Just a very quick update tonight -- it's late, and we're tired.
We finally got our marching orders -- we've been assigned to an operation which will be headquartered in San Bernardino, and we will report there tomorrow evening. I believe this operation is covering everything north of San Diego county, which is a separate operation.
Tonight we are at a rest area west of Demming, New Mexico (map). New Mexico, like Texas, allows overnight stays (up to 24 hours) in their rest areas, and this one is particularly well suited to it. There is an area in the front that is a conventional highway rest area, with angle parking for cars and trucks, and rest rooms. In the back, however, is an area set up more like a campground, with widely separated "spaces" -- some back-in, some pull-through. Each has its own lighted picnic shelter and trash barrel, and they are even numbered as if in a campground. We are at number 9, about as far from the rest rooms/parking area as possible.
Today's drive was blissfully uneventful. I did spend some time this morning printing shipping labels for some items that sold on eBay in the last couple days, and we later made a stop at the main post office in Van Horn to drop them in the mail.
Tomorrow we will blast through Arizona and into California on I-10, which will carry us all the way to San Bernardino. It may be a few days before I can get back to posting here, so bear with us.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Deep in the heart of Texas
We are at a "picnic area" (what Texas calls a rest area when there are no bathrooms) on I-10, just east of Junction (map). While this is not the geographic center of Texas, it's close, and it is very nearly the mid-point of I-10 through the state, justifying my choice of title for today's post. As I have written here many times, one of the things we love about Texas is that it permits overnight stays in most of these picnic areas (and rest areas) throughout the state.
It is dark and quiet here. There are no lights (although it is a full moon tonight, bathing the whole place in moonglow), and we are far enough from the freeway that the passing traffic is not a bother. There are two or three 18-wheelers in the truck area, but that's a good bit away, as we chose to park along the more scenic part of the picnic area, next to a ramada.
This morning I wriggled under the rear axles and gave the clamshells for the electrical connections to the leveler actuator a good squeeze, which, fortunately, quickly cured the rear leveler problem. We conducted some quick business in the shopping plaza, and I gave the chapter another call. I found out this morning that another 30 positions opened up in Response Technology on the San Diego relief operation (no word yet about LA), and I told the chapter we were in Texas, and please put our names back in for recruitment for the newly opened positions. The chapter had not even been notified of the additional openings yet -- it's good to have some inside sources.
We headed back onto the highway with perfect driving weather and conditions, hopeful that yesterday's plethora of problems would be made up for with smooth sailing today. As we drove past Lake Charles, we noted that the city has been cleaned up dramatically since the last time we were through -- there were no visible reminders of Rita, at least from the freeway. Traffic was a bit slow through Houston, at least until we picked up the HOV lane on the outbound side of the city, and we did, indeed, have mostly smooth sailing.
About an hour west of Houston, the chapter called us back with some good news: they had us on the deployment list for California. Unfortunately, they found some of our required paperwork was out of date, and we needed to fax them some updated forms. We pulled off at a rest area near Columbus, deployed the dish, and spent about an hour downloading a fax from the chapter, updating our forms, and faxing them back. All of which prompted me to make a mental note to share with you later, probably in a "Thursday Tips" column, how we receive faxes, sign paperwork, and send faxes from Odyssey without ever involving a real piece of paper or an actual fax machine.
The stop put us another hour behind, but an hour well spent. I expect that the chapter will find our paperwork in order tomorrow and provide us with actual deployment orders. (And now I find myself crossing my fingers that Investigation Area 90, in the Caribbean, will dissipate without developing into a depression -- I don't want to find out that we jumped the gun by leaving Florida before the last dregs of hurricane season were finished).
We hit San Antonio at the end of rush hour, and with the setting sun making it difficult to drive -- the perfect opportunity for a dinner stop. Another hour or so brought us here.
The additional 30 openings in Technology on the San Diego job is very telling. That's a huge number of technology workers, which is commensurate with an enormous relief operation that will run for many weeks. Knowing what we know about California wildfires and the nature of the southern California region, and how the Red Cross responds to this type of disaster, this is exactly what we anticipated. Which is why we were floored when the Service Area basically tried to tell us that there was no way additional volunteers were going to be needed there. Sometimes we wonder if these people have ever been out in the field.
While I am on the subject, in yesterday's comments, reader Lance asks, "Just what do you two *do* for the Red Cross?" That's an excellent question, so much so that I will answer here in a post, rather than responding in the comments.
A major Red Cross Disaster Relief Operation (DRO) involves hundreds to thousands of relief workers, mostly volunteers although some may come from the paid ranks of Red Cross staff, and others may be "Disaster Reserves" (similar to military reserves -- trained and ready to respond, on mandatory call, and paid a minimal stipend if they get called up). Like any endeavor involving thousands of staff, there are all of the logistics of running what is, essentially, a business with that many employees.
That means that all of the functions you would find in any business that large will be found on a DRO. There is a staffing department. There's a management team. There's a public relations department. There are people driving forklifts around warehouses, and people driving trucks (lots and lots of trucks) loaded with everything from cots to canned beans around the affected area. And, of course, there are the people involved with the actual delivery of services -- shelter personnel, feeding personnel, case workers, etc. Unlike most businesses, there is also a phalanx of folks dedicated to finding a place to sleep and a way to eat and a means to get around for thousands of workers who all came from somewhere else.
Again, like any business with all these people doing all these things, there will be telephones, fax machines, computers, printers, servers, databases, two-way radios, networks, and all the bits and pieces that go along with that. And we are both in the department that supplies, installs, maintains, tracks, and ultimately recovers, packs, and returns all of these technology items.
When we arrive at a relief site, whether it is operation headquarters, a shelter, or a family service center where disaster assistance cases will be processed, there will usually be none of these things, not even a strand of wire. These centers are often set up in vacant warehouses, or school gymnasiums, or church halls. There is no Category-5 network cable, or internet access, or (most times) even a land-line telephone. We bring all of this equipment with us, setting up entire computer networks and telephone systems from scratch, usually using a 1-meter satellite uplink to connect the whole shebang (technical term there -- sorry) back to Red Cross National Headquarters in DC. We can do this even if the entire local power grid, telephone system, and even cellular network has been wiped out by the disaster (as was the case with Katrina, for example).
All of the equipment comes to us in water-tight, flight-ready cases flown in from our technology maintenance center in Austin, Texas. We've been trained in the setup, deployment, use, and maintenance of hundreds of different items that may be sent to an operation, from laptop computers to VHF radios, IP fax machines to VSAT terminals. We also happen to be certified operators for the 12 Emergency Communications Response Vehicles, any of which might be deployed to a DRO to get computers and communications up and running even before equipment cases can be flown in.
Actually, this video provides a good snapshot of what we do for the Red Cross.
We also happen to be trained on shelter operations and client casework, either of which would put us closer to the front lines. And I can drive a forklift. But the reality is that working in the technology department leverages certain skills that we brought with us into the Red Cross in a way that running a shelter, for example, would not. So we contribute in the way which is most useful for the organization, which puts us (usually) "in the rear, with the gear."
Thanks for asking.
It is dark and quiet here. There are no lights (although it is a full moon tonight, bathing the whole place in moonglow), and we are far enough from the freeway that the passing traffic is not a bother. There are two or three 18-wheelers in the truck area, but that's a good bit away, as we chose to park along the more scenic part of the picnic area, next to a ramada.
