I am giving away a gently used Givi motorcycle tank bag. However, rather than do that here on Our Odyssey, I asked my friend Crystal to post it on her blog. Girlbike is all about "embracing two wheels for everyday transportation," and reaches a wider audience of women scooter and motorcycle riders.
If you would like a chance to win the Givi bag, scoot on over to Girlbike and follow the instructions. You don't have to be a girl to enter, but you probably should be a two-wheeled enthusiast.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Farewell, Aquarius, and we thank you.
We are at a Sam's Club in Texas City (map). Our GPS told us there was a Wal-Mart here, and clearly there used to be, but it is closed. That's OK -- the Sam's Club is still open, and its parking lot was even more convenient to the Olive Garden, where we went for dinner, natch.
On the subject of the GPS being incorrect about the Wal-Mart, it was similarly incorrect about the three Wal-Marts north of here along I-45. We did pass three enormous and new Wal-Marts, but each was half a mile or so from where the GPS thought one would be. After decades of recessive slump, the Houston metropolitan area is again experiencing explosive growth, and Wal-Mart (along with other merchants) is upgrading its stores at a blistering pace to follow suit.
We left the Wal-Mart on Westheimer mid-day yesterday, bound for Galveston. Considering it's only an hour or so to Galveston from Houston, you'd think we'd be there by now, except we stopped on our way out of town to run some errands. The first of those was a stop at Goodwill to drop off two huge boxes of stuff, a more-or-less continuous process when you live in 300 square feet.
The other stop was at a scooter store. I haven't been blogging about it here, but I have been looking at scooters for myself since Louise made the decision to sell her SV650. We had stopped at a Vento dealer, but all their models were too tall for Odyssey's bays, and I came very close to making a deal at the Yamaha dealer in Houston on a Vino 125, but we couldn't connect the numbers.
So, I hear you ask, why would anyone in his right mind trade in an SV650 on a scooter? And what's the rush? Well, since you asked: We've had the SV650's for four years. We bought them specifically because they fit in the bay, and were light enough to push in and out, yet sturdy enough, powerful enough, and comfortable for all-day riding and maybe even some weekend-type touring. We had even invested a good deal of time and money in them to make them suitable for long tours, with custom-fitted Rick Mayer saddles (highly recommended -- do the "ride-in" service as we did), throw-over tour saddlebags, and bolt-on windscreens.
The reality of life aboard Odyssey has turned out somewhat differently than we anticipated when we bought the SVs. Before we hit the road, we imagined ourselves parking in some beautiful and remote spot for a couple weeks, taking out the bikes, setting things up so that the dog could do her business in our absence (this would involve, essentially, a "litter box" in the now-empty motorcycle bay, which she could access through the tunnel behind the driver seats), and loading up the bikes for a one, two, or three-day ride. We even kept all our compact camping gear for the purpose -- I have a miniature stove, lantern, cook set, etc. that we used to use quite often while motorcycle touring. In this model of the universe, we would put perhaps 5,000 miles a year on the bus, and 10,000 miles a year on the bikes.
It has decidedly not worked out that way. In the whole time I've owned the SV650, I've put less than 6,000 miles on it. And 2,000 of that was riding from Fort Wayne, IN, where I picked it up (it was an eBay purchase), to San Jose, CA, where we were living. We seem to be constantly on the move in Odyssey, heading to scheduled events, or to family visits, or to Red Cross assignments. Staying put for even a week at a time is a treat, and the longest we stay anyplace is a few weeks (or months) on a Red Cross job, where we're not allowed to use personal vehicles anyway. Getting the big SV650s in and out of the bay, at close to 400 lbs. each, was more work than we wanted to do for a stop of only a day or two. On top of which, we never drink and ride, and so we go out of our way to use public transit, or just our two feet, to get to dinner -- the place we are most likely to want to go when we only park for a night or two.
So the upshot of all this is that Louise's new Honda Metropolitan scooter (photo in this post) has seen more use than my motorcycle since she bought it. It's easier to get in and out of the bay, even single-handed, and it's just plain more convenient for scooting around the campground (to get to the iron ranger a mile away, for example), or running to the store for a quart of milk. The Honda, though, just can't carry two people -- no rear seat or footpegs, the suspension bottoms out, and the 49cc motor is too anemic to accelerate in traffic with 300 lbs on the seat.
To make a long story even longer, I've been thinking that two scooters would get more use and be more practical than one scooter and one motorcycle. For one thing, we can't really ride these two vastly different machines "together" the way we rode when we had two identical bikes. So we were limited to exploring one at a time on the scooter, or gearing up for two-up riding on the Suzi, which has some comfort issues of its own on the back seat -- the fancy butt-molded seat is only in the front.
What finally sealed the deal for me, though, was seeing how badly damaged Penelope got from lack of use and improper storage, and how little we got for it when we sold it. I resolved not to allow Aquarius to suffer the same fate. If I was going to replace it with a scooter, I wanted to sell it while it was still in good shape, where someone else will get some real pleasure from it.
So I've been looking around at scooters, with the idea that I would put Aquarius up for sale, likely on Craig's List and eBay, and, once sold, pick up a gently used scooter. And we had very specific requirements for the scooter: It had to be freeway-legal -- we felt we should have at least one vehicle we could ride anywhere, unlike the Honda. It had to have a real passenger seat and pegs, so we could legally ride it together, as the only freeway-legal bike. And, of course, it had to fit in the bay and be light enough to push it in and out.
These requirements actually limit the field considerably. After the small 50cc models, which are out on the freeway legal (and often two-up) grounds, displacement jumps up to 125-150cc, and the next jump is to 250cc. The 250's are all too heavy, and most too large, to go into the bay. That left the 125-150 models, most of which are simply too tall for the bay due to tupperware above the handlebars.
That left a number of vintage-era scooters, and a handful of modern choices: the Yamaha Vino 125, the Kymco People 150, and a number of mainland-Chinese no-name knock-offs. The Chinese knock-offs, while ridiculously cheap, have a very bad reputation among their owners, and parts and service are difficult, if not impossible, to find. I was pretty much resolved to getting the Vino, on the grounds that Yamaha has service everywhere, even though it was a bit underpowered and I didn't really care for the styling. But yesterday we decided to stop at the Kymco dealer, just to look at a People 150.
They had only one left in stock, which was mint green ("Vintage Green," according to Kymco). Not anyone's best color, and clearly they were having trouble moving it. It was a slow day, we had a young and eager salesman, and in a very low-pressure, casual sort of way, we managed to craft a deal wherein I paid nearly the list price on a brand new, 2007 scooter, while he gave me my $2,200 asking price on the SV650. Considering the SV badly needs a carb cleaning and/or adjustment, and/or possibly new plugs (a fact which I did disclose) and that it has scratches on the bodywork from where the windshield fell down and started rubbing one day while underway in the bus, I counted myself lucky. He probably counted himself lucky for getting rid of the mint-green scooter at only $200 off list.
So I am now the proud owner of a mint green, 2007 Kymco People 150 scooter. I like it -- it's zippy, it has 16" wheels (appealing to the MSF-geek in me), and it appears to be comfortable for two (time will tell). It fits in the bay -- barely, with the top of the tupperware just clearing the center of the bay by millimeters. And the color is growing on me. I'll try to get a photo posted on here soon.
But I already miss Aquarius, and the quote from Joe Kerwin I used for today's title is heartfelt. And as Jim Lovell said -- she was a good ship.
On the subject of the GPS being incorrect about the Wal-Mart, it was similarly incorrect about the three Wal-Marts north of here along I-45. We did pass three enormous and new Wal-Marts, but each was half a mile or so from where the GPS thought one would be. After decades of recessive slump, the Houston metropolitan area is again experiencing explosive growth, and Wal-Mart (along with other merchants) is upgrading its stores at a blistering pace to follow suit.
We left the Wal-Mart on Westheimer mid-day yesterday, bound for Galveston. Considering it's only an hour or so to Galveston from Houston, you'd think we'd be there by now, except we stopped on our way out of town to run some errands. The first of those was a stop at Goodwill to drop off two huge boxes of stuff, a more-or-less continuous process when you live in 300 square feet.
The other stop was at a scooter store. I haven't been blogging about it here, but I have been looking at scooters for myself since Louise made the decision to sell her SV650. We had stopped at a Vento dealer, but all their models were too tall for Odyssey's bays, and I came very close to making a deal at the Yamaha dealer in Houston on a Vino 125, but we couldn't connect the numbers.
So, I hear you ask, why would anyone in his right mind trade in an SV650 on a scooter? And what's the rush? Well, since you asked: We've had the SV650's for four years. We bought them specifically because they fit in the bay, and were light enough to push in and out, yet sturdy enough, powerful enough, and comfortable for all-day riding and maybe even some weekend-type touring. We had even invested a good deal of time and money in them to make them suitable for long tours, with custom-fitted Rick Mayer saddles (highly recommended -- do the "ride-in" service as we did), throw-over tour saddlebags, and bolt-on windscreens.
The reality of life aboard Odyssey has turned out somewhat differently than we anticipated when we bought the SVs. Before we hit the road, we imagined ourselves parking in some beautiful and remote spot for a couple weeks, taking out the bikes, setting things up so that the dog could do her business in our absence (this would involve, essentially, a "litter box" in the now-empty motorcycle bay, which she could access through the tunnel behind the driver seats), and loading up the bikes for a one, two, or three-day ride. We even kept all our compact camping gear for the purpose -- I have a miniature stove, lantern, cook set, etc. that we used to use quite often while motorcycle touring. In this model of the universe, we would put perhaps 5,000 miles a year on the bus, and 10,000 miles a year on the bikes.
It has decidedly not worked out that way. In the whole time I've owned the SV650, I've put less than 6,000 miles on it. And 2,000 of that was riding from Fort Wayne, IN, where I picked it up (it was an eBay purchase), to San Jose, CA, where we were living. We seem to be constantly on the move in Odyssey, heading to scheduled events, or to family visits, or to Red Cross assignments. Staying put for even a week at a time is a treat, and the longest we stay anyplace is a few weeks (or months) on a Red Cross job, where we're not allowed to use personal vehicles anyway. Getting the big SV650s in and out of the bay, at close to 400 lbs. each, was more work than we wanted to do for a stop of only a day or two. On top of which, we never drink and ride, and so we go out of our way to use public transit, or just our two feet, to get to dinner -- the place we are most likely to want to go when we only park for a night or two.
So the upshot of all this is that Louise's new Honda Metropolitan scooter (photo in this post) has seen more use than my motorcycle since she bought it. It's easier to get in and out of the bay, even single-handed, and it's just plain more convenient for scooting around the campground (to get to the iron ranger a mile away, for example), or running to the store for a quart of milk. The Honda, though, just can't carry two people -- no rear seat or footpegs, the suspension bottoms out, and the 49cc motor is too anemic to accelerate in traffic with 300 lbs on the seat.
To make a long story even longer, I've been thinking that two scooters would get more use and be more practical than one scooter and one motorcycle. For one thing, we can't really ride these two vastly different machines "together" the way we rode when we had two identical bikes. So we were limited to exploring one at a time on the scooter, or gearing up for two-up riding on the Suzi, which has some comfort issues of its own on the back seat -- the fancy butt-molded seat is only in the front.
What finally sealed the deal for me, though, was seeing how badly damaged Penelope got from lack of use and improper storage, and how little we got for it when we sold it. I resolved not to allow Aquarius to suffer the same fate. If I was going to replace it with a scooter, I wanted to sell it while it was still in good shape, where someone else will get some real pleasure from it.
So I've been looking around at scooters, with the idea that I would put Aquarius up for sale, likely on Craig's List and eBay, and, once sold, pick up a gently used scooter. And we had very specific requirements for the scooter: It had to be freeway-legal -- we felt we should have at least one vehicle we could ride anywhere, unlike the Honda. It had to have a real passenger seat and pegs, so we could legally ride it together, as the only freeway-legal bike. And, of course, it had to fit in the bay and be light enough to push it in and out.
These requirements actually limit the field considerably. After the small 50cc models, which are out on the freeway legal (and often two-up) grounds, displacement jumps up to 125-150cc, and the next jump is to 250cc. The 250's are all too heavy, and most too large, to go into the bay. That left the 125-150 models, most of which are simply too tall for the bay due to tupperware above the handlebars.
That left a number of vintage-era scooters, and a handful of modern choices: the Yamaha Vino 125, the Kymco People 150, and a number of mainland-Chinese no-name knock-offs. The Chinese knock-offs, while ridiculously cheap, have a very bad reputation among their owners, and parts and service are difficult, if not impossible, to find. I was pretty much resolved to getting the Vino, on the grounds that Yamaha has service everywhere, even though it was a bit underpowered and I didn't really care for the styling. But yesterday we decided to stop at the Kymco dealer, just to look at a People 150.
They had only one left in stock, which was mint green ("Vintage Green," according to Kymco). Not anyone's best color, and clearly they were having trouble moving it. It was a slow day, we had a young and eager salesman, and in a very low-pressure, casual sort of way, we managed to craft a deal wherein I paid nearly the list price on a brand new, 2007 scooter, while he gave me my $2,200 asking price on the SV650. Considering the SV badly needs a carb cleaning and/or adjustment, and/or possibly new plugs (a fact which I did disclose) and that it has scratches on the bodywork from where the windshield fell down and started rubbing one day while underway in the bus, I counted myself lucky. He probably counted himself lucky for getting rid of the mint-green scooter at only $200 off list.
So I am now the proud owner of a mint green, 2007 Kymco People 150 scooter. I like it -- it's zippy, it has 16" wheels (appealing to the MSF-geek in me), and it appears to be comfortable for two (time will tell). It fits in the bay -- barely, with the top of the tupperware just clearing the center of the bay by millimeters. And the color is growing on me. I'll try to get a photo posted on here soon.
But I already miss Aquarius, and the quote from Joe Kerwin I used for today's title is heartfelt. And as Jim Lovell said -- she was a good ship.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Let's not get testy...
