Back in a week...

Well, our bags are packed, Odyssey is well-parked and buttoned up, and our friends here in Houston will be taking us to the airport first thing in the morning.  We'll be off email and the blog until we get back next Saturday.

We'll have plenty of time to catch up when we return, since we can't pick our pets back up until Monday morning.  Then we're off to Austin again, where we are signed up to help teach the next batch of Red Cross volunteers about Response Technology, just in time for hurricane season.

Talk to y'all in a week...

The Elks bail us out, once again

We are at the Elks lodge in Katy, TX (map).   They have four RV spaces here, with 50-amp pedestals.  Good thing -- we've needed to run all our air conditioners to keep comfortable.  Even though this is a holiday weekend, there is only one other rig here, and it looks to be a long-term occupancy.

Last night we walked the better part of a mile over to the Katy Mills Mall in search of dinner.  The restaurant selection was disappointing, and we ended up eating at the Rainforest Cafe, the restaurant equivalent of the Enchanted Tiki Room from Disneyland.  We also browsed a few of the shops.

We were able to stay off I-10 for most of the day yesterday, as old US-90 runs on a separate alignment until about 30 miles west of here, criss-crossing the freeway but mostly staying out of sight of it.  Today, we will head in to Houston, drop off the pets, and then head out to our friends' parcel east of the city.  I will not be updating our precise location again until we return from Mexico and are back on the road, though  I may make one more blog entry before we leave.

Seguin, TX

We are at the Elks lodge in Seguin (map). It is basically just a parking lot, a few hundred yards from an Interstate off-ramp and its associated glotch. Our guide said it had 20-amp power available, though, and we found an outlet after circling the building -- nothing is posted, and there hasn't been a soul here to ask since we arrived last night around 7. I set our power draw down to 18 amps and plugged in, and we've been able to run one air conditioner, which has been ample in the cooler evening and night hours.

We spent yesterday afternoon at Schlitterbahn, and had a blast. The park is immense, and they only opened two of the five giant sections (Surfenburg and Blastenhoff, for those who know the park) for the off-season weekday. Nevertheless, we had to park over in the other, older "main" section of the park -- the only place we could fit -- and take the employee shuttle (with only one side running, the guest trams were not operating). We shared the park mostly with several dozen busloads of high school kids on school outings. We looked just like chaperones.

With the temperature close to 100, it was a perfect day for a water park. (We did have to leave the genny running to keep the pets cool while we were away.) The Travel Channel is right -- Schlitterbahn is a great park.

Today, we will drive most of the way to Houston.

For anyone who missed it, we are going to Cancun for a week, leaving Monday morning from Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Friends of ours, whom we met through the Red Cross, have some property in the eastern suburbs of Houston with RV hookups, and have generously offered to let us park Odyssey there while we are away. That will give us power to run the fridge, and also to run some air conditioning to keep the coach from baking while we are gone. Also, there are some folks living on the lot who can keep an eye on things for us.

We could certainly make it to their spread tonight, but the kennel we have lined up for the pets is in the western suburbs, about 20 miles away through some pretty bad traffic. Our appointment to drop the animals off is tomorrow, as they are closed Sunday. Since we will be approaching from the west anyway, we want to stay west of town, and avoid crossing the city and battling the traffic three times. I had hoped to spend the night at a state park a few miles west, but they are all full for the holiday weekend. We will likely end up boondocking tonight, and running the generator to keep cool, unless we can find another Elks lodge.

Remembering the Alamo

We are in San Antonio, at the KOA campground (map), where we have spent the last four nights.  KOA is an uncharacteristic stop for us, but this time it was a good fit.  Boondocking in, for example, a Wal-Mart parking lot is not a good option for a four-day stay in any case, and, with temperatures in the 90's all week, we'd have to run the generator nearly full-time, since the A/C's need to be on all day long for the pets.  Our usual fall-back options, such as Elks lodges and fairgrounds, are not available here.  There are four well-rated campgrounds in San Antonio, and we chose among them based on city transit maps and schedules -- there is a bus stop right at the KOA's gate, and a bus runs directly downtown from there on a frequent schedule.  We lucked out and got an end-of-row spot with little traffic and few neighbors, yet close to the pool and the bus stop.