This morning I wriggled under the rear axles and gave the clamshells for the electrical connections to the leveler actuator a good squeeze, which, fortunately, quickly cured the rear leveler problem. We conducted some quick business in the shopping plaza, and I gave the chapter another call. I found out this morning that another 30 positions opened up in Response Technology on the San Diego relief operation (no word yet about LA), and I told the chapter we were in Texas, and please put our names back in for recruitment for the newly opened positions. The chapter had not even been notified of the additional openings yet -- it's good to have some inside sources.
We headed back onto the highway with perfect driving weather and conditions, hopeful that yesterday's plethora of problems would be made up for with smooth sailing today. As we drove past Lake Charles, we noted that the city has been cleaned up dramatically since the last time we were through -- there were no visible reminders of Rita, at least from the freeway. Traffic was a bit slow through Houston, at least until we picked up the HOV lane on the outbound side of the city, and we did, indeed, have mostly smooth sailing.
About an hour west of Houston, the chapter called us back with some good news: they had us on the deployment list for California. Unfortunately, they found some of our required paperwork was out of date, and we needed to fax them some updated forms. We pulled off at a rest area near Columbus, deployed the dish, and spent about an hour downloading a fax from the chapter, updating our forms, and faxing them back. All of which prompted me to make a mental note to share with you later, probably in a "Thursday Tips" column, how we receive faxes, sign paperwork, and send faxes from Odyssey without ever involving a real piece of paper or an actual fax machine.
The stop put us another hour behind, but an hour well spent. I expect that the chapter will find our paperwork in order tomorrow and provide us with actual deployment orders. (And now I find myself crossing my fingers that Investigation Area 90, in the Caribbean, will dissipate without developing into a depression -- I don't want to find out that we jumped the gun by leaving Florida before the last dregs of hurricane season were finished).
We hit San Antonio at the end of rush hour, and with the setting sun making it difficult to drive -- the perfect opportunity for a dinner stop. Another hour or so brought us here.
The additional 30 openings in Technology on the San Diego job is very telling. That's a huge number of technology workers, which is commensurate with an enormous relief operation that will run for many weeks. Knowing what we know about California wildfires and the nature of the southern California region, and how the Red Cross responds to this type of disaster, this is exactly what we anticipated. Which is why we were floored when the Service Area basically tried to tell us that there was no way additional volunteers were going to be needed there. Sometimes we wonder if these people have ever been out in the field.
While I am on the subject, in yesterday's comments, reader Lance asks, "Just what do you two *do* for the Red Cross?" That's an excellent question, so much so that I will answer here in a post, rather than responding in the comments.
A major Red Cross Disaster Relief Operation (DRO) involves hundreds to thousands of relief workers, mostly volunteers although some may come from the paid ranks of Red Cross staff, and others may be "Disaster Reserves" (similar to military reserves -- trained and ready to respond, on mandatory call, and paid a minimal stipend if they get called up). Like any endeavor involving thousands of staff, there are all of the logistics of running what is, essentially, a business with that many employees.
That means that all of the functions you would find in any business that large will be found on a DRO. There is a staffing department. There's a management team. There's a public relations department. There are people driving forklifts around warehouses, and people driving trucks (lots and lots of trucks) loaded with everything from cots to canned beans around the affected area. And, of course, there are the people involved with the actual delivery of services -- shelter personnel, feeding personnel, case workers, etc. Unlike most businesses, there is also a phalanx of folks dedicated to finding a place to sleep and a way to eat and a means to get around for thousands of workers who all came from somewhere else.
Again, like any business with all these people doing all these things, there will be telephones, fax machines, computers, printers, servers, databases, two-way radios, networks, and all the bits and pieces that go along with that. And we are both in the department that supplies, installs, maintains, tracks, and ultimately recovers, packs, and returns all of these technology items.
When we arrive at a relief site, whether it is operation headquarters, a shelter, or a family service center where disaster assistance cases will be processed, there will usually be none of these things, not even a strand of wire. These centers are often set up in vacant warehouses, or school gymnasiums, or church halls. There is no Category-5 network cable, or internet access, or (most times) even a land-line telephone. We bring all of this equipment with us, setting up entire computer networks and telephone systems from scratch, usually using a 1-meter satellite uplink to connect the whole shebang (technical term there -- sorry) back to Red Cross National Headquarters in DC. We can do this even if the entire local power grid, telephone system, and even cellular network has been wiped out by the disaster (as was the case with Katrina, for example).
All of the equipment comes to us in water-tight, flight-ready cases flown in from our technology maintenance center in Austin, Texas. We've been trained in the setup, deployment, use, and maintenance of hundreds of different items that may be sent to an operation, from laptop computers to VHF radios, IP fax machines to VSAT terminals. We also happen to be certified operators for the 12 Emergency Communications Response Vehicles, any of which might be deployed to a DRO to get computers and communications up and running even before equipment cases can be flown in.
Actually, this video provides a good snapshot of what we do for the Red Cross.
We also happen to be trained on shelter operations and client casework, either of which would put us closer to the front lines. And I can drive a forklift. But the reality is that working in the technology department leverages certain skills that we brought with us into the Red Cross in a way that running a shelter, for example, would not. So we contribute in the way which is most useful for the organization, which puts us (usually) "in the rear, with the gear."
Thanks for asking.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Frustration Photos
If you haven't already read Sean's post from last night, start here.
Curing the window repair with our UV light. Classy, huh?
The divot and cut on the inside of the tag tire. The oval divot is about 1/2 inch deep and smooth-sided. The tire guys had never seen anything like it.
That would be these tire guys. They were great: friendly and helpful. Only their management was hesitant to work on Odyssey.
The steel belts of shame and the strange diagonal wear pattern. Can you say, "Bone-jarring ride"?
I don't have any photos of the broken sun shade, or of the non-functioning rear leveler. Just picture Sean scowling a lot, and you'll have a good sense of how those looked.
Curing the window repair with our UV light. Classy, huh?
The divot and cut on the inside of the tag tire. The oval divot is about 1/2 inch deep and smooth-sided. The tire guys had never seen anything like it.
That would be these tire guys. They were great: friendly and helpful. Only their management was hesitant to work on Odyssey.
The steel belts of shame and the strange diagonal wear pattern. Can you say, "Bone-jarring ride"?
I don't have any photos of the broken sun shade, or of the non-functioning rear leveler. Just picture Sean scowling a lot, and you'll have a good sense of how those looked.
A day of frustration
We are at the Wal-Mart in Jennings, Louisiana (map), between Lafayette and Lake Charles.
You may recall I had projected us to be somewhere west of Houston tonight, but several things conspired against that. First among them was our deployment status.
I have mentioned here before that notwithstanding how well organized the Red Cross is with respect to volunteers and management thereof, there is something fundamentally broken about the way "recruitment" and "deployment" works within the system. As I wrote here, on our last deployment we had originally gotten a call to go to a job that turned out to be nearly closing, whereas the recruitment for the job where we were really needed had not yet trickled through the system. We were able to resolve that by calling in to National Headquarters, who figured out where we really should be going, steered us in the right direction, and then corrected the stale information in the deployment pipeline. Mostly, that was all possible because all the jobs were small (relatively) and the Disaster Operations Center (DOC), including the staff deployment center, was not very busy (relatively).