We are at a Wal-Mart off Westheimer Road in southwest Houston (map). We're here because we made dinner reservations at one of our clubs last night, the Houston City Club, and the mapping software said this was the closest Wal-Mart. Interestingly, it's the exact same place we stayed 18 months ago for the same purpose, even though that stay was for a different club. We learned last night that the club we visited then, the University Club, has since closed. They were in the Galleria Mall and apparently could not get a suitable renewal on their lease. In any case, one of the things we remembered from that stay was easy access to transit from here, and we were able to get to dinner easily last night on a single bus, although returning required a transfer. $2 buys you a 24-hour bus pass here, which is a great deal.
Now that we're completely done in Houston, we're a bit adrift -- we want to remain in the southeast for the rest of hurricane season, but we have no specific destination or plans on the agenda. Cooler temperatures to the north are tempting, to get us out of the heat and humidity here, but that seems like a lot of "wasted" driving if we will just end up back on the gulf coast anyway. There is a nice state park on Galveston Island, where we can get power for the air conditioners, and jump in the gulf waters for a refreshing swim, and perhaps we'll spend a few days there while we watch Karen and Melissa to see if either will become a landfall storm.
That concludes today's update, however I am going to use my bully pulpit here to respond to a comment posted yesterday. Apparently, I offended a reader, or at least bruised his Texas pride, with my comments about Traders Village. The comment torqued Louise so much that she also responded, in the comments section.
First off, I'd like to point out that I did not actually make any "negative comments" about the flea market -- I simply used the word "thankfully" when describing the fact that our visit did not overlap with it. And one of the key reasons we are thankful is that we did not have to compete with flea market traffic either on our way in or way out of the RV park -- it's very clear from the layout of the roadways and position of the "toll booths" (which we had to transit each way) where they collect the entrance/parking fees for the event that we would have had some issues with this. Now that's hardly a commentary on the quality of the event.
But more importantly, whether or not the event is high quality for a flea market, as, apparently, both the Chronicle and Business Journal opine, the simple fact is that we detest flea markets. Now, if that fact offends you, perhaps you're reading the wrong blog. But, c'mon -- if you told me you couldn't stand Chinese food, it would be sort of foolish of me to rant at you that a particular Chinese restaurant was the best in town, and how dare you disparage it.
I did make rather negative comments about the RV park, which I said was "depressing." Nevertheless, you will note that we stayed four nights, so clearly we found value in it. If you've been following along with us here for any length of time, you will know our parking preferences: ideally, we'll be someplace where we can't see or hear any other rigs. Good places are some of the federal and state lands where there is a good 30' or more of separation between sites, typically with some sort of vegetation to provide additional separation. This isn't because we're anti-social (although perhaps we are, to a degree) -- we're happy to sit around in the picnic pavilion with you, drinking wine and telling war stories. It's because Odyssey is our home, not a recreational toy, and, when we retire for the evening, we value our privacy. Having a rig on either side only six feet away is definitely not conducive to privacy -- the blinds need to be completely closed after dark, which means no windows open for fresh air, etc.
Now, we do occasionally stay at truck stops, where there are rigs even closer than this on both sides (albeit generally without windows looking in on us), and plenty of random parking lots. And I'm not on here posting about the lack of privacy there. But neither are they charging us $30 per night for the privilege. And, frankly, we find Wal-Mart to actually be more private than this sort of side-by-side RV park -- the cars are too low to see inside, and it is rare indeed for another rig to come in and park right alongside us. So I stand by my remarks -- the RV park was great, inasmuch as it was where we needed it to be and had the electric power we needed for this visit. But, absent a pressing reason to be there, it is not the sort of place in which we would choose to while away our time.
Now that we're completely done in Houston, we're a bit adrift -- we want to remain in the southeast for the rest of hurricane season, but we have no specific destination or plans on the agenda. Cooler temperatures to the north are tempting, to get us out of the heat and humidity here, but that seems like a lot of "wasted" driving if we will just end up back on the gulf coast anyway. There is a nice state park on Galveston Island, where we can get power for the air conditioners, and jump in the gulf waters for a refreshing swim, and perhaps we'll spend a few days there while we watch Karen and Melissa to see if either will become a landfall storm.
That concludes today's update, however I am going to use my bully pulpit here to respond to a comment posted yesterday. Apparently, I offended a reader, or at least bruised his Texas pride, with my comments about Traders Village. The comment torqued Louise so much that she also responded, in the comments section.
First off, I'd like to point out that I did not actually make any "negative comments" about the flea market -- I simply used the word "thankfully" when describing the fact that our visit did not overlap with it. And one of the key reasons we are thankful is that we did not have to compete with flea market traffic either on our way in or way out of the RV park -- it's very clear from the layout of the roadways and position of the "toll booths" (which we had to transit each way) where they collect the entrance/parking fees for the event that we would have had some issues with this. Now that's hardly a commentary on the quality of the event.
But more importantly, whether or not the event is high quality for a flea market, as, apparently, both the Chronicle and Business Journal opine, the simple fact is that we detest flea markets. Now, if that fact offends you, perhaps you're reading the wrong blog. But, c'mon -- if you told me you couldn't stand Chinese food, it would be sort of foolish of me to rant at you that a particular Chinese restaurant was the best in town, and how dare you disparage it.
I did make rather negative comments about the RV park, which I said was "depressing." Nevertheless, you will note that we stayed four nights, so clearly we found value in it. If you've been following along with us here for any length of time, you will know our parking preferences: ideally, we'll be someplace where we can't see or hear any other rigs. Good places are some of the federal and state lands where there is a good 30' or more of separation between sites, typically with some sort of vegetation to provide additional separation. This isn't because we're anti-social (although perhaps we are, to a degree) -- we're happy to sit around in the picnic pavilion with you, drinking wine and telling war stories. It's because Odyssey is our home, not a recreational toy, and, when we retire for the evening, we value our privacy. Having a rig on either side only six feet away is definitely not conducive to privacy -- the blinds need to be completely closed after dark, which means no windows open for fresh air, etc.
Now, we do occasionally stay at truck stops, where there are rigs even closer than this on both sides (albeit generally without windows looking in on us), and plenty of random parking lots. And I'm not on here posting about the lack of privacy there. But neither are they charging us $30 per night for the privilege. And, frankly, we find Wal-Mart to actually be more private than this sort of side-by-side RV park -- the cars are too low to see inside, and it is rare indeed for another rig to come in and park right alongside us. So I stand by my remarks -- the RV park was great, inasmuch as it was where we needed it to be and had the electric power we needed for this visit. But, absent a pressing reason to be there, it is not the sort of place in which we would choose to while away our time.
Small Space Saturday: Earphones
On Saturdays I write about strategies for living in 300 square feet
Sean and I rarely watch TV together. Usually if he is watching one of his programs, I am surfing the Internet or reading.
I'm not one of those people who can read with the sound distraction of a TV in the background. So, Sean has a very comfortable, high fidelity pair of earphones that he uses. With an adapter, he can also use the headphones to listen to music or watch videos on his computer. If we each want to listen to different music, one of us wears the headphones and the other uses the speakers.
It is important that the headphones are high quality so that Sean can use them all evening, even if I go to bed early. They don't pinch his ears, are very light weight, and don't distort the sound. The model he uses is Sony's MDR-CD180, which was highly recommended by Consumer Reports when he bought them 5-6 years ago.
I am grateful that we found an easy way for me to have quiet evenings. In all the full-timer discussions I've read, I've never heard anyone else mention an arrangement like this. Maybe most folks watch all the same TV programs together, or they don't mind the background drone. Maybe I'm the only really picky listener. In any case, this setup works very well for us and has kept peace in our living room for the three years we've been full-timing.
Sean and I rarely watch TV together. Usually if he is watching one of his programs, I am surfing the Internet or reading.
I'm not one of those people who can read with the sound distraction of a TV in the background. So, Sean has a very comfortable, high fidelity pair of earphones that he uses. With an adapter, he can also use the headphones to listen to music or watch videos on his computer. If we each want to listen to different music, one of us wears the headphones and the other uses the speakers.
It is important that the headphones are high quality so that Sean can use them all evening, even if I go to bed early. They don't pinch his ears, are very light weight, and don't distort the sound. The model he uses is Sony's MDR-CD180, which was highly recommended by Consumer Reports when he bought them 5-6 years ago.
I am grateful that we found an easy way for me to have quiet evenings. In all the full-timer discussions I've read, I've never heard anyone else mention an arrangement like this. Maybe most folks watch all the same TV programs together, or they don't mind the background drone. Maybe I'm the only really picky listener. In any case, this setup works very well for us and has kept peace in our living room for the three years we've been full-timing.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Wrapping up in Houston -- Farewell, Penelope
Wow, Louise has managed to post three times here since my last update...
Tonight is our fourth and last night at the Traders Village RV Park (map), a depressing place in the northwest corner of Houston. Its principle draw for us is that it's just a few miles from Louise's brother's house (the closest campground, actually), and it offers 50 amp power to run as many of our air conditioners as we need. During the day that's been two and sometimes three, while at night we've managed with only one. The spaces here, at least in the transient area, are perhaps 16' wide (meaning there's a rig 6-8' on either side of us), while most of the park is full of long-long-term renters. And the park is attached to a giant lot that holds a weekly flea market (hence "Traders Village"), which, thankfully, we will avoid entirely by containing our stay to the weekdays.
The prime impetus for us coming to Houston had been to deal with the motorcycle we left here last September, on our way to Mexico. And dealt with it has been, although it was sad. Not only from the standpoint of saying goodbye to Penelope, but also in regard to her disposition. The bike had quit running even before we left it here, likely due to varnish in the carbs -- a sad commentary, actually, on how little riding we'd been doing. And we were rather rushed when we dropped it off. And we really did not have a clue that it would take us a full year to return here -- I think we had in mind that we would swing back shortly after returning to the states from Mexico, perhaps in a month or two, an event that was preempted by much more serious issues.
In any case, to make a long story short, we did not make proper preparations for long-term storage of Penelope, particularly in the extreme and humid climate of Houston, and, in the intervening year, the fuel tank rusted on the inside. We had hoped that we'd be able to get her running again with a quick cleaning of the carbs and a tune-up, but the discovery of rust in the tank meant a much larger investment would be required, possibly to include a new tank and maybe even a fuel pump. Rather than pump cash into it in the hopes of getting a fair return at sale, we sold her to a local dealer for barely enough to buy Odyssey half a tank of diesel. But the deal is done, and we no longer have to fret about how we are going to take care of the problem. Farewell, Penelope.
In other news, Opal continues to recover nicely (and thanks to everyone who has inquired). She's mostly off the pain meds now, though she continues on antibiotics to guard against infection of the incision. From underneath she rather resembles a football, with the 10" or so incision carefully laced up. We spoke to the vet yesterday, who reports that the labs on the spleen sections came back with no sign of cancer. He did say there were signs of congestive heart problems (how can they tell from the spleen?), but that concerns us much less -- it's a very long-term problem, and means she will likely go peacefully and painlessly in her sleep some day. We are very relieved that there is no cancer evident in the abdominal organs,
We've been spotted here by at least two sets of our regular readers (so, perhaps, I should have been more circumspect in my opening comments). Jon and Betty are apparently local and spotted Odyssey here when they dropped by to dump their tanks, evidently while we were out and about. (Sorry we missed you.) On the other hand, readers Ed and Clyda happened to be parked just two rows away from us, also visiting family in the area, and we arranged to meet this afternoon for a pleasant chat after they contacted us by email. (Nice to meet you!)
Tomorrow we will pack up and roll out of here by the 11am checkout, although we may not get far. We're going to see if we can arrange dinner at one of our affiliate clubs here in Houston, an affair that will require us to move to someplace within easier reach of the club. After that, things are a bit fuzzy -- we'll likely head east.
Tonight is our fourth and last night at the Traders Village RV Park (map), a depressing place in the northwest corner of Houston. Its principle draw for us is that it's just a few miles from Louise's brother's house (the closest campground, actually), and it offers 50 amp power to run as many of our air conditioners as we need. During the day that's been two and sometimes three, while at night we've managed with only one. The spaces here, at least in the transient area, are perhaps 16' wide (meaning there's a rig 6-8' on either side of us), while most of the park is full of long-long-term renters. And the park is attached to a giant lot that holds a weekly flea market (hence "Traders Village"), which, thankfully, we will avoid entirely by containing our stay to the weekdays.
The prime impetus for us coming to Houston had been to deal with the motorcycle we left here last September, on our way to Mexico. And dealt with it has been, although it was sad. Not only from the standpoint of saying goodbye to Penelope, but also in regard to her disposition. The bike had quit running even before we left it here, likely due to varnish in the carbs -- a sad commentary, actually, on how little riding we'd been doing. And we were rather rushed when we dropped it off. And we really did not have a clue that it would take us a full year to return here -- I think we had in mind that we would swing back shortly after returning to the states from Mexico, perhaps in a month or two, an event that was preempted by much more serious issues.
In any case, to make a long story short, we did not make proper preparations for long-term storage of Penelope, particularly in the extreme and humid climate of Houston, and, in the intervening year, the fuel tank rusted on the inside. We had hoped that we'd be able to get her running again with a quick cleaning of the carbs and a tune-up, but the discovery of rust in the tank meant a much larger investment would be required, possibly to include a new tank and maybe even a fuel pump. Rather than pump cash into it in the hopes of getting a fair return at sale, we sold her to a local dealer for barely enough to buy Odyssey half a tank of diesel. But the deal is done, and we no longer have to fret about how we are going to take care of the problem. Farewell, Penelope.
