Man — TBM — knows how to turn on a dishwasher.)

Despite being seriously jet-lagged, I attacked my first task — groceries — almost immediately. Right off the bat I needed Eleanor’s guidance. She left the freezer packed full of pre-cooked dinners for me, but I had no idea of what the house might be missing for my other meals. As it turned out, the house had been mostly stripped of the really useful food items, e.g., those which can be prepared easily and quickly. All the good stuff was in the Airstream, 2000 miles away. We consulted on the phone for a few minutes (the first of many telephonic consultations), and with a short shopping list in hand, I headed off to the grocery store.

But let’s not get our priorities mixed up. A car left outdoors in Tucson quickly becomes unconscionably dusty. It wouldn’t do for TBM to be seen in a filthy car, so I hit the local car wash first. Once the car was appropriately shiny again, I felt it was safe to attempt the grocery store.

There are mostly two types of people in a Tucson grocery store on a 100 degree afternoon on a weekday: Moms, and old folks. And me. I felt a bit out of place, but then it wasn’t a comfortable geek-land like Best Buy. This was a place full of mysterious packaged items, none of which plugged into anything. I was definitely out of my element.

Although I had been in that particular store many times, it was still a battle to find the Bachelor Essentials, such as prepared guacamole and salsa. I never paid attention to where things were, before. Eleanor was not answering her phone at that time for some reason, so your hero was left to his own devices, but I maintained my composure and came out with everything I went in for … plus a few things that seemed critical to bachelorhood once I saw them on the shelves.

Ask Eleanor the definition of an “ingredient,” and she might mention examples like paprika, eggs, and butter. My view is that the ultimate bachelor ingredient is the “Spice Packet,” as mentioned on the side of a box. (“Empty contents of Spice Packet into bowl with 2 cups water and contents of box…”) Ah, the miraculous Spice Packet. It’s right up there with the amazing Sauce Packet used to complete the premium-type macaroni and cheese. Who knows what’s in it? It doesn’t matter, it’s darned convenient. When the Spice Packet is around, a pair of scissors are the only cooking implements needed.

My first cooking attempt went well, involving two microwaving experiences and one Spice Packet. Sure, it was easy, but it’s best to ease into new routines. I also made a salad, although “made” is sort of hyperbole when the process involves a pre-mixed tray of salad greens into which I sliced a couple of mushrooms.

Once these domesticities were completed, I realized two fatal mistakes: (1) No entertainment; (2) No ice cream. See, the house lacks a TV. When we are here in the winter, we watch movies on the laptops (streaming them over the Internet via Netflix or on DVD). We don’t have cable or satellite. If we want a larger screen, I unhook the Airstream’s TV and haul it in to the living room. But the DVDs and TV were still in the Airstream back in Vermont, and I had forgotten to remove the vacation hold on the house’s Internet. Mindless video entertainment is a staple of bachelorhood, but for one night I was happy to make an exception and continue re-reading “The Count of Monte Cristo” on the Kindle.

The ice cream problem was more solvable. There are three large grocery stores within 3 miles of the house. So I’m now set for the next hot quiet evening with Klondike bars and fruit pops, streaming Internet videos and, once the mail arrives, DVDs from Netflix. Already the house feels more bachelor-like. By the time Eleanor gets back here, I might have fully converted it …

May 04 2010

I should know better

I should know better than to predict our departure date. Last year I wrote the blog entry “(Almost) Ready To Roll” on June 1, and we ended up stuck for various reasons until June 17. This year I wrote “Last week before launch” on April 27 and then we realized it wasn’t really the last week at all.

Not that we’ve had serious mechanical issues, like last year. This time it’s more a matter of feeling not quite ready. We’re going with our guts here. Eleanor was feeling stressed by a lot of projects she wanted to get done, and I was feeling put off by the generally lousy weather conditions along our proposed route. I can’t see the point in rushing away from decent weather here just to go up and freeze our snowbird tailfeathers in the upper elevations of New Mexico and Colorado.

As I’ve said many times, flexibility is the key. We had an Executive Committee meeting (Mom & Dad) and decided that we would simply chuck a few destinations from the trip plan in order to be able to stay in Tucson for another week. The major destination dropped was Chaco Culture National Historic Park in northern New Mexico. Being at about 6,000 feet, it was still experiencing cold days and wind recently. Although Chaco has been on our destination list for a long time, we’re going to postpone it again until summer 2011 when we are looking for a cooler getaway from the heat of the low desert.

This has turned out to be a great decision. Not only do we have a much more leisurely packing process, but we are using the opportunity to clean up projects and tasks that otherwise would have dragged on into the fall. We’ll leave in a clearer-headed state, and that much more able to enjoy the travels that are ahead.

That’s a really important point. When talking to prospective full-timers, or people who are planning a grand voyage of several months, I always mention that they need to get the little things cleaned up before they go. Most people don’t follow this advice as well as they should, and the result is always that the first year or so of travel is overshadowed by lingering issues from their life before. In particular, it’s important to get your financial house in order. Too many times I’ve seen folks go out assuming that life on the road would be fantastically cheap (which it can be, but isn’t always), and then they inevitably hit a wall caused by old debts not cleared up, lack of capital, tax problems not resolved, or unexpected expenses. More than one person I know has had to give up their travel dreams, sell the trailer, and go back to a day job, very much against their will.