It was not a surprise to us, therefore, that deployment once again did not have its act together. This morning, as we were preparing to get on the road around 8am, we finally heard back from our chapter, whom we had pestered several times yesterday. And the word was: no deployment. This, of course, made no sense to us, and so I pressed them on why, and they related that the Service Area (SA) felt we were too far away. So we spent the next hour or so on the phone with the DOC, the SA, and the chapter trying to sort things out. The bottom line, for us, is that the SA is very short-sighted and has far too limited a view of its role in staffing national disasters -- unsurprising, since their focus is regional, and this disaster is not in their region (our SA is the Great Lakes).
A few calls to the DOVE leadership revealed that we are not alone -- several other DOVE's trying to help from around the country are having similar deployment issues. This is something we all thought we had licked after Katrina, and things went well for a while, but, apparently, the DOVE message has been lost over time. In any case, we've been advised to keep heading west, which will put us in a position where we are no longer "too far away" to be recruited. The technology department is fully staffed in San Diego at the moment, but recruiting has not even started yet for LA, since management on the ground there is having trouble even nailing down a headquarters site. So we should be in position in time for the first round of calls for LA, or for the inevitable staff increase that will be requested for San Diego as the scope of the relief operation increases moving forward (we know the job is getting bigger -- we have a TV).
In any event, with all the hemming and hawing and phone calls, we did not even stow the dish and head out on the road until past 10 this morning. In part, that was due to a brief flirtation with the idea of heading back east a few miles to Pensacola, where the job from the tornado is still winding down, on the theory that we're "close enough" to Pensacola to satisfy the near-sighted Service Area. We did not want to move in either direction until things were nailed down.
As we prepared to leave, we got our second rude awakening of the day. Every day that we move the bus, I do a complete walk-around inspection, similar to what a professional driver must do daily by law. I turn on and inspect all the lights, check the running gear, inspect the tires, and so forth. Now, we've been having some abnormal wear problems on our tag tires for quite some time, some of which may be due to the bent A-frame. And the right tag has worn itself into a lumpy mess, which has, lately, been rattling our teeth and everything else as we drive along. It's a tag wheel, so the terrible tread condition has not been any cause for alarm, as long as the casing has remained intact and the pressure/temperature monitoring system has been giving clean reports, all of which has been fine until today.
Well, on this morning's walk-around, I noticed that the tread on the right tag had worn down to the belts. Steel was showing on the outside shoulder. Dang. And I had just remarked, after inspecting the tire before we left Suwannee, that I was hoping the tire would make it all the way to California, and we could deal with replacing it after the operation was over. No such luck -- with the belts already showing through, we'd have to replace the tire even before the day was out. The dish was already stowed, and I knew we would not find a tire in Daphne, so we double-checked the monitor readings and headed out onto the road, with the idea of finding a tire shop somewhere along the interstate. Fortunately, as a non-commercial vehicle we are not compelled to stop at the inspection (weigh) stations -- the worn tire would get a real truck red-tagged in an instant.
After a couple of coffees in the morning, I need a bathroom break every hour or so anyway, which gave us an opportunity to check on the tire frequently. Rather than eating our lunch under way in the cockpit, as is our norm, we stopped at a rest area at the Mississippi/Louisiana state line, and put the dish up while we ate. Half a dozen phone calls later, we had located exactly two tire dealers in Baton Rouge with our size in stock. One had Firestones for $360 each, and one had Goodyears for $550 each. I was darned if I was going to put $1,100 worth of tires on an axle that has proven itself to be a tire-eating fiend, so we set our sights on the Firestone dealer, even though they claimed "we don't work on RV's" (I pleaded with them that it was really a bus). We figured to be there by 3-3:30.
We headed back out onto the Interstate, and I dialed the cruise in at 60 for the hundred miles or so to Baton Rouge. About half way there, just a few miles east of I-59, CRACK! -- one, two, or perhaps several large rocks hit the windshield, about five inches up from the bottom just inboard of the driver-side radius. Wow -- these were the biggest stars we've ever gotten in the windshield -- a double star, each about 3" in diameter with their centers about an inch apart, making for a 4" tall mess. And another nickel-sized volcano a couple inches away. I have to say, every time this happens, our hearts just sink.
Well-versed now in the windshield-strike drill, we immediately exited the freeway in Hammond, pulled into a Lowe's parking lot, and hauled out the magic fix-it kit. The double-star was a challenge, as I had to move the kit from one to the other without making a mess of the first repair. Also, the outside temperature was in the low 60's, making us nervous about using too much heat gun on the repairs from the inside -- we didn't know if too much differential temperature might actually spread the crack. To make matters worse, the resin is UV-cure, and today was completely overcast and even a bit rainy. We put our wimpy little black-lite, which we normally use to find pet stains, on the repair to do what we could.
Patching the double-star plus the volcano way-laid us for an hour, and we rolled up to the tire shop in Baton Rouge at 4:30, just half an hour before closing. You could see them thinking pretty hard about turning us down, being sort-of an RV to begin with, and coming in with a 45-minute job half an hour before quitting time. Then they made some noises about not having a jack that would fit under our low-slung tag A-frame. That last one got them, though, as I pulled out my trusty 12-ton bottle jack and placed it under the A-frame myself -- I think that more or less shamed them into doing the job.
$850 and one hour later, we had two shiny new Firestone FS560's on the tag, the steel belts of shame had been placed on the scrap heap, and we were back under way. But at 5:30 we were still in Baton Rouge, and in traffic to boot.
We made a stop in Lafayette for dinner, wherein as a final (so I thought) insult my driver's side-window sunshade broke it's retractor mechanism as I went to retract it to navigate onto city streets. (I was able to repair it this evening with the help of a small packet of #6 nuts and bolts from Wal-Mart.)
After dinner we recalibrated our stopping point for the day to Lake Charles, where we would have a choice of three Wal-Marts and two casinos, but somewhere between Lafayette and here I decided I was just done for the day, and we pulled off here instead. This store, immediately adjacent to I-10, apparently has problems with truckers filling the lot at night, and has surrounded it with 12'-0" overhead barriers to keep them out -- we had to circle a couple of times before we found the secret entrance.
As if we did not already have enough problems for the day, when I went to level out the bus I discovered that the rear suspension adjustment is stuck in the full "up" position, possibly a consequence of overextending it during the tire change. Tomorrow I will have to shinny between the rear axles to try to figure it out. I am hoping that the connector has simply come a bit loose, but there is always a chance that the linear actuator itself has a problem. I do have a fixed-length control arm that I can substitute for the actuator to get us back on the road, if necessary.
Perhaps I should learn my lesson from yesterday's projection, and just say that I hope to be "in Texas" tomorrow night.
You may recall I had projected us to be somewhere west of Houston tonight, but several things conspired against that. First among them was our deployment status.
I have mentioned here before that notwithstanding how well organized the Red Cross is with respect to volunteers and management thereof, there is something fundamentally broken about the way "recruitment" and "deployment" works within the system. As I wrote here, on our last deployment we had originally gotten a call to go to a job that turned out to be nearly closing, whereas the recruitment for the job where we were really needed had not yet trickled through the system. We were able to resolve that by calling in to National Headquarters, who figured out where we really should be going, steered us in the right direction, and then corrected the stale information in the deployment pipeline. Mostly, that was all possible because all the jobs were small (relatively) and the Disaster Operations Center (DOC), including the staff deployment center, was not very busy (relatively).