In other news, Opal continues to recover nicely (and thanks to everyone who has inquired). She's mostly off the pain meds now, though she continues on antibiotics to guard against infection of the incision. From underneath she rather resembles a football, with the 10" or so incision carefully laced up. We spoke to the vet yesterday, who reports that the labs on the spleen sections came back with no sign of cancer. He did say there were signs of congestive heart problems (how can they tell from the spleen?), but that concerns us much less -- it's a very long-term problem, and means she will likely go peacefully and painlessly in her sleep some day. We are very relieved that there is no cancer evident in the abdominal organs,
We've been spotted here by at least two sets of our regular readers (so, perhaps, I should have been more circumspect in my opening comments). Jon and Betty are apparently local and spotted Odyssey here when they dropped by to dump their tanks, evidently while we were out and about. (Sorry we missed you.) On the other hand, readers Ed and Clyda happened to be parked just two rows away from us, also visiting family in the area, and we arranged to meet this afternoon for a pleasant chat after they contacted us by email. (Nice to meet you!)
Tomorrow we will pack up and roll out of here by the 11am checkout, although we may not get far. We're going to see if we can arrange dinner at one of our affiliate clubs here in Houston, an affair that will require us to move to someplace within easier reach of the club. After that, things are a bit fuzzy -- we'll likely head east.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday Tips: Put it where you use it
Thursday is tip day.
Okay, this one is probably going to fall into the "Well, duh!" category, but here goes: When deciding where to store things in your RV, put them close to where you will use them. Not rocket science, right?
Because a rig is so small compared to most homes, it is tempting to think that you can put things just anywhere they fit because it isn't very far from anywhere else. And sometimes you are forced to use a compartment in the wrong area because that is the only one big enough to fit the item.
But there are still advantages to putting stuff where you need it. For one thing, it minimizes the number of times you and your spouse must cross paths in the kitchen. Because that's they way it works: if you are walking back to the bedroom to get your umbrella, that will be when hubby is coming into the driver's area to get his socks. And you'll do that RV Rumba to get around each other. You know, the dance where somebody's toes get stepped on?
And umbrellas are a good example of an item that you want right by the door rather than 10 paces inside. If you need an umbrella, it's probably raining and muddy, so why step back inside and track the mess through your living room? We keep winter hats, a flashlight, and the binoculars by the front door. There is a shoe storage area for wet, muddy footwear. There's also a little box full of baggies, so it is easy to grab a few when walking Opal. Her leash stays by the baggies so when we reach for one we don't forget the other.
Take a moment to think about what you do to get ready to leave the RV. Do you walk back and forth, gathering items? Would a coat hook near the door help? Everybody needs a place to toss keys, purse, sunglasses: are yours all in one spot or spread across three surfaces?
How about when you get ready to clean? Do you have to go outside to a basement bay to get the cleansers? Do you store everything you need to dump your tanks right near the valves? For such a tiresome chore, it should be as painless as possible to gather your tools.
Anytime a task finds you walking back and forth, forth and back through the rig is a good time to stop and think if a simple rearrangement makes sense.
One thing that I do every single day is make coffee. My coffeemaker, filters, and ground coffee stay on the counter all the time. The wafflemaker can hide in the back of the cabinet because we use it rarely. For months I opened the cabinet, pulled out the drawer, bent over, scooped out coffee, rummaged around for a coffee filter, etc. Then I had my "Well, duh!" moment and put it all in pretty canisters on the counter.
Remember, "efficient" is just "lazy" with better marketing.
Okay, this one is probably going to fall into the "Well, duh!" category, but here goes: When deciding where to store things in your RV, put them close to where you will use them. Not rocket science, right?
Because a rig is so small compared to most homes, it is tempting to think that you can put things just anywhere they fit because it isn't very far from anywhere else. And sometimes you are forced to use a compartment in the wrong area because that is the only one big enough to fit the item.
But there are still advantages to putting stuff where you need it. For one thing, it minimizes the number of times you and your spouse must cross paths in the kitchen. Because that's they way it works: if you are walking back to the bedroom to get your umbrella, that will be when hubby is coming into the driver's area to get his socks. And you'll do that RV Rumba to get around each other. You know, the dance where somebody's toes get stepped on?
And umbrellas are a good example of an item that you want right by the door rather than 10 paces inside. If you need an umbrella, it's probably raining and muddy, so why step back inside and track the mess through your living room? We keep winter hats, a flashlight, and the binoculars by the front door. There is a shoe storage area for wet, muddy footwear. There's also a little box full of baggies, so it is easy to grab a few when walking Opal. Her leash stays by the baggies so when we reach for one we don't forget the other.
Take a moment to think about what you do to get ready to leave the RV. Do you walk back and forth, gathering items? Would a coat hook near the door help? Everybody needs a place to toss keys, purse, sunglasses: are yours all in one spot or spread across three surfaces?
How about when you get ready to clean? Do you have to go outside to a basement bay to get the cleansers? Do you store everything you need to dump your tanks right near the valves? For such a tiresome chore, it should be as painless as possible to gather your tools.
Anytime a task finds you walking back and forth, forth and back through the rig is a good time to stop and think if a simple rearrangement makes sense.
One thing that I do every single day is make coffee. My coffeemaker, filters, and ground coffee stay on the counter all the time. The wafflemaker can hide in the back of the cabinet because we use it rarely. For months I opened the cabinet, pulled out the drawer, bent over, scooped out coffee, rummaged around for a coffee filter, etc. Then I had my "Well, duh!" moment and put it all in pretty canisters on the counter.
Remember, "efficient" is just "lazy" with better marketing.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Website Wednesday: Reducing Clutter
On Wednesdays I write about websites that I visit often.
I believe strongly that one of the keys to living happily in an RV is to keep clutter to a minimum. I like things to be neat and organized, and I also like to read about how other people simplify their homes and offices.
Here are a few of the websites that I enjoy on this topic.
Unclutterer
Neat and Simple
Psychology of Clutter
Zen Habits
I'm always interested in other blogs and articles about clutter and simplification. If you know of a good site, please let me know in the comments. If the thought of reading tips to reduce clutter gives you hives, feel free to submit squalor sites.
I believe strongly that one of the keys to living happily in an RV is to keep clutter to a minimum. I like things to be neat and organized, and I also like to read about how other people simplify their homes and offices.
Here are a few of the websites that I enjoy on this topic.
Unclutterer
"Unclutterer is the website for home and office organization. It's not just for the helplessly disorganized who would lose their head if it wasn't attached to them, and pack rats looking to put their stashes on a diet, but also for obsessive compulsive neat freaks looking to squeeze even more order into their lives. We hope we can make getting and staying organized fun and informative."
Neat and Simple
Clarify Priorities
Let Go of Clutter
Acquire Less
Simplify More
Organize what You Hase
Develop Self-Care
Live a Life You LOVE!
Psychology of Clutter
"This blog is designed to help people organize their lives and the disruption caused by chaos and clutter. Chaos and clutter can be literal, such as physical stuff, or it can be emotional, such as negative thoughts, emotions and relationships."
Zen Habits
"Zen Habits covers: achieving goals, productivity, being organized, GTD, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits."
I'm always interested in other blogs and articles about clutter and simplification. If you know of a good site, please let me know in the comments. If the thought of reading tips to reduce clutter gives you hives, feel free to submit squalor sites.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday Miscellany: Visiting
Monday is the day for miscellaneous topics
Today we are in Houston, visiting my brother and his family. We just had a nice dinner with them (at Olive Garden, where else?) and we have returned to the bus and they to their house. In the next few days, we will spend more time with them but each evening will retreat to our own home.
The folks we visit on our travels seem to fall into two groups: those who want us to park the bus somewhere and stay in their guest rooms, and those who understand that we would prefer to sleep in our own bed.
I think that most of our friends and family that fall into the "guest room" category are genuinely trying to be hospitable. When out of town guests come to visit, they are used to accommodating those guests. The offer of a long, hot shower often features prominently in the invitation. Some, I fear, simply can't imagine that we are comfortable in the bus at all. "Next time you visit, we'll get you out of that thing," said one. Gee, thanks. In either case, they often seem a bit put-out when we decline.
Our preference, though, is to be in our own space with our little menagerie. As lovely as your house is, we're most relaxed when we can stumble out of bed at our own pace, drink our own coffee and generally be as slobby as we want to be. Then you can talk about us after the day is over, and we can talk about you.
Lately I've been saying this to people who don't quite get it: "Don't think of us as guests, think of us as neighbors." And just as you don't need to offer your neighbor a place to sleep, you can let us go home at the end of the evening, too. It won't hurt our feelings; in fact, we prefer it.
Today we are in Houston, visiting my brother and his family. We just had a nice dinner with them (at Olive Garden, where else?) and we have returned to the bus and they to their house. In the next few days, we will spend more time with them but each evening will retreat to our own home.
The folks we visit on our travels seem to fall into two groups: those who want us to park the bus somewhere and stay in their guest rooms, and those who understand that we would prefer to sleep in our own bed.
I think that most of our friends and family that fall into the "guest room" category are genuinely trying to be hospitable. When out of town guests come to visit, they are used to accommodating those guests. The offer of a long, hot shower often features prominently in the invitation. Some, I fear, simply can't imagine that we are comfortable in the bus at all. "Next time you visit, we'll get you out of that thing," said one. Gee, thanks. In either case, they often seem a bit put-out when we decline.
Our preference, though, is to be in our own space with our little menagerie. As lovely as your house is, we're most relaxed when we can stumble out of bed at our own pace, drink our own coffee and generally be as slobby as we want to be. Then you can talk about us after the day is over, and we can talk about you.
Lately I've been saying this to people who don't quite get it: "Don't think of us as guests, think of us as neighbors." And just as you don't need to offer your neighbor a place to sleep, you can let us go home at the end of the evening, too. It won't hurt our feelings; in fact, we prefer it.
Back in air-conditioner-land
We are at Lake Livingston, Texas (map), just a stone's throw from Escapee-central. The state park here is mostly empty, and we had only one other rig with us last night in this particular loop (the furthest from the lake itself).
Actually, we had our pick of any spot in the loop when we arrived, and we started out over in the water-and-electric only spaces, as all we wanted was some power for the AC. But the park is heavily forested, and no matter how I widgeted the coach around, I just couldn't get a straight shot to the satellite. After walking the loop I reckoned (see, talking like a Texan already) we could get on from this full-hookup space, and we did. So we paid $3 extra for a sewer connection that we can't even reach, but worth it to have internet access for the night.
Speaking of extra, Texas charges a $3 per-person entrance fee in addition to camping fees, bringing our total to $24 for the night. Last year we bought a Texas state park pass to avoid the fees, but we barely broke even on it and decided to just pony up every time this year.
We had a lovely drive yesterday. We blasted west out of Shreveport on I-20, but then quickly departed the Interstate onto US79 south into Carthage. From there US59 brought us all the way here, by way of Nacogdoches and Lufkin. US59 will take us all the way to the outskirts of Houston, where we will circle around to the west side of town and find someplace convenient to Louise's family and our long-lost motorcycle.
Actually, we had our pick of any spot in the loop when we arrived, and we started out over in the water-and-electric only spaces, as all we wanted was some power for the AC. But the park is heavily forested, and no matter how I widgeted the coach around, I just couldn't get a straight shot to the satellite. After walking the loop I reckoned (see, talking like a Texan already) we could get on from this full-hookup space, and we did. So we paid $3 extra for a sewer connection that we can't even reach, but worth it to have internet access for the night.
Speaking of extra, Texas charges a $3 per-person entrance fee in addition to camping fees, bringing our total to $24 for the night. Last year we bought a Texas state park pass to avoid the fees, but we barely broke even on it and decided to just pony up every time this year.
We had a lovely drive yesterday. We blasted west out of Shreveport on I-20, but then quickly departed the Interstate onto US79 south into Carthage. From there US59 brought us all the way here, by way of Nacogdoches and Lufkin. US59 will take us all the way to the outskirts of Houston, where we will circle around to the west side of town and find someplace convenient to Louise's family and our long-lost motorcycle.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The LV of LA
We are in Bossier City (rhymes with "closure"), LA, at the Horseshoe Casino on the Red River (map), directly across from Shreveport.
We spent last night at the Wal-Mart a few blocks from the vet's office (map), the very same one where we stayed when we we waiting on United Engine. While we did have a 15-amp outlet at the office, and the doctor did invite us to spend another night, we really needed some supplies, and we had tapped out our dinner options (there were no restaurants we could walk to from there). We did stock up at the Wal-Mart (and I also ran into Home Depot), but we ate dinner at the nearby Applebee's anyway since it was an easy walk.
This morning we dropped back by the office and the tech removed Opal's catheter. They had left it in just in case she needed additional IV hydration, since she was slow to start drinking. I even had them give us a bag of normal saline and a drip kit in case she needed it overnight (she didn't, and I returned it unopened). She's drinking fine now, and is also starting to eat, but only if we tempt her with some leftover steak or cottage cheese. Since all seemed to be progressing this morning, they cleared us to head out of town.
We left Little Rock due south on US167, picking up US79 in Fordyce, US82 north of Magnolia, and finally Louisiana 29 in Lewisville, which brought us all the way to Bossier City. There are five casinos in the Shreveport area, three on the Bossier City side of the river and the other two in Shreveport proper, making this the "Vegas" of Louisiana. Our guides said this one had plenty of free RV parking, which proved correct, and that the others were either limited, prohibited, or fee-for-use. The Horseshoe, part of the gargantuan Harrah's empire, turns out to be pretty nice, with several restaurants. We ate in the Asian-themed Four Winds, which was quite good if a bit overpriced. Thankfully, there was no smoking anywhere inside, except for the casino itself, which is a good ways away, as law dictates it must be floating on the river. (It's actually in a working riverboat, a holdover from previous incarnations of the law, but you wouldn't know it from the inside, and you're not permitted on the weather deck.)