We have had a pleasant stay here, being quintessential tourists.  We took a half-hour cruise around the downtown section of the San Antonio river (check out Louise's video montage of this), spent some time walking the famed River Walk, sampled three of the restaurants along same, did a one-hour motorcoach tour of the city (sort of a busman's holiday), and had a nice dinner at our affiliate club here in town.  We went to the zoo, an outing that required two city buses each way, and we even saw the movie RV in a downtown theater while we were cruising the River Center Mall attached to the River Walk (don't bother, unless you are an RV'er, in which case some of the RV antics will strike a chord).  Of course, we also spent some time visiting the Alamo, an experience I found to be quite emotional.

There is more to see and do here, but we will save it for another visit in somewhat cooler weather.  We are getting some chores done this morning, and we will  leave around mid-day and head to New Braunfels, where we plan to spend the afternoon at the Schlitterbahn water park there.

Video of the River Walk in San Antonio. This one is longer than the others, so if your connection is slow you might want to skip it.

Angel's busy day. Click here or on photo for video.

Back along the Rio Grande

We are at Seminole Canyon State Historic Park, along the Rio Grande at the confluence of the Pecos (map).  We are very close to where we stayed last year, on the Amistad reservoir, but this time it was 100 degrees when we arrived and we wanted electricity to run our air conditioners.  The park here has only 30 amps, so we could only run two units, but it was enough to keep us comfortable.

Yesterday morning found us at a nice highway rest area, between Valentine and Marfa along US90 (map).  US90 is desolate and lightly traveled through this part of Texas, so imagine our surprise to come across "Prada Marfa," an art installation in the middle of nowhere that looks just like a chic suburban boutique (more informative link).

We also passed one of the blimp-like Tethered Aerostat Radar System balloons, used for border surveilance.  Larger than Goodyear's blimps, actually, even though they look like barrage ballons from a distance.

Today we should end up in San Antonio, where we will spend a few days being tourists.

Happiest couple east of the Pecos River.

Sunset at Seminole Canyon State Historical Park.

Near Marfa, TX. Click here or on photo to watch video.

Picnic area overlooking El Paso and the Rio Grande. Too bad it was illegal to spend the night here.

Lovers' Lane

We are just north of El Paso, at what must be the only roadside picnic area in all of Texas that does not permit overnight stays (map).  Actually, that's an exaggeration -- we've seen other picnic areas clearly marked as disallowing them.  The sign which was supposed to inform us of this fact here is gone -- only the signpost remains.

I know all of this because we had a visit from the sheriff's department last night around midnight.  Now my first clue should have been that, shortly after dark, an inordinate number of cars began showing up.  Apparently, due to the relative seclusion and the spectacular view of the city lights far below, this parking area is popular with El Paso youths looking for a place to, ahem, hang out.  They were relatively quiet (other than one couple who had their stereo turned up a bit) and did not disturb us.  All of the cars left right around 11:30ish -- clearly already familiar with the protocol.

A while later, while I sat here surfing the net, the spotlight of a patrol car was unceremoniously aimed at our penthouse window.  I went outside and had a nice chat with Deputy Becerra (sp?) of the Sheriff's department.  Apparently, the area "closes" at 11:30, presumably to deter criminal activity.  The entire area was recently cleaned up and painted, but the highway department has not gotten around to replacing the sign stipulating the closed hours.  She did show me the empty signpost.

After determining our intentions, the deputy decided it was probably not in anyone's best interest to make us "move along" at such a late hour, and, since she was just coming on shift and would be on this beat all night, she decided to let us stay, and that she would keep an eye out to ensure that no one else took our presence here to mean that the rules had changed.

After picking up our mail yesterday, we followed I-10 to just west of Las Cruces, then turned south onto NM292 and NM28, which follow the Rio Grande.  We were hoping to find a nice spot along the river to stop for the night, but the entire valley is private land, mostly (somewhat to our pleasant surprise) pecan orchards.  We crossed the river onto TX375, which skirts around El Paso to the north, at the penalty of crossing a pretty hefty grade.  This rest area, which is not marked on our maps, was in a handy spot (or so we thought) right at the mile-high summit, and the immaculate cleanliness along with the view persuaded us to stop here.