It was not a surprise to us, therefore, that deployment once again did not have its act together. This morning, as we were preparing to get on the road around 8am, we finally heard back from our chapter, whom we had pestered several times yesterday. And the word was: no deployment. This, of course, made no sense to us, and so I pressed them on why, and they related that the Service Area (SA) felt we were too far away. So we spent the next hour or so on the phone with the DOC, the SA, and the chapter trying to sort things out. The bottom line, for us, is that the SA is very short-sighted and has far too limited a view of its role in staffing national disasters -- unsurprising, since their focus is regional, and this disaster is not in their region (our SA is the Great Lakes).
A few calls to the DOVE leadership revealed that we are not alone -- several other DOVE's trying to help from around the country are having similar deployment issues. This is something we all thought we had licked after Katrina, and things went well for a while, but, apparently, the DOVE message has been lost over time. In any case, we've been advised to keep heading west, which will put us in a position where we are no longer "too far away" to be recruited. The technology department is fully staffed in San Diego at the moment, but recruiting has not even started yet for LA, since management on the ground there is having trouble even nailing down a headquarters site. So we should be in position in time for the first round of calls for LA, or for the inevitable staff increase that will be requested for San Diego as the scope of the relief operation increases moving forward (we know the job is getting bigger -- we have a TV).
In any event, with all the hemming and hawing and phone calls, we did not even stow the dish and head out on the road until past 10 this morning. In part, that was due to a brief flirtation with the idea of heading back east a few miles to Pensacola, where the job from the tornado is still winding down, on the theory that we're "close enough" to Pensacola to satisfy the near-sighted Service Area. We did not want to move in either direction until things were nailed down.
As we prepared to leave, we got our second rude awakening of the day. Every day that we move the bus, I do a complete walk-around inspection, similar to what a professional driver must do daily by law. I turn on and inspect all the lights, check the running gear, inspect the tires, and so forth. Now, we've been having some abnormal wear problems on our tag tires for quite some time, some of which may be due to the bent A-frame. And the right tag has worn itself into a lumpy mess, which has, lately, been rattling our teeth and everything else as we drive along. It's a tag wheel, so the terrible tread condition has not been any cause for alarm, as long as the casing has remained intact and the pressure/temperature monitoring system has been giving clean reports, all of which has been fine until today.
Well, on this morning's walk-around, I noticed that the tread on the right tag had worn down to the belts. Steel was showing on the outside shoulder. Dang. And I had just remarked, after inspecting the tire before we left Suwannee, that I was hoping the tire would make it all the way to California, and we could deal with replacing it after the operation was over. No such luck -- with the belts already showing through, we'd have to replace the tire even before the day was out. The dish was already stowed, and I knew we would not find a tire in Daphne, so we double-checked the monitor readings and headed out onto the road, with the idea of finding a tire shop somewhere along the interstate. Fortunately, as a non-commercial vehicle we are not compelled to stop at the inspection (weigh) stations -- the worn tire would get a real truck red-tagged in an instant.
After a couple of coffees in the morning, I need a bathroom break every hour or so anyway, which gave us an opportunity to check on the tire frequently. Rather than eating our lunch under way in the cockpit, as is our norm, we stopped at a rest area at the Mississippi/Louisiana state line, and put the dish up while we ate. Half a dozen phone calls later, we had located exactly two tire dealers in Baton Rouge with our size in stock. One had Firestones for $360 each, and one had Goodyears for $550 each. I was darned if I was going to put $1,100 worth of tires on an axle that has proven itself to be a tire-eating fiend, so we set our sights on the Firestone dealer, even though they claimed "we don't work on RV's" (I pleaded with them that it was really a bus). We figured to be there by 3-3:30.
We headed back out onto the Interstate, and I dialed the cruise in at 60 for the hundred miles or so to Baton Rouge. About half way there, just a few miles east of I-59, CRACK! -- one, two, or perhaps several large rocks hit the windshield, about five inches up from the bottom just inboard of the driver-side radius. Wow -- these were the biggest stars we've ever gotten in the windshield -- a double star, each about 3" in diameter with their centers about an inch apart, making for a 4" tall mess. And another nickel-sized volcano a couple inches away. I have to say, every time this happens, our hearts just sink.
Well-versed now in the windshield-strike drill, we immediately exited the freeway in Hammond, pulled into a Lowe's parking lot, and hauled out the magic fix-it kit. The double-star was a challenge, as I had to move the kit from one to the other without making a mess of the first repair. Also, the outside temperature was in the low 60's, making us nervous about using too much heat gun on the repairs from the inside -- we didn't know if too much differential temperature might actually spread the crack. To make matters worse, the resin is UV-cure, and today was completely overcast and even a bit rainy. We put our wimpy little black-lite, which we normally use to find pet stains, on the repair to do what we could.
Patching the double-star plus the volcano way-laid us for an hour, and we rolled up to the tire shop in Baton Rouge at 4:30, just half an hour before closing. You could see them thinking pretty hard about turning us down, being sort-of an RV to begin with, and coming in with a 45-minute job half an hour before quitting time. Then they made some noises about not having a jack that would fit under our low-slung tag A-frame. That last one got them, though, as I pulled out my trusty 12-ton bottle jack and placed it under the A-frame myself -- I think that more or less shamed them into doing the job.
$850 and one hour later, we had two shiny new Firestone FS560's on the tag, the steel belts of shame had been placed on the scrap heap, and we were back under way. But at 5:30 we were still in Baton Rouge, and in traffic to boot.
We made a stop in Lafayette for dinner, wherein as a final (so I thought) insult my driver's side-window sunshade broke it's retractor mechanism as I went to retract it to navigate onto city streets. (I was able to repair it this evening with the help of a small packet of #6 nuts and bolts from Wal-Mart.)
After dinner we recalibrated our stopping point for the day to Lake Charles, where we would have a choice of three Wal-Marts and two casinos, but somewhere between Lafayette and here I decided I was just done for the day, and we pulled off here instead. This store, immediately adjacent to I-10, apparently has problems with truckers filling the lot at night, and has surrounded it with 12'-0" overhead barriers to keep them out -- we had to circle a couple of times before we found the secret entrance.
As if we did not already have enough problems for the day, when I went to level out the bus I discovered that the rear suspension adjustment is stuck in the full "up" position, possibly a consequence of overextending it during the tire change. Tomorrow I will have to shinny between the rear axles to try to figure it out. I am hoping that the connector has simply come a bit loose, but there is always a chance that the linear actuator itself has a problem. I do have a fixed-length control arm that I can substitute for the actuator to get us back on the road, if necessary.
Perhaps I should learn my lesson from yesterday's projection, and just say that I hope to be "in Texas" tomorrow night.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Playing the odds
We are at the Wal-Mart in Daphne, Alabama, just east of Mobile (map).
We still have not heard anything through official channels about being deployed. But given that most of our trip will be on our own nickel anyway (it will cost us well over $2,000 to drive to California, whereas official reimbursement guidelines limit us to about $450), we decided there was no harm in getting a head start. Tomorrow morning we will check back in with our chapter to see if any word has come through.
In the meantime, we will keep heading west. I expect to be somewhere between Houston and San Antonio tomorrow night.
We still have not heard anything through official channels about being deployed. But given that most of our trip will be on our own nickel anyway (it will cost us well over $2,000 to drive to California, whereas official reimbursement guidelines limit us to about $450), we decided there was no harm in getting a head start. Tomorrow morning we will check back in with our chapter to see if any word has come through.