It turns out that there were quite a number of dining choices just a short walk away, at the spectacular Louisiana Boardwalk open-air shopping mall just north of here. It must be fairly new, as the Google satellite imagery shows it only as a series of empty lots. (BTW, you can zoom most of the map links I post down to their tightest setting and see virtually the exact spot in which we've parked, down to a couple of meters. It's quite eerie, actually.) In addition to plenty of just-like-everywhere stores (e.g. KB Toys, Bass Pro Shops), outlets (Guess?, Nike), and mega-chain restaurants (Joe's Crab Shack, Saltgrass Steak House), the mall sports a trolley car running down its main pavilion, a 14-plex cinema, and, of course, a walkway along the river, which is quite lovely and has sweeping views of Shreveport (well, dominated by the Eldorado and Sam's Town casinos). The place was really hopping on a Saturday night.
Tomorrow we will cross the river on the I-20 bridge (our truck atlas says the US79 bridge has a low clearance, although the signs I saw on the bridge while I was below it at the Boardwalk read 14'8") and head towards Carthage, Texas.
We spent last night at the Wal-Mart a few blocks from the vet's office (map), the very same one where we stayed when we we waiting on United Engine. While we did have a 15-amp outlet at the office, and the doctor did invite us to spend another night, we really needed some supplies, and we had tapped out our dinner options (there were no restaurants we could walk to from there). We did stock up at the Wal-Mart (and I also ran into Home Depot), but we ate dinner at the nearby Applebee's anyway since it was an easy walk.
This morning we dropped back by the office and the tech removed Opal's catheter. They had left it in just in case she needed additional IV hydration, since she was slow to start drinking. I even had them give us a bag of normal saline and a drip kit in case she needed it overnight (she didn't, and I returned it unopened). She's drinking fine now, and is also starting to eat, but only if we tempt her with some leftover steak or cottage cheese. Since all seemed to be progressing this morning, they cleared us to head out of town.
We left Little Rock due south on US167, picking up US79 in Fordyce, US82 north of Magnolia, and finally Louisiana 29 in Lewisville, which brought us all the way to Bossier City. There are five casinos in the Shreveport area, three on the Bossier City side of the river and the other two in Shreveport proper, making this the "Vegas" of Louisiana. Our guides said this one had plenty of free RV parking, which proved correct, and that the others were either limited, prohibited, or fee-for-use. The Horseshoe, part of the gargantuan Harrah's empire, turns out to be pretty nice, with several restaurants. We ate in the Asian-themed Four Winds, which was quite good if a bit overpriced. Thankfully, there was no smoking anywhere inside, except for the casino itself, which is a good ways away, as law dictates it must be floating on the river. (It's actually in a working riverboat, a holdover from previous incarnations of the law, but you wouldn't know it from the inside, and you're not permitted on the weather deck.)
It turns out that there were quite a number of dining choices just a short walk away, at the spectacular Louisiana Boardwalk open-air shopping mall just north of here. It must be fairly new, as the Google satellite imagery shows it only as a series of empty lots. (BTW, you can zoom most of the map links I post down to their tightest setting and see virtually the exact spot in which we've parked, down to a couple of meters. It's quite eerie, actually.) In addition to plenty of just-like-everywhere stores (e.g. KB Toys, Bass Pro Shops), outlets (Guess?, Nike), and mega-chain restaurants (Joe's Crab Shack, Saltgrass Steak House), the mall sports a trolley car running down its main pavilion, a 14-plex cinema, and, of course, a walkway along the river, which is quite lovely and has sweeping views of Shreveport (well, dominated by the Eldorado and Sam's Town casinos). The place was really hopping on a Saturday night.
Tomorrow we will cross the river on the I-20 bridge (our truck atlas says the US79 bridge has a low clearance, although the signs I saw on the bridge while I was below it at the Boardwalk read 14'8") and head towards Carthage, Texas.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Fuzzy Friday: No spill water bowl
Every Friday I write about our pets
Opal continues to recover from her surgery, having her first drink of water this afternoon. The vet was concerned that she hadn't had any water or food yet and she spent much of today resting inside the clinic.
As soon as we brought her outside, she immediately relieved herself on the back step of the building. I guess most dogs will eliminate in the kennel when they are on as many painkillers as she is, but Opal had been holding it for several hours.
She then marched up the bus stairs into the kitchen and started to drink out of her no-spill water dish:
Opal shares this bowl with the two cats. The wrap-around lip design really does keep the water from sloshing out of the dish when Odyssey is under way. I had to add non-skid rubber to the bottom to keep it from sliding across the kitchen floor. The bowl is made of a single piece of molded hard plastic and is very durable.
The bowl is easy to wash, but difficult to rinse. After all, it is designed to keep the water in. Once it is full of suds, when Sean* turns it over to pour out the soapy water, he has to shake it and rinse it quite a few times to make sure it rinses clear.
In hindsight, we should have bought this no-spill bowl:
The idea is the same: the lid curves up to control splashing. But in this bowl, the lid is removable, which would make washing and rinsing it much easier. I don't think it holds as much water, however, and the distance from the edge to the center water hold might be harder for the cats to negotiate.
In either case, a spill-proof bowl is an idea that has worked really well for us in our travels. If you have pets and are planning to hit the road, you may want to buy one for them.
*Sean washes all the dishes. How I managed to get out of this tiresome chore is the subject of a different post!
Opal continues to recover from her surgery, having her first drink of water this afternoon. The vet was concerned that she hadn't had any water or food yet and she spent much of today resting inside the clinic.
As soon as we brought her outside, she immediately relieved herself on the back step of the building. I guess most dogs will eliminate in the kennel when they are on as many painkillers as she is, but Opal had been holding it for several hours.
She then marched up the bus stairs into the kitchen and started to drink out of her no-spill water dish:
Opal shares this bowl with the two cats. The wrap-around lip design really does keep the water from sloshing out of the dish when Odyssey is under way. I had to add non-skid rubber to the bottom to keep it from sliding across the kitchen floor. The bowl is made of a single piece of molded hard plastic and is very durable.
The bowl is easy to wash, but difficult to rinse. After all, it is designed to keep the water in. Once it is full of suds, when Sean* turns it over to pour out the soapy water, he has to shake it and rinse it quite a few times to make sure it rinses clear.
In hindsight, we should have bought this no-spill bowl:
The idea is the same: the lid curves up to control splashing. But in this bowl, the lid is removable, which would make washing and rinsing it much easier. I don't think it holds as much water, however, and the distance from the edge to the center water hold might be harder for the cats to negotiate.
In either case, a spill-proof bowl is an idea that has worked really well for us in our travels. If you have pets and are planning to hit the road, you may want to buy one for them.
*Sean washes all the dishes. How I managed to get out of this tiresome chore is the subject of a different post!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Thursday Tips: It never hurts to ask
Every Thursday is tip day.
First of all, I want to reiterate Sean's "thank you" to everyone who sent us comments, emails, phone calls, thoughts and prayers for Opal's successful surgery. It really means a lot to us that folks care about our little dog. She is sleeping off the effects of the surgery now and we are so glad to have her back!
Most RVers know that they can spend the night at many Wal-Marts. Other big-box stores such as Lowe's and K-Mart also allow overnight parking. Their lots are huge, so what does it hurt them? This tip is about asking to stay at much smaller businesses while you are on the road.
If you are a customer, it never hurts to ask permission to stay. Right now we are parked in the very small lot of Cloverdale Animal Hospital. The lot is only about 60ft x 60ft, so Odyssey really stands out here. The clinic is also quite small, with one primary doctor and 4-6 other employees.
When we made the appointment to bring Opal in, I asked over the phone if we could park overnight. The vet was mostly concerned that it would be too noisy for us and that the neighborhood wasn't nice enough. When we pulled up in the bus, he said we could keep Opal the night before and the night after surgery, which would calm her anxieties. Most patients would leave their animal overnight at the clinic, but since we WERE at the clinic, it was fine for her to be with us.
After we had the initial consultation and walked back outside, Sean noticed a 15 amp outlet on the side of the building. When he asked if we could plug into it, they were happy to have us do so. We parked along the edge of the lot and are only using two regular spaces.
Now I'm not saying that every RVer passing through Little Rock should stop at this clinic and use their electricity, but to show that small businesses can be very accommodating.
When we bought my Honda scooter in Arizona, we walked into the dealer at the end of the business day. Rather than rush through the paperwork, we made it clear that we were going to buy the scooter in the morning and oh, by the way, can we park overnight in your gravel parking lot? They were very gracious and showed us the best way into the lot. Again, this was a small business.
We ate at a small restaurant in the Outer Banks of North Carolina after asking first if we could spend the night in their lot. We explained that we wanted to have a glass or two of wine and would not be able to indulge if we had to drive afterward. It was mid-week and fairly late in the evening, so the manager was not expecting a big rush of customers. He knew we'd spend money on dinner and wine and granted us permission even though the parking area was quite small.
Don't think these privileges were granted to us because Odyssey is unusual. In the case of the vet, I asked on the phone before arriving. At the scooter shop, we did a "drive by" to see if the parking lot was even big enough for us and end up stopping down the street and walking back to the shop. They didn't see the bus until after the manager said we could stay.
If you are a paying customer, don't be afraid to ask to spend the night. Try these simple tips and you may just get lucky:
First of all, I want to reiterate Sean's "thank you" to everyone who sent us comments, emails, phone calls, thoughts and prayers for Opal's successful surgery. It really means a lot to us that folks care about our little dog. She is sleeping off the effects of the surgery now and we are so glad to have her back!
Most RVers know that they can spend the night at many Wal-Marts. Other big-box stores such as Lowe's and K-Mart also allow overnight parking. Their lots are huge, so what does it hurt them? This tip is about asking to stay at much smaller businesses while you are on the road.
If you are a customer, it never hurts to ask permission to stay. Right now we are parked in the very small lot of Cloverdale Animal Hospital. The lot is only about 60ft x 60ft, so Odyssey really stands out here. The clinic is also quite small, with one primary doctor and 4-6 other employees.
When we made the appointment to bring Opal in, I asked over the phone if we could park overnight. The vet was mostly concerned that it would be too noisy for us and that the neighborhood wasn't nice enough. When we pulled up in the bus, he said we could keep Opal the night before and the night after surgery, which would calm her anxieties. Most patients would leave their animal overnight at the clinic, but since we WERE at the clinic, it was fine for her to be with us.
After we had the initial consultation and walked back outside, Sean noticed a 15 amp outlet on the side of the building. When he asked if we could plug into it, they were happy to have us do so. We parked along the edge of the lot and are only using two regular spaces.
Now I'm not saying that every RVer passing through Little Rock should stop at this clinic and use their electricity, but to show that small businesses can be very accommodating.
When we bought my Honda scooter in Arizona, we walked into the dealer at the end of the business day. Rather than rush through the paperwork, we made it clear that we were going to buy the scooter in the morning and oh, by the way, can we park overnight in your gravel parking lot? They were very gracious and showed us the best way into the lot. Again, this was a small business.
We ate at a small restaurant in the Outer Banks of North Carolina after asking first if we could spend the night in their lot. We explained that we wanted to have a glass or two of wine and would not be able to indulge if we had to drive afterward. It was mid-week and fairly late in the evening, so the manager was not expecting a big rush of customers. He knew we'd spend money on dinner and wine and granted us permission even though the parking area was quite small.
Don't think these privileges were granted to us because Odyssey is unusual. In the case of the vet, I asked on the phone before arriving. At the scooter shop, we did a "drive by" to see if the parking lot was even big enough for us and end up stopping down the street and walking back to the shop. They didn't see the bus until after the manager said we could stay.
If you are a paying customer, don't be afraid to ask to spend the night. Try these simple tips and you may just get lucky:
- Ask for the owner or manager; in a small business it is usually pretty obvious who this is.
- Be friendly and polite. If the answer is no, smile and say thank you anyway. There may be legal or insurance reasons why they cannot say yes.
- Be aware of your timing. Weekends can be very busy for some businesses and having a big vehicle taking up space may turn away other customers. Your best bet is midweek or off season.
- Park politely; don't take spaces near the front door or angle your rig to block an exit. Of course, never block a handicap parking space unless you are handicapped yourself. In that case, be clear with the manager that you need to be close to the door and display your placard.
- Don't "camp." You want their business to look like it has a parking lot, not a homeless shelter. Folding chairs, BBQs, and awnings can send the wrong signal to their neighbors.
- Be clear that you are only staying one night and will leave in the morning.
- Ask if they'd like you to leave by a certain time to make room for their morning customers.
- Make sure you leave nothing behind, like garbage, grease stains or divots in the asphalt from your levelers.
- Thank the owner/manager again in the morning. I try to follow up with a written thank you note as well.
Spleenless
Opal is out of surgery and recovering nicely from the anesthesia. The good news is that the doctor found no evidence of any problems at all -- even the spleen looked good. Because of the anemia, though, and the sonographic evidence of lesions, he removed the spleen as a precaution. After he had it out, he sectioned it, and did find a mass in there. He's sending some of the mass, as well as some of the normal tissue, to a lab for analysis. That said, he found no visible issues with the liver or other organs.
All of this is really good news -- she likely does not have cancer, and the splenic lesions may well be a benign hyperplasia. We are hopeful that the splenic lesions were the sole cause of the anemia -- we'll have to have another blood panel drawn in about a month to see if her counts are coming back up.
We just came back from a brief visit with her, and she is alert, though in some pain when she moves. She's just about done with IV fluids, and it's looking like we'll be able to bring her back aboard in about an hour, when the office closes. We'll be in the parking lot again tonight, as the doctor wants to have another look at her in the morning.
Suffice it to say, we are much relieved, especially considering how invasive and risky this type of surgery is. Thanks again to everyone who has contacted us with well-wishes -- Opal never knew she had such a fan club!
Photo by transCam
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Arkansas: 2, Odyssey: 0
If you have found this post from the IRV2 forum, welcome! Scroll down several paragraphs to find out how we repaired our own windshield. It was easy and inexpensive.
This blog is primarily about our travels in our bus conversion named "Odyssey." Take a look around, visit the latest post, take a video tour of our bus, or share your thoughts in the comments.