Of course there are plenty of other things that can hang you up as you go. Some can’t be prevented, and just have to be dealt with as they crop up, like medical problems and mechanical breakdowns. But it’s a crucial exercise to think for a few months about how you live every day, and what you’ll need to adjust when living out of a 200-square foot space that has no fixed address. We still do it before every trip because it’s easy to accumulate stuff and habits while living in a house, that don’t translate well to mobile life. It’s a process of cleansing, simplifying, and organizing your life that ultimately yields benefits beyond the travel experience, so it’s well worth doing.

You may not think retirees have a lot to teach you, but in this case they do. Retirees often simplify their lives in a healthy way. With kids and jobs behind them, they reduce expenses, clear out the garage, downsize the house (or get rid of it entirely), don’t replace the elderly pets, stop taking on big projects, and try to focus on what’s now important in their lives. A lot of working people try to have it all when they travel, and that’s a huge mistake. The freedom and broadening of travel are the rewards — everything else is ancillary.

Oh, how nice it would be if I didn’t have to work as we go! But of course in every life there are compromises. This year, thanks to the new magazine project (launching in November 2010), I expect to have more work-related compromises than ever. In fact, I have given in to reality and built a six week hiatus into our travels, during which I will return to Tucson alone (by air) and just get stuff done. Rather than be depressed about this, we have a plan to make the most of it, which will be revealed later. It should be a very interesting summer.

And that’s perhaps the most important point about travel life: everything is an opportunity, if you’ll just choose to see it that way. Even a breakdown means a chance to meet someone new, try to learn a repair skill, or suffer discomfort that becomes a grand tale of adventure later. We are leaving later than planned, digging a 6-week hole in the middle of the schedule, and working too much … and yet this looks to be the most interesting summer we’ve had in a long time. I’m looking forward to it.

Revised countdown: T minus six days and counting…

Jan 20 2010

Sunny rainy days

Ironically, as I sit down to write up this blog which is eventually going to discuss solar energy, the weather here in Tucson is astonishingly wintry. Three Pacific storms are blowing by this week, each one bringing more rain and wind than the previous one. Last night we heard the unfamiliar sound of heavy rain pounding our flat house roof in the desert, and this morning we woke to crystal clear air, sidewalks and driveways scrubbed clean of dust, a few downed palm fronds, and beautiful views of snow in the Catalinas above 6,000 feet.

Webcam image courtesy of UA Computer Science Dept.

Even when our forecast looks like this, it’s usually sunny most of the day in Tucson. They get excited about rain here, for obvious reasons, and a “winter storm” has an entirely different meaning than it does in the rest of the country. Here, it means wind, a little rain, and maybe a thunderstorm. “100% chance of showers” doesn’t mean rain all day; it means definite rain at some point in the day. Freezes are rare except in the mountains.

Normally after a big snow we’d go sledding in the mountains, but Emma has one foot in a cast that can’t get wet, and she can’t climb snowy hills anyway. Broken fifth metatarsal, nothing serious. And we’ve got carnies in the driveway, and I’m afraid to leave the house unguarded while they’re here. (Just kidding, they’ve been good courtesy parkers).

So instead of karate, hiking, biking, and sledding, we’re forced to some sedentary activities like cheap Tuesday night movies and Tucson Roller Derby.

The ladies of TRD put on a good show Saturday and now Emma is sporting a cast covered with the autographs of roller derby queens, which is just extremely cool. Not everyone has the autograph of Bev Rage, Furious Oxide, Pinky McLovin, Hellbent Betty, Zippy’s Takeout, Dirty Duchess, Blanka Trohl, and others on their foot.

The breaking of the metatarsal also means we’re staying home for a little while. So, it’s time to clean up the inbox and respond to various inquiries. Yesterday, blog reader Vernon wrote to me about solar panels:

Rich, it seems that I get more real world data from your blog than most ‘data’ sources… Have you ever logged hour-by-hour amp output from your 230 W solar system under ideal conditions? I see your daily totals and they seem well below the system theoreticals … Thanks!

I often watch real-time amp-hour output from the panels and I’ve found that theoretical output is not very useful in the real world. There is huge variation depending on sun angle, time of year, time of day, cloudiness, dust on the panels, and shading from trees. There’s also some loss inherent in the wiring. As a result, on a sunny day at noon we might generate as little as 8 amps, and as much as 12 amps.

The rest of the day the output will be considerably less. In December, even on a clear day, output will generally run less than 3 amps until 9 a.m., and after 3 p.m. Thus, on a clear winter day we might generate just 25 amp-hours per day. On a partly-cloudy day, that can be cut to as little as 15-20 amp-hours, which is not much at all.

But under “ideal conditions,” we can generate quite a lot more. In late June or early July with full sun and 16-hour northern daylight, we could certainly produce more than 60 amp-hours per day.