In the meantime, we will keep heading west. I expect to be somewhere between Houston and San Antonio tomorrow night.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Unsettled
We are at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, near Live Oak, Florida (map).
We have friends here, with whom we had a nice visit Sunday, and we had intended to remain here through Magnoliafest, which starts Thursday. It appears we will not be able to do that -- Southern California is on fire, and the Red Cross is calling up over 2,000 volunteers. We've not yet been called, but we expect to be.
In fact, we have several calls of our own into various people to see if we should start rolling. The problem with being in Florida is that we are four days out -- a good deal of the workload on a job happens in the first 48 hours, and we will miss that regardless. We'd like to get some indication that we will still be needed by Saturday before we go, but getting anyone to commit to that in the first chaotic day of a relief operation is sometimes difficult. Since at least some of the responses to our queries may come in by email, I am also trying to leave the dish up until we hear something. If we don't get a response in the next hour or two, we'll likely head west on our own initiative.
Unfortunately, that means we will miss the festival, and also spending some more time with our friends here. But we will be back, I'm sure.
We have friends here, with whom we had a nice visit Sunday, and we had intended to remain here through Magnoliafest, which starts Thursday. It appears we will not be able to do that -- Southern California is on fire, and the Red Cross is calling up over 2,000 volunteers. We've not yet been called, but we expect to be.
In fact, we have several calls of our own into various people to see if we should start rolling. The problem with being in Florida is that we are four days out -- a good deal of the workload on a job happens in the first 48 hours, and we will miss that regardless. We'd like to get some indication that we will still be needed by Saturday before we go, but getting anyone to commit to that in the first chaotic day of a relief operation is sometimes difficult. Since at least some of the responses to our queries may come in by email, I am also trying to leave the dish up until we hear something. If we don't get a response in the next hour or two, we'll likely head west on our own initiative.
Unfortunately, that means we will miss the festival, and also spending some more time with our friends here. But we will be back, I'm sure.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Small Space Saturday: Hooks
On Saturdays I write about strategies for living in 300 square feet
Hooks are a great way to make use of small or narrow storage areas. They also can help control clutter by supplying a "place for everything and everything in its place."
Because of Odyssey's unusual layout, we have a wall right behind our driving positions. We installed a couple of hooks there and they hold hats, umbrellas, and jackets. Sean's hats are starting to overwhelm his hook, so I'm thinking about adding another one to the right of this one and slightly higher up. That space right above the seat isn't being used at all otherwise.
In most rigs, there is either a slideout walls or nothing behind the seats, but what about the wall space to the sides? Any room there for a nice hook to store hats?
In the bedroom, we have a wall that faces the back of the coach. This is the aisle to walk around the end of the bed, so there is no room for a cabinet. A couple of hooks, though, don't take up any space. We hang clothing that's been worn but isn't dirty enough to be washed yet here. It can't be seen from the rest of the bus and helps keep piles of clothes from appearing on the bed or bedside tables. Brushing up against this clothing while walking around the bed isn't a problem.
Doesn't that look neat and tidy? Of course, I removed three other pairs of pants, a sweater, a scarf, my ratty exercise t-shirt, and two miscellaneous bungee cords from the hooks before taking the photo. You could barely see the hooks otherwise!
For these permanent hook installations, we chose brushed nickel hardware to match our color scheme. Nice hooks are available in bright nickel, brass, white, and black to complement any RV interior. I've even seen a few special colors like blue and green. Hardware stores are much less expensive and have a much better selection than RV parts sources.
These plastic hooks are not permanent, and are designed to be used over a door. They're really versatile. When we have something really wet to hang up, like bathing suits, I put the hook inside the shower so the water drips into the drain. If we're parked near the ocean and have our beach towels out, I flip the hooks to the outside of the shower so the towels are easy to grab. If I want to hide the beach towels, I put the hooks on the inside of the bathroom door.
These clear plastic ones practically disappear visually, so I don't mind them living in the shower enclosure most of the time. The dark circle you see on them is a rubber bumper foot, the kind that usually sticks on the bottom of something you don't want to slide around. The hook is designed for a standard household door, so it is a little loose on our doors. The bumper keeps it from rattling around too much.
I have at least three other locations in the bus where I am thinking about putting hooks. For me, the tradeoff to consider is whether having stuff hanging around on hooks is too much visual clutter. I look for hidden, unused small spaces and think if a hook would solve a storage problem. I'm particularly fond of them inside closet and cabinet doors for that reason.
I'll share some of our basement storage hook solutions in another post.
Hooks are a great way to make use of small or narrow storage areas. They also can help control clutter by supplying a "place for everything and everything in its place."
Because of Odyssey's unusual layout, we have a wall right behind our driving positions. We installed a couple of hooks there and they hold hats, umbrellas, and jackets. Sean's hats are starting to overwhelm his hook, so I'm thinking about adding another one to the right of this one and slightly higher up. That space right above the seat isn't being used at all otherwise.
In most rigs, there is either a slideout walls or nothing behind the seats, but what about the wall space to the sides? Any room there for a nice hook to store hats?
In the bedroom, we have a wall that faces the back of the coach. This is the aisle to walk around the end of the bed, so there is no room for a cabinet. A couple of hooks, though, don't take up any space. We hang clothing that's been worn but isn't dirty enough to be washed yet here. It can't be seen from the rest of the bus and helps keep piles of clothes from appearing on the bed or bedside tables. Brushing up against this clothing while walking around the bed isn't a problem.
Doesn't that look neat and tidy? Of course, I removed three other pairs of pants, a sweater, a scarf, my ratty exercise t-shirt, and two miscellaneous bungee cords from the hooks before taking the photo. You could barely see the hooks otherwise!
For these permanent hook installations, we chose brushed nickel hardware to match our color scheme. Nice hooks are available in bright nickel, brass, white, and black to complement any RV interior. I've even seen a few special colors like blue and green. Hardware stores are much less expensive and have a much better selection than RV parts sources.
These plastic hooks are not permanent, and are designed to be used over a door. They're really versatile. When we have something really wet to hang up, like bathing suits, I put the hook inside the shower so the water drips into the drain. If we're parked near the ocean and have our beach towels out, I flip the hooks to the outside of the shower so the towels are easy to grab. If I want to hide the beach towels, I put the hooks on the inside of the bathroom door.
These clear plastic ones practically disappear visually, so I don't mind them living in the shower enclosure most of the time. The dark circle you see on them is a rubber bumper foot, the kind that usually sticks on the bottom of something you don't want to slide around. The hook is designed for a standard household door, so it is a little loose on our doors. The bumper keeps it from rattling around too much.
I have at least three other locations in the bus where I am thinking about putting hooks. For me, the tradeoff to consider is whether having stuff hanging around on hooks is too much visual clutter. I look for hidden, unused small spaces and think if a hook would solve a storage problem. I'm particularly fond of them inside closet and cabinet doors for that reason.
I'll share some of our basement storage hook solutions in another post.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Another day, another Wal-Mart
We are at another Wal-Mart in Tallahassee (map).
We had a nice dinner at the University Center Club last night, which overlooks Doak Campbell Stadium in much the way a high-ticket sky box does at a pro park. Preparations are under way for this weekend's game against Miami.
Unfortunately, there was no place we could park Odyssey overnight within walking distance of the stadium. We did park in the student lot for dinner -- there was no way we were going to ride a scooter to dinner in last night's torrential downpour -- driving here to Wal-Mart when we were done. There are a lot of low oak trees in Tallahassee, so getting to the stadium in the first place was a bit of a challenge -- the GPS wanted us to take a street that would have stripped everything right off the roof.