We are at the Cloverdale Animal Hospital, in Little Rock (map), where Opal will have her surgery tomorrow. We arrived here this afternoon for some pre-op blood work.
The blood work indicated the anemia is still worsening, but all else appears normal. Normal enough that the doctor gave her a steroid injection to help settle the spleen. The doctor had originally intended to keep her over night, but, since we are staying in the parking lot, we agreed it best for her to stay with us until the doctor arrives in the morning and is ready for her. The office here even has a 15-amp outlet outside, and we are taking advantage of it to run an air conditioner.
I have to admit that we are still apprehensive and preoccupied with Opal's condition. One distinct possibility tomorrow is that they will find her spleen and liver riddled with cancer, in which case we will need to decide even whether to take the spleen out. We are hoping for the best, though, which in this case would be a few benign splenic lesions and some indeterminate but also benign mass in the liver, in which case he will simply remove the spleen altogether. We'll be right here at the clinic the whole time, so it will be easy to consult. We are holding pleasant thoughts for the best outcome, and, by the way, thanks to everyone who has called, written in, or posted with well-wishes for Opal and for us.
We did end up coming across 412 and down 67 as I had planned, and it was pleasant, relatively quick, and mostly uneventful. I say "mostly" because we did take yet another huge rock strike to our windshield. I find it quite ironic that this happened the day after Louise's "Road Debris" post.
We were southbound on US67 just north of the incredibly tiny burg of Russell, AR, which is a four-lane, divided section of road. The posted limit is 70 (65 for trucks), and, as is customary for us in this type of situation, we were doing 62mph. Several trucks had passed us, and I am now in the habit of braking to back off quite a bit if a truck should pull back in ahead of us without a sufficient gap (which I define to be at least a full truck length -- preferably two, or 150'). Some type of flatbed semi with a load of steel parts pulled ahead of us, and, even while I was braking, "CRACK!" -- a large rock hit us, on the curb side about a foot up from the bottom of the glass. This one was really bad -- an extensive star about 2-2.5" in diameter. Ironically, the last time this happened, we were also passing through Arkansas.
From that last experience, we were carrying a "Fix-a-Windshield" brand repair kit, which we had picked up at Wal-Mart. Being, as we were, many miles from any other repair resources, we did not waver for an instant: we pulled off on the next exit, where we ended up parking at the local Baptist church to make repairs.
Here's what the damage looked like, from outside:
And from the inside:
The repair is actually quite simple. First, place the frame directly over the bull's-eye of the strike:
Insert the barrel of the tool into the frame, and screw it down until it is well sealed against the glass (I'm sighting through the barrel to ensure the opening is dead-center on the pit):
Place a few drops of resin into the barrel, and screw the plunger into the barrel to inject the resin into the strike:
The resin immediately begins to flow into the cracks under pressure:
It takes 4-6 minutes for the resin to flow into the cracks, after which you are supposed to remove the plunger and simply reinsert. We've also learned a couple of tricks from the pros, though: while the resin was flowing into the cracks, I repeatedly wet my finger and rubbed it on the inside of the glass. Think "Ajax Squeak" or the vibration that makes a wine glass ring when you rub your wetted finger around the rim. The slight vibration helps the resin to flow and any entrained air to come out. Also, after the first three or four minutes, I took my heat gun to the inside of the glass, on low setting, while Louise shot the area with the IR temperature gun. The heat trick happened to also be mentioned on the instructions. At around 125°F we saw a marked improvement in the cracks "disappearing." Also, when I removed the plunger after the first pass, I put more resin in the barrel before reinserting and tightening it back down. After a few minutes, this is what it looked like -- barely visible:
After the second six-minute pass, we removed the tool, placed another drop of resin over the pit, and covered it with a sheet of clear plastic provided with the kit. All of the steps up to this point had to be done in the shade, and we had the coach facing north. After the repair was done, we then backed around to be facing southwest, with the repair in direct sunlight. The resin is ultraviolet cure, and ten minutes of direct sun makes the repair road-ready. We opted to remove the plastic after ten minutes, but leave the glop of resin on the windshield while we finished our drive south to Little Rock, both to give the repair more cure time, and because the half hour we just spent had already put us behind schedule.
After Opal was done with the vet for the day, and we were able to settle back in to Odyssey and collect ourselves, I went out to finish the job, which involves scraping the excess resin off with a razor blade. Here I am mid-process, and you can see the matte-finish resulting from the scraping on the resin. This large oval is the result of the plastic sheet spreading the drop of resin out over an area much larger than the pit itself:
We had to park facing south at the vet, so we'd put up our silver mylar insulated window cover. When I was done scraping, I tried to capture a shot of the finished repair, but it came out so well that it's hard to see from the outside:
This was our second D-I-Y repair, and it came out much better than our first attempt, when we were still learning how to properly use the kit. If you have a vehicle with expensive and hard-to-find windshields, I can now recommend you get yourself a couple of these kits. Then take an afternoon and go down to the local junkyard, and practice on a windshield with a star. Just that little bit of practice makes a big difference when you'll have to do it for real.
Now that we've used up our emergency back-up glass repair kit, it's a priority to stop back into Wal-Mart and get another one or two. If they release Opal to us tomorrow, we'll likely spend the night at the Wal-Mart just a little further down the road from here, and we'll pick one up then.
This blog is primarily about our travels in our bus conversion named "Odyssey." Take a look around, visit the latest post, take a video tour of our bus, or share your thoughts in the comments.
We are at the Cloverdale Animal Hospital, in Little Rock (map), where Opal will have her surgery tomorrow. We arrived here this afternoon for some pre-op blood work.
The blood work indicated the anemia is still worsening, but all else appears normal. Normal enough that the doctor gave her a steroid injection to help settle the spleen. The doctor had originally intended to keep her over night, but, since we are staying in the parking lot, we agreed it best for her to stay with us until the doctor arrives in the morning and is ready for her. The office here even has a 15-amp outlet outside, and we are taking advantage of it to run an air conditioner.
I have to admit that we are still apprehensive and preoccupied with Opal's condition. One distinct possibility tomorrow is that they will find her spleen and liver riddled with cancer, in which case we will need to decide even whether to take the spleen out. We are hoping for the best, though, which in this case would be a few benign splenic lesions and some indeterminate but also benign mass in the liver, in which case he will simply remove the spleen altogether. We'll be right here at the clinic the whole time, so it will be easy to consult. We are holding pleasant thoughts for the best outcome, and, by the way, thanks to everyone who has called, written in, or posted with well-wishes for Opal and for us.
We did end up coming across 412 and down 67 as I had planned, and it was pleasant, relatively quick, and mostly uneventful. I say "mostly" because we did take yet another huge rock strike to our windshield. I find it quite ironic that this happened the day after Louise's "Road Debris" post.
We were southbound on US67 just north of the incredibly tiny burg of Russell, AR, which is a four-lane, divided section of road. The posted limit is 70 (65 for trucks), and, as is customary for us in this type of situation, we were doing 62mph. Several trucks had passed us, and I am now in the habit of braking to back off quite a bit if a truck should pull back in ahead of us without a sufficient gap (which I define to be at least a full truck length -- preferably two, or 150'). Some type of flatbed semi with a load of steel parts pulled ahead of us, and, even while I was braking, "CRACK!" -- a large rock hit us, on the curb side about a foot up from the bottom of the glass. This one was really bad -- an extensive star about 2-2.5" in diameter. Ironically, the last time this happened, we were also passing through Arkansas.
From that last experience, we were carrying a "Fix-a-Windshield" brand repair kit, which we had picked up at Wal-Mart. Being, as we were, many miles from any other repair resources, we did not waver for an instant: we pulled off on the next exit, where we ended up parking at the local Baptist church to make repairs.
Here's what the damage looked like, from outside:
And from the inside:
The repair is actually quite simple. First, place the frame directly over the bull's-eye of the strike:
Insert the barrel of the tool into the frame, and screw it down until it is well sealed against the glass (I'm sighting through the barrel to ensure the opening is dead-center on the pit):
Place a few drops of resin into the barrel, and screw the plunger into the barrel to inject the resin into the strike:
The resin immediately begins to flow into the cracks under pressure:
It takes 4-6 minutes for the resin to flow into the cracks, after which you are supposed to remove the plunger and simply reinsert. We've also learned a couple of tricks from the pros, though: while the resin was flowing into the cracks, I repeatedly wet my finger and rubbed it on the inside of the glass. Think "Ajax Squeak" or the vibration that makes a wine glass ring when you rub your wetted finger around the rim. The slight vibration helps the resin to flow and any entrained air to come out. Also, after the first three or four minutes, I took my heat gun to the inside of the glass, on low setting, while Louise shot the area with the IR temperature gun. The heat trick happened to also be mentioned on the instructions. At around 125°F we saw a marked improvement in the cracks "disappearing." Also, when I removed the plunger after the first pass, I put more resin in the barrel before reinserting and tightening it back down. After a few minutes, this is what it looked like -- barely visible:
After the second six-minute pass, we removed the tool, placed another drop of resin over the pit, and covered it with a sheet of clear plastic provided with the kit. All of the steps up to this point had to be done in the shade, and we had the coach facing north. After the repair was done, we then backed around to be facing southwest, with the repair in direct sunlight. The resin is ultraviolet cure, and ten minutes of direct sun makes the repair road-ready. We opted to remove the plastic after ten minutes, but leave the glop of resin on the windshield while we finished our drive south to Little Rock, both to give the repair more cure time, and because the half hour we just spent had already put us behind schedule.
After Opal was done with the vet for the day, and we were able to settle back in to Odyssey and collect ourselves, I went out to finish the job, which involves scraping the excess resin off with a razor blade. Here I am mid-process, and you can see the matte-finish resulting from the scraping on the resin. This large oval is the result of the plastic sheet spreading the drop of resin out over an area much larger than the pit itself:
We had to park facing south at the vet, so we'd put up our silver mylar insulated window cover. When I was done scraping, I tried to capture a shot of the finished repair, but it came out so well that it's hard to see from the outside:
This was our second D-I-Y repair, and it came out much better than our first attempt, when we were still learning how to properly use the kit. If you have a vehicle with expensive and hard-to-find windshields, I can now recommend you get yourself a couple of these kits. Then take an afternoon and go down to the local junkyard, and practice on a windshield with a star. Just that little bit of practice makes a big difference when you'll have to do it for real.
Now that we've used up our emergency back-up glass repair kit, it's a priority to stop back into Wal-Mart and get another one or two. If they release Opal to us tomorrow, we'll likely spend the night at the Wal-Mart just a little further down the road from here, and we'll pick one up then.
Picking up speed
Short post this morning, as we need to get on the road.
We are at the Wal-Mart in Dyersburg, Tennessee (map). After we left the Canal campground yesterday afternoon, we had a short drive to Benton, Kentucky for fuel. I had planned to stop for fuel today, at the Flying-J in West Memphis ($2.839), but we were tipped off that the Wal-Mart in Benton would be cheaper. As it turns out, the posted price was $2.779, with another $0.03 off for using a Wal-Mart card. So I marched into the store, put $600 on a pre-pay card we carry for just this purpose, and we spent half an hour at the pump putting 220 gallons in.
The person who tipped me off was Bryce Gaston, AKA "Busted Knuckle" from the bus conversion boards, and half an hour after we fueled up we were at his company garage in Union City, Tennessee. We had a nice dinner in town with Bryce, his folks, and Dallas and Cat, also from the bus boards. Bryce and his folks operate the KY Lakeside Travel bus company, so we drove to dinner in a bus, natch. (A real bus. The kind with 53 seats.)
While we were at Bryce's, we got the follow-up call we had been waiting for, from the vet in Little Rock. He had looked over the 5 megabytes of files I had emailed him (radiographs and ultrasounds), and asked if we could actually bring Opal in this afternoon. He wants to do another blood panel, and start her on steroids. He will then keep her overnight, for surgery tomorrow.
That's fine with us, but we had not planned on it when we made the stop in Union City. We'll need to stick to the freeway today to make our schedule, and we also rolled out of Union City last night, rather than spending the night at the Busted Knuckle Garage. We only made it as far as Dyersburg, but anything is good considering I am more of a night person than a morning person.
Also for schedule reasons, we will avoid Memphis by leaving here to the west and crossing the Mississippi on I-155. From there we'll likely take US412 west to US67 south into Little Rock, rather than the Interstate.
We are at the Wal-Mart in Dyersburg, Tennessee (map). After we left the Canal campground yesterday afternoon, we had a short drive to Benton, Kentucky for fuel. I had planned to stop for fuel today, at the Flying-J in West Memphis ($2.839), but we were tipped off that the Wal-Mart in Benton would be cheaper. As it turns out, the posted price was $2.779, with another $0.03 off for using a Wal-Mart card. So I marched into the store, put $600 on a pre-pay card we carry for just this purpose, and we spent half an hour at the pump putting 220 gallons in.
The person who tipped me off was Bryce Gaston, AKA "Busted Knuckle" from the bus conversion boards, and half an hour after we fueled up we were at his company garage in Union City, Tennessee. We had a nice dinner in town with Bryce, his folks, and Dallas and Cat, also from the bus boards. Bryce and his folks operate the KY Lakeside Travel bus company, so we drove to dinner in a bus, natch. (A real bus. The kind with 53 seats.)
While we were at Bryce's, we got the follow-up call we had been waiting for, from the vet in Little Rock. He had looked over the 5 megabytes of files I had emailed him (radiographs and ultrasounds), and asked if we could actually bring Opal in this afternoon. He wants to do another blood panel, and start her on steroids. He will then keep her overnight, for surgery tomorrow.
That's fine with us, but we had not planned on it when we made the stop in Union City. We'll need to stick to the freeway today to make our schedule, and we also rolled out of Union City last night, rather than spending the night at the Busted Knuckle Garage. We only made it as far as Dyersburg, but anything is good considering I am more of a night person than a morning person.