We’ve never been able to measure our true total potential capability because, ironically, you generally need the least power in summer when it is most easily generated. Thus, our batteries are always full by 2 or 3 p.m. in the summer. Once the batteries begin to reach full charge, the system stops absorbing power and we have no way to determine accurately how much more power we might have been able to store.

Winter is the relevant challenge. That’s when you have short days, low sun angle, and much higher power consumption due to increased furnace and light requirements. It takes a powerful solar charging system and good weather conditions, to generate and store enough power to make up a typical day’s use.

It is for this reason that I recommend serious boondockers go for much more panel capability than the standard 55-watt installed as part of the Airstream “solar package.” You want to have the power to get through a couple of partly-cloudy winter days if you camp during that season. Having tilting capability on the panels will also boost power production considerably, but this is difficult to implement on an Airstream. The best way to look at it is that solar generally just makes your batteries seem bigger.

The other piece of the solar equation is the capability of your solar panel controller. Most solar controller incorporate good charging, so that when you have sun the batteries can enjoy the maximum capacity available. However, when you go plug in (whether to campground power or a generator) your factory-installed power converter kicks in, and those are often pathetically bad at recharging batteries. Read about our experience here. It makes sense to replace the factory converter/charger with a better 3-stage charger if you are going to use a generator to top off your batteries in addition to solar.

Nov 27 2009

The ghost of Thanksgiving future

For us, Thanksgiving was last weekend. We’re splitting off into different directions tomorrow, and Eleanor wisely did not want to make a her normal “ginormous” meal and then have nobody around to eat the leftovers, so we did the big feast last Sunday. Three of us and two guests cut into the delicious goodies Eleanor made, and we barely made a dent.

We’ve been eating leftovers since. Twice a day, every day, it’s turkey, gravy, roasted vegetables, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin soup — probably the same sort of thing that you are salivating over today. Well, let me tell you, enjoy it while it’s still a novel experience. Because I’m your future, and I can tell you that in three days, you’ll be begging to be released from leftover jail.

(Image credit: Brad Cornelius)

Emma mutinied this morning. I was prepared to surrender on Tuesday but after seeing how much was remaining of that 23-lb bird I felt it was my husband-ly duty to persevere, even though my mouth was craving something — anything — different. We managed to wipe out the soup, 90% of the vegetables, the cranberries, 80% of the stuffing, and the gravy, but that darned fowl is still sitting in the refrigerator, taunting us from under a tent of aluminum foil. When Emma cracked, I lost my willpower as well and we declared the season of Thanksgiving leftovers officially over.

Tonight I want Chinese food with lots of unidentifiable MSG-laden sauce. Or maybe spaghetti with spicy meatballs and lots of chopped garlic. Anything that has pungent odors for the palate and alternate textures for the tongue will do. Just please, no more “white meat or dark meat?” this week.

So without traditional Thanksgiving things to do, we are spending the day packing. E&E are flying up to Vermont for a visit to the seasonal gloom and wet (just kidding, they’re really going to see family), and that is an adventure that requires much packing, analysis, unpacking and repacking (repeat ad infinitum). I am leaving for a major roadtrip to Louisville KY and Grand Rapids MI, among other spots.

The roadtrip will be a screamer compared to the way we usually travel. Being solo, I can roll out of bed, jump in the car, and knock off 800 miles before dinner. Bathroom stops will be brief & infrequent, lunches can be eaten with one hand at 75 MPH (or during a very short rest area stop), and the route will be 100% high-speed Interstate highway. My route is easy to remember — I-10, I-20, I-30, and I-40 — but being Interstates, the drive itself should be pretty forgettable. Thanks to the wide-open spaces of the west, in my entire first day I will pass through only one major metro that could slow me down (El Paso). The rest of the time the speed limit is 75-80 MPH and there’s not a whole lot to bother stopping for.

Actually, I might detour very slightly in Arizona to drop in on “The Thing.” I know what The Thing is (but I’m not telling!) My reason for stopping is to get a few photos for an upcoming article in Airstream Life (Spring 2010) about “America’s Favorite Tourist Traps.” But other than that, I don’t plan to stop for much until at least Odessa, TX. That’s 600+ miles from Tucson. I don’t even expect to stop for fuel, ’cause like the other Mercedes Bluetec diesels, the GL320 can get up to 700 miles out of a tank when there’s no Airstream dragging it down. That’s a feature I haven’t had a chance to test out yet. So with a few distractions like these I’ll try to make the trip more interesting for myself.

In case you are wondering, the thing pictured above isn’t The Thing. But it’s a Thing anyway. I don’t know what the heck it is, really. It seems to be the result of Brad working out a nightmare he had. He’s a brilliant illustrator and that means sometimes odd things come out of his head. He’s the guy responsible for the Alumapalooza poster design, as well as all the Tin Hut illustrations that have appeared in Airstream Life, and if you come to Alumapalooza next summer you can meet him.

One last thing to do tonight: cut up the remaining turkey and freeze it. Eleanor says there’s enough left that we can have it for Christmas, and the carcass will become soup. It seems the ghost of this turkey will be haunting us for some time to come.