Our plan had been to leave here this morning, heading east toward Live Oak. We caught a news item before dinner, though, about a destructive tornado which hit Pensacola, only a few hours west of here, and we contacted the Disaster Operations Center immediately to let them know where we were. We were told to stand by this morning for possible deployment, and leadership was en route to Pensacola. Of course, this morning's news was full of additional tornado strikes, including one not far from our home chapter in Indiana. We decided to stay put, right here at Wal-Mart, until we got word of where we might be needed, if at all.
So here we are, about to spend an uncharacteristic second night in the same Wal-Mart parking lot. It took the whole day for our chapter to figure out that we really were not going to be needed anywhere -- the Pensacola operation turned out to be smaller than anticipated (it is already shutting down), and, while the one in Indiana is larger, it will likely be close to wrapping up by the time we could get there. So, we are standing down, and will resume tomorrow morning with our plan to head to the Suwannee river.
Of course, we're sitting right dead center of the low-pressure trough that spawned these storms, and more than a foot of rain has been dumped on us in the last 24 hours. Odyssey has more leaks than the Nixon administration, and we've been sopping up water in here for a good part of that time. Harumph. Ironically, we file these parking lot stays under the label "Dry camping." Not.
I'm hoping for a drier day tomorrow.
We had a nice dinner at the University Center Club last night, which overlooks Doak Campbell Stadium in much the way a high-ticket sky box does at a pro park. Preparations are under way for this weekend's game against Miami.
Unfortunately, there was no place we could park Odyssey overnight within walking distance of the stadium. We did park in the student lot for dinner -- there was no way we were going to ride a scooter to dinner in last night's torrential downpour -- driving here to Wal-Mart when we were done. There are a lot of low oak trees in Tallahassee, so getting to the stadium in the first place was a bit of a challenge -- the GPS wanted us to take a street that would have stripped everything right off the roof.
Our plan had been to leave here this morning, heading east toward Live Oak. We caught a news item before dinner, though, about a destructive tornado which hit Pensacola, only a few hours west of here, and we contacted the Disaster Operations Center immediately to let them know where we were. We were told to stand by this morning for possible deployment, and leadership was en route to Pensacola. Of course, this morning's news was full of additional tornado strikes, including one not far from our home chapter in Indiana. We decided to stay put, right here at Wal-Mart, until we got word of where we might be needed, if at all.
So here we are, about to spend an uncharacteristic second night in the same Wal-Mart parking lot. It took the whole day for our chapter to figure out that we really were not going to be needed anywhere -- the Pensacola operation turned out to be smaller than anticipated (it is already shutting down), and, while the one in Indiana is larger, it will likely be close to wrapping up by the time we could get there. So, we are standing down, and will resume tomorrow morning with our plan to head to the Suwannee river.
Of course, we're sitting right dead center of the low-pressure trough that spawned these storms, and more than a foot of rain has been dumped on us in the last 24 hours. Odyssey has more leaks than the Nixon administration, and we've been sopping up water in here for a good part of that time. Harumph. Ironically, we file these parking lot stays under the label "Dry camping." Not.
I'm hoping for a drier day tomorrow.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tally-ho
We are at a Wal-Mart in Tallahassee, Florida (map).
Once we had altered our plan to come to Tally, we set our sights on the Elks lodge here, which claimed to have six RV spaces with power and water. We thought that presented us with a good opportunity to settle in for a few days and get some things done, including doctor visits.
The lodge did, indeed, have six RV spaces, five of which had power and water. Unfortunately, they were in a heavily wooded section several hundred feet from the lodge, and there was no way we could get the satellite on line. We did try, though, and I will also say it was a very tight squeeze for Odyssey to get into and then out of the little campground. Too bad, really, because the location was otherwise perfect, with access to some dining options and a bus line half a block away that could likely whisk us to our club in town, or remote doctors' offices.
While we are definitely squarely in the category of "Internet junkies," we have been known to go for a few nights without access, particularly when some other aspect of the location is particularly appealing. But the main purpose of our visit to Tallahassee is to deal with doctor appointments, and to perhaps take care of some other business while in town, and this aspect of our lives is very much handled on the Internet. Doctor recommendations were expected to arrive by email (they did) and we use the 'net to look up addresses, plan routes, find mass transit routes and schedules, and all those sorts of things that full-timers struggled with before its advent.
So having direct access to the 'net from the comfort of our easy chairs was non-negotiable on this visit, and, after we established that it was not possible from the lodge, we thanked them and headed back out, coming here to this Wal-Mart. It turns out that there is a walk-in clinic just a couple miles from here, and we pulled out Chip* the scooter and I trundled Louise down there yesterday afternoon. While she was waiting her turn, I went back out to visit the local scooter shop, halfway between here and the clinic, to pick up a Givi tail trunk for the scoot.
The diagnosis was muscle-related low back pain, and Louise now has a pack of industrial-strength muscle relaxant to get her through the next few days and break the cycle. The clinic happened to be directly across the street from Olive Garden, and, naturally, we could not resist a dinner stop there before returning to the bus.
We have a club in Tallahassee, and we're going to see if we can get in for dinner tonight. It's on the FSU campus, attached to the stadium (as was the one in Austin), and I am hopeful they will let us just spend the night in the enormous parking lot there. If that does not work out, there is another Wal-Mart only a couple miles from there.
Since we're already in this part of the country, we are going to travel a few miles further east to Live Oak, where we have friends. Last time we visited, they suggested we return during one of the large festivals at their campground/music festival park, and it happens that one of the festivals, Magnoliafest, is next weekend. It remains to be seen whether we stay for the festival -- technically, Opal is canis non gratis during the festival itself, and so staying for the festival would mean keeping her somehow under the radar.
Once we are done there, we will head west. There are no Atlantic/Caribbean lows on the weather chart (99 dissipated), and our availability commitment with the Red Cross will expire at the end of the month. We are thinking that we'd like to spend some of the winter in Mexico, and will be headed in that direction.
* Did I forget to tell you I named the new scooter? Well, more precisely, Louise's brother named it, but it has stuck. At some point early on, we noticed that the handgrips and rubber floorboard cover were chocolate brown (odd, since these items are almost universally black in the two-wheeled world), which combined with the mint green color of the rest of the scooter to remind us of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream -- my favorite flavor growing up, and still one of my favorites today. So Chip it will be.
Once we had altered our plan to come to Tally, we set our sights on the Elks lodge here, which claimed to have six RV spaces with power and water. We thought that presented us with a good opportunity to settle in for a few days and get some things done, including doctor visits.
The lodge did, indeed, have six RV spaces, five of which had power and water. Unfortunately, they were in a heavily wooded section several hundred feet from the lodge, and there was no way we could get the satellite on line. We did try, though, and I will also say it was a very tight squeeze for Odyssey to get into and then out of the little campground. Too bad, really, because the location was otherwise perfect, with access to some dining options and a bus line half a block away that could likely whisk us to our club in town, or remote doctors' offices.
While we are definitely squarely in the category of "Internet junkies," we have been known to go for a few nights without access, particularly when some other aspect of the location is particularly appealing. But the main purpose of our visit to Tallahassee is to deal with doctor appointments, and to perhaps take care of some other business while in town, and this aspect of our lives is very much handled on the Internet. Doctor recommendations were expected to arrive by email (they did) and we use the 'net to look up addresses, plan routes, find mass transit routes and schedules, and all those sorts of things that full-timers struggled with before its advent.