Also for schedule reasons, we will avoid Memphis by leaving here to the west and crossing the Mississippi on I-155. From there we'll likely take US412 west to US67 south into Little Rock, rather than the Interstate.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Talkback Tuesday: Road Debris
Every Tuesday is "Talkback" day, where I share what other people have to say.
One of the things the truckers often say about us in passing is, "Look at how low that bus driver sits! If he hits a deer, he's in big trouble."
The truth of the matter is that any of us, at any time, can find ourselves face to face with flying debris on the roads. Sitting low or high, in our car, RV, or a truck, loose stuff can hit your vehicle. The best defense, of course, is to be alert and aware, and keep a safe following distance from the vehicle in front of you.
A recent thread on RV.net has some hair-raising stories:
To read more of this RV.net thread, visit What've you seen comin' your way on the road?
And let's all be safe out there on the road.
One of the things the truckers often say about us in passing is, "Look at how low that bus driver sits! If he hits a deer, he's in big trouble."
The truth of the matter is that any of us, at any time, can find ourselves face to face with flying debris on the roads. Sitting low or high, in our car, RV, or a truck, loose stuff can hit your vehicle. The best defense, of course, is to be alert and aware, and keep a safe following distance from the vehicle in front of you.
A recent thread on RV.net has some hair-raising stories:
...I was on I75 near Saginaw, MI late at night when something hit the right winshield of my semi tractor. Windshield was shattered, when I turned on the inside light I found I had aquired a passenger. There was a large owl sitting on the right hand seat, just looking around...
...while following this pickup and picking up speed, two 30 gallon drums came up out of the truck...everything went into slow motion...
...met a pickup/camper pulling a boat. First I saw the boat swing out in my lane, then got a quick glimpse of it on the shoulder side of the camper, then another quick glimpse in my lane and then it snapped loose, broke the safety chains and flew off in the ditch...
To read more of this RV.net thread, visit What've you seen comin' your way on the road?
And let's all be safe out there on the road.
Good news/Bad news
We are in the Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky, at the Corps of Engineers "Canal" campground (map), just north of the canal joining Lake Kentucky and Lake Barkley. With temperatures pushing 90° when we arrived yesterday afternoon, it was nice to have some power to run the air conditioners. Based on our size and the fact that we asked for open sky to get our dish on-line, they put us in the group area, which turns out to be the nicest digs in the whole place, with wide and level concrete pads, 50-amp pedestals, and a picnic pavilion and dock right on the lake.
After we got settled in, I called the vet back in Montgomery, Illinois. The biopsy results were in, and they found no cancerous cells, leaving the diagnosis as hyperplasia. That's the really good news -- so far, the evidence is good that she may not actually have cancer. The bad news is that the splenic lesions are still a problem, with the potential to cause fatal splenic bleeding, and, of course, the anemia is still a major concern. So her spleen will need to be removed.
Fortunately, we found a great vet in Little Rock when we passed through there a month ago, and we've talked it over with him and he has agreed to do the surgery, which is now scheduled for Thursday. Our plan is to arrive there tomorrow afternoon.
After we leave here this afternoon, we'll stop by for a brief visit with some fellow bus enthusiasts in Union City, Tennessee on our way towards one of our two choices for crossing the Mississippi. Those would be the I-155 bridge west of Dyersburg, or the I-40 bridge in Memphis. We'll decide tomorrow, based on schedule and how much freeway driving we want to do.
After we got settled in, I called the vet back in Montgomery, Illinois. The biopsy results were in, and they found no cancerous cells, leaving the diagnosis as hyperplasia. That's the really good news -- so far, the evidence is good that she may not actually have cancer. The bad news is that the splenic lesions are still a problem, with the potential to cause fatal splenic bleeding, and, of course, the anemia is still a major concern. So her spleen will need to be removed.
Fortunately, we found a great vet in Little Rock when we passed through there a month ago, and we've talked it over with him and he has agreed to do the surgery, which is now scheduled for Thursday. Our plan is to arrive there tomorrow afternoon.
After we leave here this afternoon, we'll stop by for a brief visit with some fellow bus enthusiasts in Union City, Tennessee on our way towards one of our two choices for crossing the Mississippi. Those would be the I-155 bridge west of Dyersburg, or the I-40 bridge in Memphis. We'll decide tomorrow, based on schedule and how much freeway driving we want to do.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Monday Miscellany: Preoccupied
Monday is the day for miscellaneous topics
I tried to sit down and blog both yesterday and Saturday, but I find I'm too preoccupied about the dog to do anything productive. I've been spending entirely too much time researching dog spleen tumors and those medical websites are pretty intense.
After my stepfather was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, I spent weeks on very similar sites and often upset myself right before going to bed. Sean instituted a rule: No medical research after 8pm. We've had to re-instate the rule.
We are hoping to have the results of her biopsy today to help us decide what the next steps are. We'll probably call the vet we found in Arkansas for recommendations on what facility in the southern states has the best reputation for the appropriate care for Opal. Last time she had major medical problems, a vet in Tennessee recommended that we take her to Texas to one of the A&M campuses. Apparently much state of the art veterinary research happens there.
I tried to sit down and blog both yesterday and Saturday, but I find I'm too preoccupied about the dog to do anything productive. I've been spending entirely too much time researching dog spleen tumors and those medical websites are pretty intense.
After my stepfather was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, I spent weeks on very similar sites and often upset myself right before going to bed. Sean instituted a rule: No medical research after 8pm. We've had to re-instate the rule.
We are hoping to have the results of her biopsy today to help us decide what the next steps are. We'll probably call the vet we found in Arkansas for recommendations on what facility in the southern states has the best reputation for the appropriate care for Opal. Last time she had major medical problems, a vet in Tennessee recommended that we take her to Texas to one of the A&M campuses. Apparently much state of the art veterinary research happens there.
Settling back in to our normal pace of life
We are at Casino Aztar, on the Ohio River in Evansville, Indiana (map). We had a decent dinner at one of their restaurants and a quiet night here in the parking lot.
When we realized we would barely make it to the Ohio River by the time we needed to stop for the night, Louise started hunting around in our vast library of guides. A roadside billboard reminded us this casino was here, and a quick check of the Casino Camping guide said RV's were welcome to park in the lot. The lot I think they were talking about might have been a block west of here, which is now occupied by a huge billiards hall that is part of the Aztar complex -- we are in the only paved outdoor lot left on the property, and it's incredibly small, as most of the parking is in the 1,600-space garage just south of us. Fortunately, there was an Odyssey-sized gap here when we pulled in, and we grabbed it.
Yesterday was a very short-mileage day on account of laundry, which had piled up while we were on our relief operation. We've been scanning for a convenient laundromat for the last couple days, and yesterday presented the perfect opportunity in the tiny community of Worthington. Worthington is a dying town, but it sports the only coin laundry for dozens of miles in any direction, and on a Sunday afternoon we had no trouble parking Odyssey on the street (map). We even walked to lunch in the little Main Street Cafe nearby, where the folks were friendly and the burgers were excellent. (Pretty much everything else in town, what little there is, was closed -- it being a Sunday and this being rural America.)
Today we will cross the Ohio and make our way through Kentucky.
When we realized we would barely make it to the Ohio River by the time we needed to stop for the night, Louise started hunting around in our vast library of guides. A roadside billboard reminded us this casino was here, and a quick check of the Casino Camping guide said RV's were welcome to park in the lot. The lot I think they were talking about might have been a block west of here, which is now occupied by a huge billiards hall that is part of the Aztar complex -- we are in the only paved outdoor lot left on the property, and it's incredibly small, as most of the parking is in the 1,600-space garage just south of us. Fortunately, there was an Odyssey-sized gap here when we pulled in, and we grabbed it.
Yesterday was a very short-mileage day on account of laundry, which had piled up while we were on our relief operation. We've been scanning for a convenient laundromat for the last couple days, and yesterday presented the perfect opportunity in the tiny community of Worthington. Worthington is a dying town, but it sports the only coin laundry for dozens of miles in any direction, and on a Sunday afternoon we had no trouble parking Odyssey on the street (map). We even walked to lunch in the little Main Street Cafe nearby, where the folks were friendly and the burgers were excellent. (Pretty much everything else in town, what little there is, was closed -- it being a Sunday and this being rural America.)
Today we will cross the Ohio and make our way through Kentucky.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
University Alley
We are in Spencer, Indiana, at what just may be the smallest Wal-Mart in the country (map). There is actually a very nice state park, McCormick's Creek, just a couple miles from here, but (1) it was Saturday night on a nice weekend, so we figured it to be either full or with very limited options for Odyssey, (2) the trees looked to be very low, even out at the entrance station, so we did not want to risk getting stuck, (3) the park was heavily wooded, meaning probably no satellite access, and (4) the weekend rate is over $25, and we didn't need any amenities such as power last night.
This weekend is the annual Owen County Apple Butter Festival here in Spencer, as we discovered on our way into town, so we were a bit nervous that parking may be scarce. Fortunately, the Wal-Mart is far enough away that it is unaffected by the festival. The down side to that is we can't just wander over to check it out.
After we made the decision yesterday to head towards Texas, I plotted a route in our customary way, which is to say mostly avoiding the Interstates. I also wanted to stay out of Illinois for the first leg, and looking at the map revealed a nice "blue highway" due south through Indiana, US-231, roughly midway between US highways 31 and 41. We opted for a relatively short stint on I-65 south out of Merrillville and away from the Chicago megalopolis, turning off onto 231 in Wolcott.
Now, I knew that 231 would run through or past West Lafayette when I looked at the map. However, the thought did not cross my mind that the road might actually run right smack through the middle of Purdue University. We enjoyed driving through the campus, which was very slow because Saturday, of course, is Game Day. Students were everywhere, in many cases apparently accompanied by their families, which was puzzling until a quick check of the football schedule revealed that yesterday's game against Central Michigan was also "Family Day" and "Band Day" (the Boilermakers won, which was probably a good thing for us as we rolled through town). As we passed fraternity row, we noticed RVs parked everywhere, including on frat house lawns. I'm guessing family and/or alums have an RV tailgating tradition at Purdue. Had we been there a bit sooner, we probably could have parked in half a dozen spots on campus and no one would have been the wiser. Not being football fans, though, we settled for being waved at like celebrities by the coeds.
We had hardly gotten over being amused by the whole Purdue experience when we rolled into Greencastle, which I confess I did not realize is the home of DePauw University. Unlike at Purdue, US231 did not wind right through the middle of campus (DePauw is a much smaller school), but we still saw plenty of academic evidence, including more waving coeds.
We always enjoy the blue highways and all they have to offer, but yesterday's drive was especially rewarding with the two establishments of higher learning along the way. Even the road got more interesting in the southern half of the state, with the flatlands yielding to gently rolling hills.
From here we will continue on 231 as it follows the White River into Worthington, then continue on Indiana 67 to Vincennes, where we will pick up US41 south, taking us all the way in to Kentucky.
This weekend is the annual Owen County Apple Butter Festival here in Spencer, as we discovered on our way into town, so we were a bit nervous that parking may be scarce. Fortunately, the Wal-Mart is far enough away that it is unaffected by the festival. The down side to that is we can't just wander over to check it out.
After we made the decision yesterday to head towards Texas, I plotted a route in our customary way, which is to say mostly avoiding the Interstates. I also wanted to stay out of Illinois for the first leg, and looking at the map revealed a nice "blue highway" due south through Indiana, US-231, roughly midway between US highways 31 and 41. We opted for a relatively short stint on I-65 south out of Merrillville and away from the Chicago megalopolis, turning off onto 231 in Wolcott.
Now, I knew that 231 would run through or past West Lafayette when I looked at the map. However, the thought did not cross my mind that the road might actually run right smack through the middle of Purdue University. We enjoyed driving through the campus, which was very slow because Saturday, of course, is Game Day. Students were everywhere, in many cases apparently accompanied by their families, which was puzzling until a quick check of the football schedule revealed that yesterday's game against Central Michigan was also "Family Day" and "Band Day" (the Boilermakers won, which was probably a good thing for us as we rolled through town). As we passed fraternity row, we noticed RVs parked everywhere, including on frat house lawns. I'm guessing family and/or alums have an RV tailgating tradition at Purdue. Had we been there a bit sooner, we probably could have parked in half a dozen spots on campus and no one would have been the wiser. Not being football fans, though, we settled for being waved at like celebrities by the coeds.
We had hardly gotten over being amused by the whole Purdue experience when we rolled into Greencastle, which I confess I did not realize is the home of DePauw University. Unlike at Purdue, US231 did not wind right through the middle of campus (DePauw is a much smaller school), but we still saw plenty of academic evidence, including more waving coeds.
We always enjoy the blue highways and all they have to offer, but yesterday's drive was especially rewarding with the two establishments of higher learning along the way. Even the road got more interesting in the southern half of the state, with the flatlands yielding to gently rolling hills.
From here we will continue on 231 as it follows the White River into Worthington, then continue on Indiana 67 to Vincennes, where we will pick up US41 south, taking us all the way in to Kentucky.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Without direction
We are at the Wal-Mart in Merrillville, Indiana (map). Interestingly, we are just half a mile from the Olive Garden where we ate dinner on our way to the relief operation two weeks ago (and, no, we did not eat there last night), and, ironically, Merrillville was also the location of a very large Red Cross service delivery site, where we had one technology staffer stationed.
Yesterday we took advantage of the free and squeaky-clean dump station at the Naperville sewage treatment plant, then followed IL-59 south until we hit US30. US30 through this part of the country follows the alignment of the old Lincoln Highway, and we very much enjoy driving these oldest of all roads, in all their quirkiness. 30 took us all the way out of Illinois, by way of Joliet and Chicago Heights. As is often the case in old cities, the Joliet segment twisted and turned through downtown, and took us under a 13'4" underpass where our CB antenna went whomp-whomp-whomp on all the girders.
We'd done a good deal of 30/Lincoln Highway east of Chicago Heights three years ago (just before I started blogging here), and this new-to-us stretch of road west of there was quite interesting, if a bit slow.