Today we will head downgrade to the east, curve back around to the south and connect again with I-10 east of El Paso, just in time to hit the FlyingJ for a much-needed fuel stop.

We washed the bus in Lordsburg, using our pressure washer. It was in the 90s and Opal didn't mind getting a little wet from the overspray. In fact, she seemed to position herself downwind of where we were spraying, so I lightly misted her a couple of times. Apparently, when her face get wet, it itches. How does a dog scratch her face? By rubbing it in the dirt, of course. At least she had the decency to look, um, hangdog about it afterwards.

Mail call

We are at the Elks lodge in Lordsburg, NM (map).  We had a pleasant drive through some beautiful scenery from the Apache nation yesterday, arriving in Lordsburg just moments before the post office closed at 5.  Not too surprisingly, our mail was not yet there, so we trundled over here.

The lodge here is just a boondocking spot in a gravel lot, but the temps were only in the high 80s when we pulled in, and dropping.  We ran the genny for about half an hour to cool everything down, and the fans kept us cool all night.

This morning we gave Odyssey a much-needed pressure-wash, and I am told by the post office that our mail has arrived, so we will swing by to pick it up, then head east out of town, toward Las Cruces.

Sonoma Casual Dining, Tempe, AZ.

A bit of relief from the heat

Yesterday was a very hot day.  In the relative cool of the morning, I repaired the rear leveler harness and checked the genny coolant -- it was about half a gallon low, and I need to find some time to add a recovery tank to the whole assembly.

We left Buckskin mountain around mid-day, with fully charged batteries and the coach still relatively cool inside from running the airs all morning.  With the sun mostly overhead, the heat load through the big driver windshield was tolerable heading east.  We backtracked to Parker and then headed to Phoenix via AZ-72, Salome Road, and, finally, I-10.  We wanted to drop by to check up on our restaurant investment in Tempe, so we parked at the Tempe Elks (map) just a few blocks (and short city-bus ride) away.  The Tempe lodge has full hookups with 50-amp power for $18, and we were easily able to run all our A/C's to keep cool.  We also took advantage of the hookups this morning to dump our tanks and put some more water in.

We had a nice dinner last night at "our" restaurant, which is still struggling to connect with the local market.  Surprising to us, considering the sister restaurants in California are going like gangbusters.  The on-site management has made several changes that should help, including new signage that drops the word "rotisserie" from the name -- it seems that the word was unfamiliar or confusing in the Tempe market.  In any case, if you are in the Tempe area, stop in and check it out:

Sonoma Rotisserie and More (but sign now reads "Sonoma Casual Dining")
1285 W. Elliot Road
480-940-1028
www.SonomaAZ.com

We left Tempe early this afternoon, again with full batteries and a pre-cooled coach.  Outside temperature was in the high 90's as we left the metropolitan area.  In an effort to avoid I-10 as far as possible, we are again crossing the Superstition range via US-60 and US-70.  This put us in the position of climbing the long 7% grade in the heat, and, at one point, we had to slow to 20mph and keep the RPMs in the power band in second gear to pull the grade without overheating.  Still, the DDEC was reading a coolant temperature of 204 during the hard parts.

One good thing about this grade is that the outside temperature dropped steadily as we climbed, and the drop here is really quite pronounced.  Our outside thermometer registered 97 when we began our climb, and bottomed out at 65 when we crested the summit, bringing the engine temperature down to a less alarming number. (Click here to see a video of the drive.)  Very close to the summit is Oak Flat campground, a free forest service facility where we spent a lovely night heading the other direction back in December, and we briefly considered stopping there for the night.

Instead we continued past the mining towns of Miami and Globe to stop here, at the Apache Gold Casino (map)  on the San Carlos Apache Nation reservation.  The campground here is, essentially, a giant asphalt lot, but they provide full hookups with 50-amp power for only $12.  The outside temperature was in the high 80's when we arrived, the momentary low at the summit being very fleeting indeed, and we wanted the juice to run our A/C's again.  Also, there is a laundry room here which we needed.  They also have a pool, which was quite refreshing, and they gave us casino coupons which we immediately exchanged for $2 in cash, making our stay here a $10 affair.  (The casino itself is otherwise unremarkable, and even the restaurants, being open to the smoky and noisy gaming area, were unappealing to us.)