So having direct access to the 'net from the comfort of our easy chairs was non-negotiable on this visit, and, after we established that it was not possible from the lodge, we thanked them and headed back out, coming here to this Wal-Mart. It turns out that there is a walk-in clinic just a couple miles from here, and we pulled out Chip* the scooter and I trundled Louise down there yesterday afternoon. While she was waiting her turn, I went back out to visit the local scooter shop, halfway between here and the clinic, to pick up a Givi tail trunk for the scoot.
The diagnosis was muscle-related low back pain, and Louise now has a pack of industrial-strength muscle relaxant to get her through the next few days and break the cycle. The clinic happened to be directly across the street from Olive Garden, and, naturally, we could not resist a dinner stop there before returning to the bus.
We have a club in Tallahassee, and we're going to see if we can get in for dinner tonight. It's on the FSU campus, attached to the stadium (as was the one in Austin), and I am hopeful they will let us just spend the night in the enormous parking lot there. If that does not work out, there is another Wal-Mart only a couple miles from there.
Since we're already in this part of the country, we are going to travel a few miles further east to Live Oak, where we have friends. Last time we visited, they suggested we return during one of the large festivals at their campground/music festival park, and it happens that one of the festivals, Magnoliafest, is next weekend. It remains to be seen whether we stay for the festival -- technically, Opal is canis non gratis during the festival itself, and so staying for the festival would mean keeping her somehow under the radar.
Once we are done there, we will head west. There are no Atlantic/Caribbean lows on the weather chart (99 dissipated), and our availability commitment with the Red Cross will expire at the end of the month. We are thinking that we'd like to spend some of the winter in Mexico, and will be headed in that direction.
* Did I forget to tell you I named the new scooter? Well, more precisely, Louise's brother named it, but it has stuck. At some point early on, we noticed that the handgrips and rubber floorboard cover were chocolate brown (odd, since these items are almost universally black in the two-wheeled world), which combined with the mint green color of the rest of the scooter to remind us of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream -- my favorite flavor growing up, and still one of my favorites today. So Chip it will be.
Thursday Tips: Discount Cards for Full Timers
Thursday is tip day.
We have dozens of discount cards: grocery store cards, camping club cards, fuel discount cards, casino club cards, etc. Almost all of them are free, and none of them send us junk mail as part of their program. As we travel around the country, we add more all the time.
In order to keep track of the cards, I store them in inexpensive wallets sorted by type. The wallets are stored in the console between our seats in the cockpit.
All the grocery store cards are in the green wallet. The fuel discount and camping cards are a light blue one. The casino cards are in the largest wallet, since we have the most of those. It is a lovely dark blue. The casinos issue us each a card and we take both on the chance that the card offers a per person meal discount. Actually, the casino cards are in a small cosmetic bag with a zippered top.
This system makes it easier to actually use the cards. When we pull into a grocery store parking lot, I put the green wallet into my purse. Many of the smaller grocery chains are affiliated with larger ones, so it is possible that Johns Market will accept the Safeway card. We never know until we get inside and ask, so it is helpful to have the entire wallet with us. As anyone with a large RV knows, you often have to park way out on the edges of the lot, so walking back to the bus to get the correct card is a pain.
The same thing is true for the large casino chains, such as Hilton properties. They may accept the card we signed up for in Las Vegas. And RV parking at casinos is usually the lot furthest away.
I've combined fuel and camping cards into one wallet simply because we have fewer of those.
While all these wallets may seem like a lot to keep track of, it turns out to be a pretty simple system. The best part is that it keeps all of these cards out of our regular wallets. We only shop at an Albertsons grocery store about five times a year; why carry their card around every day? And don't get me started about the small versions of cards that you're supposed to attach to your keyring. Imagine 20 of those rattling around your purse all the time! No thanks.
We have dozens of discount cards: grocery store cards, camping club cards, fuel discount cards, casino club cards, etc. Almost all of them are free, and none of them send us junk mail as part of their program. As we travel around the country, we add more all the time.
In order to keep track of the cards, I store them in inexpensive wallets sorted by type. The wallets are stored in the console between our seats in the cockpit.
All the grocery store cards are in the green wallet. The fuel discount and camping cards are a light blue one. The casino cards are in the largest wallet, since we have the most of those. It is a lovely dark blue. The casinos issue us each a card and we take both on the chance that the card offers a per person meal discount. Actually, the casino cards are in a small cosmetic bag with a zippered top.
This system makes it easier to actually use the cards. When we pull into a grocery store parking lot, I put the green wallet into my purse. Many of the smaller grocery chains are affiliated with larger ones, so it is possible that Johns Market will accept the Safeway card. We never know until we get inside and ask, so it is helpful to have the entire wallet with us. As anyone with a large RV knows, you often have to park way out on the edges of the lot, so walking back to the bus to get the correct card is a pain.
The same thing is true for the large casino chains, such as Hilton properties. They may accept the card we signed up for in Las Vegas. And RV parking at casinos is usually the lot furthest away.
I've combined fuel and camping cards into one wallet simply because we have fewer of those.
While all these wallets may seem like a lot to keep track of, it turns out to be a pretty simple system. The best part is that it keeps all of these cards out of our regular wallets. We only shop at an Albertsons grocery store about five times a year; why carry their card around every day? And don't get me started about the small versions of cards that you're supposed to attach to your keyring. Imagine 20 of those rattling around your purse all the time! No thanks.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Georgia, the whole day through
We are at Seminole State Park, on Seminole Lake in the very southwest corner of Georgia (map).
After leaving Ozark yesterday, we circled the apparently bustling metropolis of Dothan (whose Wal-Mart also forbids overnight parking), stopping at the Flying-J south of town for 175 gallons of $2.85 diesel, about the cheapest we'll see in the southeast. We also dumped our tanks, thinking we'd likely be at more Wal-Marts over the next few days.
Our plan had been to head from there to Tallahassee on US84 and US27, which meet in Bainbridge, GA. We needed to do laundry, so we were going to just stop at a laundromat somewhere along the route. By the time we were done at the Flying-J, though, neither one of us felt like stopping for two hours to do laundry, only to have to then drive further to find a place to stay. (A search for the obvious solution to this -- a coin laundry next to a Wal-Mart -- came up empty.)
A quick consultation of the guides revealed this state park, just about a 20-mile detour off our route, with laundry facilities (which turns out to be one washer and one dryer, but there was no competition for them -- the park is empty). We didn't really need it last night, but there is also power here (50 amps), and the very lovely lake, in which swimming is discouraged due to the alligators. Anyway, it is a lovely spot, and the laundry is almost done.
Today we will continue on to Bainbridge and pick up US27 to Tallahassee. We are looking for an internist and a dentist there, so if you have any recommendations, please pass them along.
After leaving Ozark yesterday, we circled the apparently bustling metropolis of Dothan (whose Wal-Mart also forbids overnight parking), stopping at the Flying-J south of town for 175 gallons of $2.85 diesel, about the cheapest we'll see in the southeast. We also dumped our tanks, thinking we'd likely be at more Wal-Marts over the next few days.