We were already in Indiana when we realized we didn't really know where we were going. The issues with the dog have preoccupied our thoughts to the extent that we've been sort of running on autopilot. And the last "autopilot setting" was the notion that we were going to try to perhaps catch the tail end of the Escapade in Goshen, and/or stop by our Red Cross chapter in Elkhart. At some point yesterday afternoon, though, it occurred to us that (1) the Escapade is already over, and (2) our chapter will be closed today and tomorrow, as it's the weekend.
We were on a forlorn stretch of highway when this realization hit, and so we decided to press on ahead to this spot, where we knew there was a friendly Wal-Mart near a pile of restaurants. Last night we availed ourselves of the closest opportunity, a Mexican-themed chain called Don Pablo's, which turned out to be surprisingly good even though we did not note a single latino employee in the whole joint.
We were pretty wiped out when we got positioned here last night, which left it until this morning to figure out where we're going from here. I did call the chapter, on the off chance that they might be open today -- no dice. And, while it looked briefly like we might get deployed to Baton Rouge for the aftermath of Humberto, that turned out to be a non-event. And, at the moment, there's no other tropical weather threatening the US (although Ingrid could re-strengthen and take a turn for the worse in, perhaps, five days' time). We've decided to simply head a bit closer to hurricane territory, which means anyplace from about Houston, along the gulf, across Florida and up the east coast to about Charleston. And, while we have friends or family in many of those locations, we've decided to head towards Houston, because we have a motorcycle there that needs to be dealt with, and that will keep us busy unless and until we get called up again.
In a few minutes we will pack up and begin meandering southward through Indiana.
Yesterday we took advantage of the free and squeaky-clean dump station at the Naperville sewage treatment plant, then followed IL-59 south until we hit US30. US30 through this part of the country follows the alignment of the old Lincoln Highway, and we very much enjoy driving these oldest of all roads, in all their quirkiness. 30 took us all the way out of Illinois, by way of Joliet and Chicago Heights. As is often the case in old cities, the Joliet segment twisted and turned through downtown, and took us under a 13'4" underpass where our CB antenna went whomp-whomp-whomp on all the girders.
We'd done a good deal of 30/Lincoln Highway east of Chicago Heights three years ago (just before I started blogging here), and this new-to-us stretch of road west of there was quite interesting, if a bit slow.
We were already in Indiana when we realized we didn't really know where we were going. The issues with the dog have preoccupied our thoughts to the extent that we've been sort of running on autopilot. And the last "autopilot setting" was the notion that we were going to try to perhaps catch the tail end of the Escapade in Goshen, and/or stop by our Red Cross chapter in Elkhart. At some point yesterday afternoon, though, it occurred to us that (1) the Escapade is already over, and (2) our chapter will be closed today and tomorrow, as it's the weekend.
We were on a forlorn stretch of highway when this realization hit, and so we decided to press on ahead to this spot, where we knew there was a friendly Wal-Mart near a pile of restaurants. Last night we availed ourselves of the closest opportunity, a Mexican-themed chain called Don Pablo's, which turned out to be surprisingly good even though we did not note a single latino employee in the whole joint.
We were pretty wiped out when we got positioned here last night, which left it until this morning to figure out where we're going from here. I did call the chapter, on the off chance that they might be open today -- no dice. And, while it looked briefly like we might get deployed to Baton Rouge for the aftermath of Humberto, that turned out to be a non-event. And, at the moment, there's no other tropical weather threatening the US (although Ingrid could re-strengthen and take a turn for the worse in, perhaps, five days' time). We've decided to simply head a bit closer to hurricane territory, which means anyplace from about Houston, along the gulf, across Florida and up the east coast to about Charleston. And, while we have friends or family in many of those locations, we've decided to head towards Houston, because we have a motorcycle there that needs to be dealt with, and that will keep us busy unless and until we get called up again.
In a few minutes we will pack up and begin meandering southward through Indiana.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Fuzzy Friday: Sad and worried about Opal
We are at the Wal-Mart in Naperville (map), across from one of my old haunts, the Fox Valley Mall.
As I wrote on Wednesday, we had hoped to be in Indiana by now, but things did not work out that way. We took Opal in for a routine teeth cleaning Wednesday, mostly because the vet was right across the street from Red Cross HQ, so it was convenient. Ideally, we would have taken her in earlier in the relief operation, so we would not have to spend an extra day there, but, as is often the case, we could not get away from HQ long enough to get her in and do all the paperwork.
When we called Tuesday night for an appointment, they asked us to bring her in at 8:45 (so much for sleeping in late on our first day after the relief operation). After looking at her blood work from the last vet visit, a couple months ago when she had some kind of cough, the doctor was concerned about her red blood cell count. The pre-op bood work they did for this visit was more disturbing -- even though the dog had made what appeared to be a full recovery from the coughing episode, the red count had dropped even further. With the dog being so anemic, they did not put her under, and instead took X-rays to look for possible tumors.
The X-rays came back inconclusive, and all her other blood work and urinalysis came back normal at the end of the day, so the doctor referred us to a specialty clinic a few miles away for ultrasound analysis. They made a case on our behalf that we needed to get in early, since we were not local, and the clinic was able to see Opal yesterday afternoon. So we spent another night at the Painters' Union. With the place empty in the morning, though, we were finally able to wash Odyssey for the first time in many months.
The ultrasound revealed some lesions on her spleen, as well as some anomalies in the liver. They were able to use the ultrasound to guide a needle in to the largest lesion for a biopsy, and we dropped the slides off yesterday afternoon. We should have results in another couple of days, but, in the meantime, we are very worried. The combination of anemia and lesions on the spleen is serious, even though the rest of the blood work is normal and the dog is, right now, asymptomatic (and probably wondering why we are doting on her).
After we finished with the vet we came here -- we had shopping to do nearby, and it was already too late to head over to the Naperville sewage treatment plant, where we need to dump. We'll be heading there in a few minutes. We did take advantage of our digs here to walk over to Olive Garden last night for some comfort food after a difficult day.
As I wrote on Wednesday, we had hoped to be in Indiana by now, but things did not work out that way. We took Opal in for a routine teeth cleaning Wednesday, mostly because the vet was right across the street from Red Cross HQ, so it was convenient. Ideally, we would have taken her in earlier in the relief operation, so we would not have to spend an extra day there, but, as is often the case, we could not get away from HQ long enough to get her in and do all the paperwork.
When we called Tuesday night for an appointment, they asked us to bring her in at 8:45 (so much for sleeping in late on our first day after the relief operation). After looking at her blood work from the last vet visit, a couple months ago when she had some kind of cough, the doctor was concerned about her red blood cell count. The pre-op bood work they did for this visit was more disturbing -- even though the dog had made what appeared to be a full recovery from the coughing episode, the red count had dropped even further. With the dog being so anemic, they did not put her under, and instead took X-rays to look for possible tumors.
The X-rays came back inconclusive, and all her other blood work and urinalysis came back normal at the end of the day, so the doctor referred us to a specialty clinic a few miles away for ultrasound analysis. They made a case on our behalf that we needed to get in early, since we were not local, and the clinic was able to see Opal yesterday afternoon. So we spent another night at the Painters' Union. With the place empty in the morning, though, we were finally able to wash Odyssey for the first time in many months.
The ultrasound revealed some lesions on her spleen, as well as some anomalies in the liver. They were able to use the ultrasound to guide a needle in to the largest lesion for a biopsy, and we dropped the slides off yesterday afternoon. We should have results in another couple of days, but, in the meantime, we are very worried. The combination of anemia and lesions on the spleen is serious, even though the rest of the blood work is normal and the dog is, right now, asymptomatic (and probably wondering why we are doting on her).
After we finished with the vet we came here -- we had shopping to do nearby, and it was already too late to head over to the Naperville sewage treatment plant, where we need to dump. We'll be heading there in a few minutes. We did take advantage of our digs here to walk over to Olive Garden last night for some comfort food after a difficult day.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Thursday Tips: QuakeHold doesn't stand the test of time
Every Thursday is tip day.
When we first moved into Odyssey, I used a product called QuakeHold Putty to stick down small items that I didn't want to slide around. I had seen it recommended in a number of RV magazines and bulletin boards.
Folks, I cannot recommend this stuff to you. While it does keep items from moving, over time it turns into a mess that is nearly impossible to remove. Three years ago, I used little dabs of it in our medicine cabinet to keep storage trays from sliding. Yesterday I decided to completely reorganize the cabinet, and the QuakeHold was awful. I couldn't remove it using water, ammonia, rubbing alcohol, mineral oil, or elbow grease! Sean suggested I try diesel fuel, but c'mon! That shouldn't be necessary to use to clean in the bathroom or anywhere else in your home.
It may not feel sticky, but dust bonds permanently to it, changing it from white to grey. So even if you just leave the item in place, it is slowly getting really grubby underneath. It starts out as a white clay-like substance and it tends to ooze a bit from underneath whatever you're sticking down, so that dust grey yuckiness does show.
The Putty product is designed to protect collectibles, but I've found it makes a mess on ceramic, wood, granite and metal. These seem like pretty common materials for both the collectibles and the surfaces they sit on.
The company offers several other products, such as their Clear Gel and Museum Wax. If you have any experience with how those substances fare over several years, let me know in the comments.
When we first moved into Odyssey, I used a product called QuakeHold Putty to stick down small items that I didn't want to slide around. I had seen it recommended in a number of RV magazines and bulletin boards.
Folks, I cannot recommend this stuff to you. While it does keep items from moving, over time it turns into a mess that is nearly impossible to remove. Three years ago, I used little dabs of it in our medicine cabinet to keep storage trays from sliding. Yesterday I decided to completely reorganize the cabinet, and the QuakeHold was awful. I couldn't remove it using water, ammonia, rubbing alcohol, mineral oil, or elbow grease! Sean suggested I try diesel fuel, but c'mon! That shouldn't be necessary to use to clean in the bathroom or anywhere else in your home.
It may not feel sticky, but dust bonds permanently to it, changing it from white to grey. So even if you just leave the item in place, it is slowly getting really grubby underneath. It starts out as a white clay-like substance and it tends to ooze a bit from underneath whatever you're sticking down, so that dust grey yuckiness does show.
The Putty product is designed to protect collectibles, but I've found it makes a mess on ceramic, wood, granite and metal. These seem like pretty common materials for both the collectibles and the surfaces they sit on.
The company offers several other products, such as their Clear Gel and Museum Wax. If you have any experience with how those substances fare over several years, let me know in the comments.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Website Wednesday: Weather
Every Wednesday I write about websites that I visit often.
Having detailed, up to the minute weather information is important to us, since we are always traveling through new areas.
We like these two weather websites:
Weather Underground
Skeeto Bite Weather
Skeeto Bite has detailed information about tropical weather, and we use it to look at storms developing out in the Atlantic Ocean. This gives us a sense of where the Red Cross might send us next. We've been watching Investigation Areas 90 and 91, which have turned into Tropical Depression 8 and Tropical Storm Humberto.
Weather Underground is good for looking at forecasts in North America. Type in a city and state or province at the top, and it pulls up current conditions, five day forecasts, and hour by hour predictions of wind and temperature. This site also has local and regional radar, with animations that show how a storm front is moving through the area.
Under the "Tropical/Hurricane" section, the site has detailed information on current tropical depressions, storms, and hurricanes. Also on this page is a link to Dr. Jeff Master's weather blog, which I find quite interesting.
Have a weather-related website you like? Post it in the comments.
Having detailed, up to the minute weather information is important to us, since we are always traveling through new areas.
We like these two weather websites:
Weather Underground
Skeeto Bite Weather
Skeeto Bite has detailed information about tropical weather, and we use it to look at storms developing out in the Atlantic Ocean. This gives us a sense of where the Red Cross might send us next. We've been watching Investigation Areas 90 and 91, which have turned into Tropical Depression 8 and Tropical Storm Humberto.
Weather Underground is good for looking at forecasts in North America. Type in a city and state or province at the top, and it pulls up current conditions, five day forecasts, and hour by hour predictions of wind and temperature. This site also has local and regional radar, with animations that show how a storm front is moving through the area.
Under the "Tropical/Hurricane" section, the site has detailed information on current tropical depressions, storms, and hurricanes. Also on this page is a link to Dr. Jeff Master's weather blog, which I find quite interesting.
Have a weather-related website you like? Post it in the comments.
Returning to normal
We are finished with our Red Cross relief operation here in northern Illinois. The operation wrapped up yesterday morning, and we had everything packed up and ready for FedEx by the time they picked up at 4. This morning I will be meeting with the building owner to hand over the last key.
We are still here in the parking lot of what was operation headquarters (map), the old painters' union hall and training facility (the painters' union recently moved into a new building, and this one is for sale). It's been a great spot for us, and we've even had the luxury of a 15-amp power connection, which has been plenty in the temperate conditions we've had here. Many thanks to the Painters District Council 30 for allowing the Red Cross to use their facility.
There is a veterinarian right across the street, and we're taking Opal in today for a teeth cleaning and checkup, since she's due and it's convenient. We'll leave here either this afternoon or tomorrow morning, heading east towards our Red Cross chapter in Elkhart, Indiana. If we arrive in that neighborhood early enough, we might stop by the Escapade site in Goshen to catch up with some of the DOVE's, including the national ECRV coordinator who is there with one of the trucks.
After that, we will likely head south, to be in position for the next tropical storm. There is one brewing right now in the Atlantic, "Investigation Area 91."
We are still here in the parking lot of what was operation headquarters (map), the old painters' union hall and training facility (the painters' union recently moved into a new building, and this one is for sale). It's been a great spot for us, and we've even had the luxury of a 15-amp power connection, which has been plenty in the temperate conditions we've had here. Many thanks to the Painters District Council 30 for allowing the Red Cross to use their facility.