Not long after sunset, the temperatures dropped into the 70s and we were able to turn off our A/C's and bring in some fresh air, a welcome relief.  This is in marked contrast to the previous two nights, where we needed to run at least one A/C all night long.  Tomorrow we will descend further, but also move into the generally cooler high desert of New Mexico.  Our mail is en-route to Lordsburg, where US-70 connects with I-10, and we will wait there for it to catch up with us.

On a completely different subject, I am troubled by the fact that my email address has been misappropriated by malicious crackers, who are sending out thousands of messages containing a variant of the MyDoom.w32 virus/trojan.  I know this because, as is usual with such mass-mailings, hundreds of the messages are failing in-transit, and they are being returned to "sender," which appears to be me.  Happily, many of the return-to-sender messages are from anti-virus or firewall software, which have trapped the message due to the malicious attachment.  Of course, out of all the dozen or so valid email addresses that I use for various purposes, the one which is being spoofed is my primary, friends-only, "keep the same email address for life" email provided to me by the university where I attended graduate school.  How it got harvested is a mystery to me, but I know it's out there since my spam filters weed out hundreds of messages to that account daily. 

Normally, these sorts of address spoofs go on for a day or two, then the perpetrators move on to a different "sender" victim, usually in an effort to stay one step ahead of robots designed to spot email floods from specific individuals with suspicious attachments.  In this case, though, it has been going on for a full two weeks, with no end in sight.  Harumph.

At the hinges of hell

We are parked along the Verde Colorado River, at Buckskin Mountain State Park in Arizona (map), just downriver of Parker Dam. The dam, like it's brethren upstream, makes the river cold and green here, mocking its name. While the river might be a more inviting swim without the frigidity of the dam releases, we plunged in anyway, since the air temperature was well past the century mark when we arrived. Hotter, as they say, than the hinges of hell.

What a change from the cool and pleasant air of the California coast. After leaving Rincon Parkway, which we have now added to our "must return" list, we climbed inland on state route 126, crossing I-5 and joining state route 14 in Santa Clarita. We skirted north of the Angeles and San Bernardino national forests, which comprise the hills separating the LA basin from the rest of the state, thus avoiding same and its endless traffic and smog. A combination of highways 138, 18, and 247 took us due east out of Palmdale, then slightly south to deposit us in Yucca Valley, where we spent the night at the California State Visitor Center (map). There are no signs posted here about overnight parking one way or the other, but our directory suggested that one-night stays were permitted. There was also a Wal-Mart in town, with a number of rigs parked for the night, but we had the visitor's center all to ourselves -- it was quiet and pleasant.

While it was quite warm between Palmdale and Yucca Valley, by the time we parked for the night, the air was cooling down nicely, and we didn't need any A/C after we parked. Today, however, we moved into the hot zone. East of Yucca Valley, at Twentynine Palms, we turned off into Joshua Tree National Park and did a scenic drive through the north section of the park, where the interesting rock formations and, of course, the Joshua trees are. The scenic drive involves a good deal of climbing, and Odyssey, I am happy to report, is now handling the grades without losing her cool, so to speak, even in the temperatures that neared triple-digits. By the time we rejoined CA-62 and headed east for the river, though, the air conditioners were having a hard time keeping up.

As we descended into the Colorado valley, the temperature climbed past 100, and the alternator could no longer supply enough juice to run both A/C's. We fired up the generator, hoping to get the inside temperature under control. Unfortunately, an old problem that I thought we had licked came back to haunt us -- the generator shut down shortly afterwards due to overheating. Try as we might, we just could not keep the genny running in the heat. We had to go back to inverting from the alternator, and drop down to a single A/C unit, which didn't make much of a dent in the sweltering temperatures.

Thus we bypassed our usual free boondocking opportunity at the Bluewater Casino in Parker to come here, where, for $20, we have a 30-amp power outlet. On the 30-amp circuit we were able to run two roof units, at a very slight deficit against the batteries -- enough to at least keep Odyssey at a livable temperature. Now that it's well past sunset, the outside temperatures have dropped and we are down to running one unit, and the batteries are charging back up.

Tomorrow morning, before things start heating up again, I will check the genny coolant level. I also need to crawl under the drivers and re-connect the rear leveler actuator harness, which somehow came undone as we exited a driveway this afternoon. If the coolant looks good, then we are going to have to do some re-engineering of the generator cooling system. That means either a larger radiator, or ducting the intake air a different way. In either case, it's major work, and I am not looking forward to it.

If it is this hot again tomorrow afternoon, we will have to look for a camp site with 50-amp hookups. I expect to be in Phoenix then, which means: most likely we'll need the power.

Video of elephant seals, just north of San Simeon. Click here or on picture to watch. There were thousands of animals crowded onto two small beaches. Most of the audio is wind noise and a few snippets of unintelligible conversation, but you can hear the magnificent grunting and snorting of the seals in a few places.

A day at the beach

We are parked adjacent to the beach, along the Rincon Parkway (map).  We've passed this spot a number of times, noting the row of RV's parked along the beach, and promised ourselves that we would give it a try someday.  Our schedule yesterday made this a perfect stopping point.

The Rincon Parkway here is also the alignment for CA-1, the Pacific Coast Highway.  This section has largely been bypassed by the Ventura Freeway, US-101 just a few dozen yards away.  Before the freeway was built, US-101 followed this same alignment, and the pavement is very wide here.  After the traffic shifted to the new freeway, Ventura County re-striped the roadway for one travel lane in each direction, with a nice bicycle lane on either side, and then marked off the remainder of the pavement on the ocean side for RV parking.  The spaces are about 40' long, so Odyssey just fits (though parallel-parking was a bit tricky).  Parking is $21 per day, with a five day limit.  The county calls them "metered" spaces, but it's a fixed daily rate, and one places payment in an envelope deposited in an iron ranger, just as at a park.

Even though we are nose-to-tail with rigs on either end of us, and the 100+ spaces here are mostly full, we have nothing on either side of us, so the experience is very pleasant.  On our curb side is the ocean, about ten feet below us down a rip-rap embankment.  On our street side is the PCH, which is virtually untraveled here, and adjacent to that are the train tracks, which carry Amtrak's Pacific Surfliners and Coast Starlight, as well as some UP freight.  The only sounds we heard at night were the constant roar of the surf and the occasional passing of a train, both sounds that we find very pleasant (though I know that not everyone shares this view).  The 101 freeway is far enough away that we did not hear the traffic over the surf.

Yesterday's drive down highway 1 was quite pleasant and scenic, even though the marine-layer fog never really burned off.  It was fairly slow going as we picked our way through the very twisty sections at the southernmost end of Monterey County.  Single vehicles over 40' in length are not permitted here, for good reason, and even with Odyssey's short wheelbase, we found ourselves off-tracking over the center and fog lines on a good number of turns.  Other than having to turn out frequently to allow following traffic to pass, we had no problems, though.  I remember coming up this stretch of road a couple dozen years ago on an MCI-7, which, at 40' long and 96" wide is about Odyssey's size, but with a much longer wheelbase.  That coach was a stick-shift, though, and the driver was working hard the whole trip.

Today we will turn inland at Ventura, and leave the Pacific behind.

Opal and Sean at Rincon Parkway. Yes, we were that close to the water.

Camping along the Rincon Parkway, an old stretch of Highway 1.

Louise at Kirk Creek. The water was very clear and not too cold. Unfortunately, there was poison oak everywhere so we didn't walk the trail all the way to the ocean. As it was, Opal picked up three ticks. Yuck!

Big Sur coast

All of our business now finished in the bay area, we are once again on the road.  As often happens, the visit was short and full of mandatory appointments and to-do's, so we did not get a chance to see everyone on our list.  Even our unexpected six-day extension ended up filled with follow-up doctor visits and the like (and one yacht cruise -- more on this later).  If you are among the many area friends with whom we did not connect on this stop, rest assured that we will be back, and you are still on our must-see list.

Opal's much-needed teeth cleaning went off without a hitch, though the vet did ask us to continue the antibiotics for another week.  As for us humans, I have some residual tooth sensitivity that the dentist tells me should subside in a couple weeks, but we are otherwise in good health and done, we hope, with doctors for another year.  My internist did give us a script for meds for, um, intestinal distress, and malaria prophylaxis, for our upcoming Mexico trips.