There is a veterinarian right across the street, and we're taking Opal in today for a teeth cleaning and checkup, since she's due and it's convenient. We'll leave here either this afternoon or tomorrow morning, heading east towards our Red Cross chapter in Elkhart, Indiana. If we arrive in that neighborhood early enough, we might stop by the Escapade site in Goshen to catch up with some of the DOVE's, including the national ECRV coordinator who is there with one of the trucks.
After that, we will likely head south, to be in position for the next tropical storm. There is one brewing right now in the Atlantic, "Investigation Area 91."
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Talkback Tuesday: Truckers have their own theories!
Every Tuesday is "Talkback" day, where I share what other people have to say
They love us.
They hate us.
They can't figure us out.
But the truckers we hear on the CB radio have some creative ideas of their own about Odyssey:
They love us.
They hate us.
They can't figure us out.
But the truckers we hear on the CB radio have some creative ideas of their own about Odyssey:
- He’s doing that Fred Flintstone overdrive thing
- Bet his wife picked that out to keep him from lookin’ in the cars
- He went to pimp my ride and got himself a low rider
- Probably somebody out to impress somebody
- I don’t see how that’s legal
- Looked like a high dollar bus
- I bet that was that "Girls Gone Wild" RV that drives around
- Probably one of them rock star buses, country western star
- He's got a full bar in there, I betcha, and a bedchamber, and a purty girl
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Super Sunday: No Suitcases
Every Sunday I write about one of the joys of full-timing
On Red Cross disaster relief jobs, the volunteers are usually housed in local hotels. In very large disasters where lodging is damaged and scarce, they may be housed in shelters set up in schools, churches, etc.
Managing all those rooms takes a dedicated group of staffing volunteers who are trying their best to minimize the cost to the Red Cross. Sometimes this involves moving folks wholesale out of one hotel and into another with better rates.
As our fellow volunteers scramble to pack their suitcases and move across town, I am so grateful that we can do this work while living in our RV. Our membership in the DOVES means we sleep in our own bed every night, and it is very nice.
On Red Cross disaster relief jobs, the volunteers are usually housed in local hotels. In very large disasters where lodging is damaged and scarce, they may be housed in shelters set up in schools, churches, etc.
Managing all those rooms takes a dedicated group of staffing volunteers who are trying their best to minimize the cost to the Red Cross. Sometimes this involves moving folks wholesale out of one hotel and into another with better rates.
As our fellow volunteers scramble to pack their suitcases and move across town, I am so grateful that we can do this work while living in our RV. Our membership in the DOVES means we sleep in our own bed every night, and it is very nice.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Small Space Saturday: Secret Stash
Every Saturday I write about strategies for living in 300 square feet
One place to look for more storage is under existing banks of drawers. In many RVs, if you remove the drawer closest to the floor you may find a fairly sizeable empty space underneath. There may be a few wires or a heater duct running through part of it.
Measure what's available and look for plastic bins or cardboard boxes that fill it, taking into account the size of the opening that the box has to pass through first. Two or three small boxes that fill the space will be easy to place. Ziplock bags are another good option. It does get dusty under there, so you'll want some sort of container(s).
Completely removing a drawer to access this can be tedious, so you may want to store things that aren't used often. When we were living in our previous RV, a Fleetwood Flair, we stored the Dremel Tool in its case beneath a drawer. We liked having the Dremel, but used it only every six months or so. You might consider storing rarely used paperwork there, such as your tax returns from two years ago. How about out of season clothing in gallon-size ziplock bags? Winter hats and gloves? Even if you plan to travel to warm climates in the winter, you may want to have heavy gloves and hats "just in case."
RV drawers often don't completely fill the space front to back, either. Measure the depth of your drawers and the depth of the compartment that holds them and you may find an extra four to six inches way in the back. You'd have to take out all the drawers to get to it, so things stored here are well hidden. To keep a box hidden behind drawers from falling and jamming the drawer mechanism, you may want to velcro it into place.
If you do decide to use these odd spaces, consider a written log of what is stored where. Looking things up on your list is much easier than taking out all your drawers.
One place to look for more storage is under existing banks of drawers. In many RVs, if you remove the drawer closest to the floor you may find a fairly sizeable empty space underneath. There may be a few wires or a heater duct running through part of it.
Measure what's available and look for plastic bins or cardboard boxes that fill it, taking into account the size of the opening that the box has to pass through first. Two or three small boxes that fill the space will be easy to place. Ziplock bags are another good option. It does get dusty under there, so you'll want some sort of container(s).
Completely removing a drawer to access this can be tedious, so you may want to store things that aren't used often. When we were living in our previous RV, a Fleetwood Flair, we stored the Dremel Tool in its case beneath a drawer. We liked having the Dremel, but used it only every six months or so. You might consider storing rarely used paperwork there, such as your tax returns from two years ago. How about out of season clothing in gallon-size ziplock bags? Winter hats and gloves? Even if you plan to travel to warm climates in the winter, you may want to have heavy gloves and hats "just in case."
RV drawers often don't completely fill the space front to back, either. Measure the depth of your drawers and the depth of the compartment that holds them and you may find an extra four to six inches way in the back. You'd have to take out all the drawers to get to it, so things stored here are well hidden. To keep a box hidden behind drawers from falling and jamming the drawer mechanism, you may want to velcro it into place.
If you do decide to use these odd spaces, consider a written log of what is stored where. Looking things up on your list is much easier than taking out all your drawers.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Website Wednesday: American Red Cross
Every Wednesday I write about websites that I visit often.
It should come as no surprise to you that we visit the American Red Cross website all the time. After all, we are ARC volunteers and need to keep informed on potential disaster relief jobs. The website that we read is not available to the general public; you must be a chapter member in good standing to have access to "Cross Net."
However, there is lots of good stuff at their public website: American Red Cross
There you will find information on how to prepare for floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and other disasters. You'll learn about how ARC conducts First Aid, CPR and Baby Sitter Preparedness training. About the support services ARC provides to active duty personnel, members of the National Guard and the Reserves and their families. About the blood drives that serve over 3,000 hospitals.
Thousands of communities all over the U.S. are quietly served by Red Cross volunteers and staff. Someone is ready, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to help total strangers whose homes have been damaged or destroyed. To provide them with food, shelter and a sympathetic ear.
When we volunteer to help at a disaster relief operation with the ARC, we get to work side by side with some really terrific folks. They fly in from all over the country and spend 2-3 weeks working long hours in often uncomfortable conditions, setting up and running shelters and kitchens. Many are bona fide experts in their field: Human Resources, Logistics, Public Affairs/Media, Operations Management, Network Administration. They come to help our clients get back on their feet and start to return their lives to normalcy.
The volunteers and staff give time, effort and talent. A dedicated team of 300 people (about the size of our operation here in Illinois) can assist about 400-500 families. But they can't do it without food, cots, trucks, forklifts, paper, pencils, electricity, mops, buckets, and a thousand other items that are needed.
That's where you can help. One of the most important statements on the ARC website is this one:
All American Red Cross disaster assistance is free, made possible by voluntary donations of time and money from the American people. You can help the victims of thousands of disasters across the country each year by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund, which enables the Red Cross to provide shelter, food, counseling and other assistance to victims of disaster. The American Red Cross honors donor intent. If you wish to designate your donation to a specific disaster, please do so at the time of your donation. Call 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Contributions to the Disaster Relief Fund may be sent to your local American Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P. O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013. Internet users can make a secure online contribution by visiting www.redcross.org.
Please donate to the American Red Cross. Your help is needed now, not just when big hurricanes hit. Help support the work this organization does every day, here in Illinois and in YOUR town. If you have already given, THANK YOU!
Photo by Trygve.u
A day of rest
We are still in Montgomery, Illinois at Red Cross relief headquarters here. We are enjoying a day off together, unusual for us on a Red Cross operation. Also, we've only been on the job six days (including travel), and it is more customary to work seven before getting one off. Personnel and coverage schedules being what they are, however, they asked us to take today instead of tomorrow, which is fine with us.
After pressing hard for five days, it felt good to sleep in this morning. And even though we are in sight of operation headquarters (living, as we are, in the parking lot), we are enjoying a quiet morning at home, catching up on email and web surfing and, of course, the blog.
It is a little-known fact that I once lived in Batavia, just a few miles north of here. I was working at Bell Laboratories at the time, in Naperville, and the shortest route to work was to cut through the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, driving right past the end of the beam line twice a day. I like to joke that my watch dial has glowed quite steadily ever since. That was 25 years ago, and I think they have since closed off that particular entrance, although it may still be possible to visit the accelerator lab, which is quite interesting.
After we're done being complete slugs this morning, we'll go out for some much-needed supplies, and I think I will take a drive around my old stomping grounds. When we came through this region in the bus three years ago (sadly, that was a just a little bit before I started blogging here, so I have no link to give you), I did not recognize it. Bell Labs used to be in a narrow strip of technology firms surrounded by corn fields -- the region was so devoid of anything that we'd drive over to the accelerator lab to have lunch in their cafeteria, just for a change of pace. Now it is an endless sprawl of suburban tract homes and national-chain merchants from here to Chicago.
Knowing we did not have to get up early this morning, we took the train into Chicago last night (about an hour and a quarter each way) to have dinner at our club, on the 67th floor of the Sears Tower. Even though that's a third of the way down from the top, the view is still spectacular, just about at the same level as the observation deck on the Hancock tower, Chicago's second-tallest building. The last time we were here, we actually drove the bus into the Loop, parked in a pair of on-street spaces just half a block from the Sears Tower, and walked to dinner. It was a Saturday night, and the on-street parking was unmetered on Sunday, so we spent the night right there. The server was amused when we pointed Odyssey out some 700 feet below us.
I am hoping we will be done here before the Escapade and its associated DOVE training ends, although I am not counting on it. It is a sure bet that we will not be done before the Escapade begins. My apologies to the handful of readers who have written in about possibly seeing us there.
After pressing hard for five days, it felt good to sleep in this morning. And even though we are in sight of operation headquarters (living, as we are, in the parking lot), we are enjoying a quiet morning at home, catching up on email and web surfing and, of course, the blog.
It is a little-known fact that I once lived in Batavia, just a few miles north of here. I was working at Bell Laboratories at the time, in Naperville, and the shortest route to work was to cut through the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, driving right past the end of the beam line twice a day. I like to joke that my watch dial has glowed quite steadily ever since. That was 25 years ago, and I think they have since closed off that particular entrance, although it may still be possible to visit the accelerator lab, which is quite interesting.
After we're done being complete slugs this morning, we'll go out for some much-needed supplies, and I think I will take a drive around my old stomping grounds. When we came through this region in the bus three years ago (sadly, that was a just a little bit before I started blogging here, so I have no link to give you), I did not recognize it. Bell Labs used to be in a narrow strip of technology firms surrounded by corn fields -- the region was so devoid of anything that we'd drive over to the accelerator lab to have lunch in their cafeteria, just for a change of pace. Now it is an endless sprawl of suburban tract homes and national-chain merchants from here to Chicago.
Knowing we did not have to get up early this morning, we took the train into Chicago last night (about an hour and a quarter each way) to have dinner at our club, on the 67th floor of the Sears Tower. Even though that's a third of the way down from the top, the view is still spectacular, just about at the same level as the observation deck on the Hancock tower, Chicago's second-tallest building. The last time we were here, we actually drove the bus into the Loop, parked in a pair of on-street spaces just half a block from the Sears Tower, and walked to dinner. It was a Saturday night, and the on-street parking was unmetered on Sunday, so we spent the night right there. The server was amused when we pointed Odyssey out some 700 feet below us.
I am hoping we will be done here before the Escapade and its associated DOVE training ends, although I am not counting on it. It is a sure bet that we will not be done before the Escapade begins. My apologies to the handful of readers who have written in about possibly seeing us there.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Monday Miscellany: Gone But Not Forgotten
Monday is the day for miscellaneous topics
One of our readers read about Capt. Ray Gaines, who used to lead RV barge trips:
Reader Bob asked, "Can RV-ers still do this?"
Since Sean knew the answer to the question, I thought I'd share it with the rest of you:
It really does sound like fun. It's worth a look at here just to see the photos of the "RV Barges."
One of our readers read about Capt. Ray Gaines, who used to lead RV barge trips:
He would connect as many as seven narrow river barges together and load them up with RV´s, becoming a flotilla RV park traveling the inter coastal waterways of the US! To ensure customer satisfaction, these barges had complete facilities including a 150-seat restaurant, laundry, freshwater to drink and waste disposal facilities. Each RV had their own hookups and enough space between them to put out their awnings.
Reader Bob asked, "Can RV-ers still do this?"
Since Sean knew the answer to the question, I thought I'd share it with the rest of you:
The short answer is "No." At least, not in the US.
The longer answer is that as RV barge trips became more popular, the US Coast Guard began to take notice. And, of course, the inevitable red tape sank RV barge trips here forever. The barges are not USCG certified as passenger-carrying vessels, and lack the appropriate fire-suppression and other life safety equipment, life boats, life vests, all-points alerting systems, and the like -- the sorts of things that make cruise ships sort-of OK places for octogenarians to vacation. The fact that people might be asleep in their quarters on such a contraption while underway was an exacerbating factor.
Too bad, really -- I had always wanted to do one of these. Of course, you'd never get away with loading your RV on a train in this country either, as we did in Mexico. So, who knows, perhaps some enterprising outfit will start barge trips in central America some day.
It really does sound like fun. It's worth a look at here just to see the photos of the "RV Barges."
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Super Sunday: Freedom from Stuff
Every Sunday I write about one of the joys of full-timing
Paul Graham has an article on his website that sums up a lot of how I feel about owning things. There is a tremendous freedom that came from selling all our furniture, books, knick knacks, cars.
Paul writes,
Paul Graham has an article on his website that sums up a lot of how I feel about owning things. There is a tremendous freedom that came from selling all our furniture, books, knick knacks, cars.
Paul writes,
[O]nce you've accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way around.Read the rest.
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