We pulled up stakes yesterday afternoon, and spent last night at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey (map), where we had a quick visit with Louise's dad Jerry and his wife Kay.  They just returned from a Mediterranean cruise, and we would not have caught them were it not for our delay in San Jose.  They had extended us an invitation to accompany them on this trip, but our Red Cross obligations supervened, so we were eager to hear all about their transatlantic crossing from Galveston and subsequent European port-hopping.

We had a nice dinner and conversation at Tarpy's Roadhouse, and spent a quiet night at the fairgrounds.  I must admit, though, that we are unlikely to return to the fairgrounds, as we scraped a good deal both coming and going, due to a deep gutter at the entrance gate, and the spaces are quite close together -- not a problem on this visit, since they were mostly empty,  We thought we'd try the place out, since it's closer to Louise's parents than Laguna Seca Raceway, where we have stayed in the past, and we hoped it might be less expensive to boot, but, at $30, it's not much of a deal.

We left Monterey after breakfast this morning, and proceeded south along CA-1, the Pacific Coast Highway.  We've done this road many, many times by motorcycle, so it is quite familiar on one level, yet in Odyssey it was a whole new experience.  Even with the close concentration on driving, though, the views are breathtaking.  Tonight we are at one of our favorite haunts, Kirk Creek Campground, right off the highway in the Los Padres National Forest (map).  We have spectacular views of the Pacific to one side, and the Ventana hills to the other.

In my last post I mentioned that we had some new damage to the windshield, and I am happy to report that Safelite was able to "repair" it, in the sense that it is now full of epoxy resin and seems to be stable, meaning not spreading.  Also, a reader sent me links to photos of Australian Neoplans with acrylic rock shields bolted over the windscreen and, yes, we have thought of doing something similar.  The challenge with the idea is fabricating some kind of a mounting system that will not conflict with our entrance door, which opens to the front.  Also, covering any part of the driver windshield with anything other than DOT glass is of questionable legality in many jurisdictions.  If we ever get Odyssey up to the Dalton highway, though (as I would like) we will need to make some kind of a full-coverage shield, complete with wipers.

Now about that yacht...  Short version: One of our good motorcycling friends, Martin, has a 40' Tiara Sovran, and he took it from it's berth in Redwood City to a 3-day Tiara gathering in Benicia on Saturday.  When he found out we would be in town for a few extra days, he offered to let us tag along.  So we joined him and his date on Saturday for a very pleasant bay cruise.  After very quickly meeting some of the other Tiara owners at the marina in Benicia (sadly, just as the wine was beginning to flow), we dashed off to catch an Amtrak train back to San Jose.  A very full and very fun day.

Much, much longer version:  While we were outfitting Odyssey, on one of our many visits to the Infinity Coach shop in Sumner, Washington, we spent a day at the Seattle Boat Show, one of the largest and most impressive shows in the US.  Nominally, we did this looking for window coverings, a thorny problem that we were hoping the yacht industry could help us with.  We struck out completely on the window covering front, but we came away from the show with two other things, neither of which we expected on our way in.  One was the YachTub inflatable hot tub system, which I have discussed extensively in previous blog posts, and the other was the boat bug.  More precisely, the live-aboard-sized power-boat bug.

To elaborate further, I have always had the ambition to, someday, sail around the world, taking in as much of each country as could reasonably be seen by boat.  (And, yes, this is in addition to the equally odd ambition to live full time in a converted bus, seeing all of North America.)  I have a fair amount of sailing experience, and I always envisioned that I would do this by sailboat -- by far the most common type of vessel for this sort of endeavor.  Louise, who was bitten by sailboats as a child, nixed this idea very early on in our relationship -- I persuaded her to come sailing with me precisely once, and that convinced both of us that there would be no sailboat in our future.  I allowed the idea of sailing around the world to fade into oblivion, and allowed myself to be content in the knowledge that, at least, we would share the bus dream together.

All of that changed in virtually an instant at the very end of our boat show visit.  We had finished all our business in the vendor booth area, where we looked at window coverings, discovered the YachTub, and spent quite some time ogling inverters, engine instrumentation, cabin lighting, and all sorts of other items that cross over between yachting and the RV industry.  We had some extra time, and decided to go out onto the show floor and look at some of the boats, both as an amusement and to see if any of the interiors might provide any additional inspiration for what we were doing inside of Odyssey.  Naturally, we made a bee-line for the largest craft inside the exhibit hall.  That turned out to be a trio of 40+' yachts from Carver.  Somewhere in between looking at floor coverings and countertop treatments, Louise remarked along the lines that the interiors we pretty nice and she could "do this."

Wow.  Neither of us was expecting this outcome, but that brief visit to the boat show launched us into several months of boat-related research, wherein I mostly learned about the characteristics of power boats with ocean-crossing capability.  Of course, we now live in a bus, and we're certainly not going to just dive willy-nilly into yachting until we're done with busing -- something for which we have no schedule.  But the seed is planted, and we continue to research boats, so we will be ready when the time comes.  So it was with this background that we went to the New Orleans Boat Show on our day off when we were deployed there with the Red Cross.

It was a small show, owing partly to the fact that New Orleans never hosts as big a show as, say, Miami or Seattle, but also to the fact that New Orleans is still recovering from Katrina, and there are fewer people, fewer still buying boats, and the convention center had only just reopened perhaps ten percent of its available space.  Given the size of the show, we gravitated immediately to the largest boats on the floor, one of which was a Tiara Sovran 4000, showcasing a new propulsion system from Volvo-Penta.  The boat had just been sold, and was closed to visitors, but the salesman was impressed with our seriousness and arranged for us to go aboard (even as the brand-new owners were enjoying a celebratory bottle of champagne).  The live-aboard capabilities seemed a bit lacking, but we were intrigued by the whizzy Volvo IPS propulsion.

To bring the story full circle, it is exactly this model of boat that our friend Martin now owns, and the fact that we were thinking quite seriously along these lines provided additional incentive to get us aboard for a cruise.  I should add here that this boat is a serious coastal cruiser or island hopper, and is not actually capable of ocean crossing, so a boat of this type would have to be deck-freighted between continents.  After spending a full day aboard, a good portion of it planing along at 20 knots, we have shifted our thinking back towards full-displacement boats with greater range, more comfortable accommodations, and greater blue-water safety -- we're never in that much of a hurry.  We'll use a jet-boat for a dinghy if we feel the need for speed!

Long post.  If you've read this far, you must be an old salt...

Kirk Creek Campground, along scenic Pacific Coast Highway.

A snag in the works...

We are back at the San Jose Elks lodge for a few days.  We spent Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Fremont lodge (map), dealing with doctors in Milpitas.  One of those doctors was my dentist, and I will have to return this Wednesday to have a cavity filled -- I absolutely detest dental work.  That also gave us the opportunity to eat at the Olive Garden across the street, and, frankly, the Fremont lodge is better kept and has more attractive surroundings.  It also has a dump station, and they only charge $12 per night for their spaces with electric and water hookups, 2/3 of the rate here in San Jose.

The advantage of San Jose is that the light rail station and the CalTrain station are a short walk away, and, since we had plans in downtown San Jose Friday night, I moved Odyssey back here Friday afternoon.  Coming down I-880 in the usual bay area traffic slog a huge rock hit the windshield -- Crack! -- and I ended up with a volcano/star combination a good inch and a half in diameter.  Fortunately, it is not in my field of vision, but it's a bad break and I am concerned that it may spread into a windshield-eating crack.  As soon as I was parked in San Jose I called the glass insurance people for our DiamonFusion warranty, and they are sending Safelite out this afternoon to see if the damage can be repaired.  I hope so, because, warranty or not, I really don't want to go through the hassle of replacing the windshield again.

We were hoping to leave the bay area Thursday, after my Wednesday dental appointment and a quick visit with our friend Martin Wednesday evening.  Alas, it is not to be.  All three pets went in to the vet yesterday for shots and checkups, and Opal was to have her teeth cleaned.  Unfortunately, her blood work revealed an elevated bilirubin level, and the vet did not want to put her under.  So she is on a course of antibiotics for a week, and the cleaning has been rescheduled for next Monday.  The doctor also wants us to stick around for a full day afterwards, so it looks like we will be leaving here next Wednesday morning at the earliest, nearly a full week later than we had hoped.