Our plan had been to head from there to Tallahassee on US84 and US27, which meet in Bainbridge, GA. We needed to do laundry, so we were going to just stop at a laundromat somewhere along the route. By the time we were done at the Flying-J, though, neither one of us felt like stopping for two hours to do laundry, only to have to then drive further to find a place to stay. (A search for the obvious solution to this -- a coin laundry next to a Wal-Mart -- came up empty.)
A quick consultation of the guides revealed this state park, just about a 20-mile detour off our route, with laundry facilities (which turns out to be one washer and one dryer, but there was no competition for them -- the park is empty). We didn't really need it last night, but there is also power here (50 amps), and the very lovely lake, in which swimming is discouraged due to the alligators. Anyway, it is a lovely spot, and the laundry is almost done.
Today we will continue on to Bainbridge and pick up US27 to Tallahassee. We are looking for an internist and a dentist there, so if you have any recommendations, please pass them along.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Talkback Tuesday: Link Love
Tuesday is "Talkback" day, where I share what other people have to say
A number of other websites link to Our Odyssey, and I wanted to take time to thank them and share them with our readers. Most are fellow RVers. If you like reading about our travels, check out these sites.
Airstream Life
Bus Nuts Online
Bus Quest
Gumpy Dog
Hitch Itch
Journey of Our Lives
Ned's Woodshop
Ruminations/Cyndi Cooks
RV Boondocking-The Good Life
RV Links
RV There Yet?
Traveling Gene
Did I miss your site? Let me know in the comments.
A number of other websites link to Our Odyssey, and I wanted to take time to thank them and share them with our readers. Most are fellow RVers. If you like reading about our travels, check out these sites.
Airstream Life
Bus Nuts Online
Bus Quest
Gumpy Dog
Hitch Itch
Journey of Our Lives
Ned's Woodshop
Ruminations/Cyndi Cooks
RV Boondocking-The Good Life
RV Links
RV There Yet?
Traveling Gene
Did I miss your site? Let me know in the comments.
Rolling south
We are at the Wal-Mart in Ozark, Alabama (map). We're parked in the back, behind the lube bay, and it was very quiet here last night after the Tire and Lube shop closed, even though this supercenter is a 24-hour store. We didn't see another soul. Walking back from dinner, at Applebees across the street, we saw two other rigs in the front lot "RV ghetto." Safety in numbers.
FedEx did not come yesterday until after noon. By the time we loaded up the garage, drove around to the water spigot, and spent an hour or so flushing out, bleaching, and refilling both water tanks (which were completely empty -- the drinking water ran out last night, and the fresh water ran out while doing the dishes this morning), it was already three in the afternoon. After picking a generally southerly direction, to bring us back towards the gulf coast, we set our sights on the nearest Wal-Mart south of Montgomery, which happened to be in Troy.
On our way there, we checked the directories to find out that, incongruously, the Troy store is one that does not permit overnight parking. So much for our plans to be Trojans for a night. Fortunately, it was only another 45 minutes further on US231 to this store.
We were aiming for the gulf in general, and Apalachicola looked like a good target, mostly due south of here. But Louise is thinking now that she needs to go in to the doctor for a checkup, and I'm thinking that I need to see a dentist, so I am instead aiming for Talahassee, which is pretty much the largest city in the panhandle, and the most likely to have the services we'll need. If a storm doesn't intervene, we might even go all the way to southeast Florida, where I have a dentist I've used before.
We've gotten a lot of feedback on my post yesterday for Blog Action Day, most of it very positive. But at least a couple of comments suggest to me that I was not entirely clear about our stance on the environment and the current debate on global warming. So here it is, for the record:
There is indisputable scientific evidence that the Earth is in a warming period. It is a virtual certainty that this warming trend will have catastrophic effects within my lifetime. And I understand just enough about climate and weather to know that a global warming trend does not mean every place will get warmer -- some will actually get colder.
There is also indisputable scientific evidence (and really, it's just common sense) that human activity has a tremendous impact on the environment, and some kind of impact on the climate, and is very likely a contributing factor to the global warming trend.
How much global warming is attributable to human activity? I don't know -- and neither, IMO, does anyone else. It's just too complex a problem for us to be able to understand with the limited tools available to us. I personally suspect that the human factor accounts for only a small part of the overall trend. But here's the thing: even it it is only a small part, why put off doing whatever we can to mitigate it?
Even if you completely set aside the issue of global warming, it is clear that the planet's resources are not infinite, and the ever-increasing burden we place on those resources will eventually outstrip them, with dire consequences. My personal belief here is that the number one threat facing the planet is unchecked population growth, and, interestingly, the US and most of the highly industrialized nations are no longer a significant contributing factor to this growth. But the fact remains that the most highly industrialized nations, the US first among them, use the greatest amount of planetary resources per-capita. So effecting even, say, a 5% reduction in resource usage in the US will have a greater global impact that a similar reduction in, say, India, whose population is nearly four times as large.
We see ourselves as leading the world. We've seen ourselves as having saved the world. We have an opportunity to lead and save the world again -- let's seize it. If we develop the technology, methodology, and the philosophy of resource conservation, the world will follow.
Mind you, I'm no paragon of conservation. By global standards, we lead a life of privilege and luxury, as does pretty much anyone reading this. And, ironically, even the discourse on environmental issues is confined to persons of such privilege -- those further down in the "hierarchy of needs" generally can't concern themselves with the problems of the rest of the world. But, as I alluded to yesterday, it's not necessary to trade in one's standard of living to have an impact -- even something as simple and easy as exchanging an endless stream of bottled water for a good filter on your tap water can make a difference.
FedEx did not come yesterday until after noon. By the time we loaded up the garage, drove around to the water spigot, and spent an hour or so flushing out, bleaching, and refilling both water tanks (which were completely empty -- the drinking water ran out last night, and the fresh water ran out while doing the dishes this morning), it was already three in the afternoon. After picking a generally southerly direction, to bring us back towards the gulf coast, we set our sights on the nearest Wal-Mart south of Montgomery, which happened to be in Troy.
On our way there, we checked the directories to find out that, incongruously, the Troy store is one that does not permit overnight parking. So much for our plans to be Trojans for a night. Fortunately, it was only another 45 minutes further on US231 to this store.
We were aiming for the gulf in general, and Apalachicola looked like a good target, mostly due south of here. But Louise is thinking now that she needs to go in to the doctor for a checkup, and I'm thinking that I need to see a dentist, so I am instead aiming for Talahassee, which is pretty much the largest city in the panhandle, and the most likely to have the services we'll need. If a storm doesn't intervene, we might even go all the way to southeast Florida, where I have a dentist I've used before.
We've gotten a lot of feedback on my post yesterday for Blog Action Day, most of it very positive. But at least a couple of comments suggest to me that I was not entirely clear about our stance on the environment and the current debate on global warming. So here it is, for the record:
There is indisputable scientific evidence that the Earth is in a warming period. It is a virtual certainty that this warming trend will have catastrophic effects within my lifetime. And I understand just enough about climate and weather to know that a global warming trend does not mean every place will get warmer -- some will actually get colder.
There is also indisputable scientific evidence (and really, it's just common sense) that human activity has a tremendous impact on the environment, and some kind of impact on the climate, and is very likely a contributing factor to the global warming trend.
How much global warming is attributable to human activity? I don't know -- and neither, IMO, does anyone else. It's just too complex a problem for us to be able to understand with the limited tools available to us. I personally suspect that the human factor accounts for only a small part of the overall trend. But here's the thing: even it it is only a small part, why put off doing whatever we can to mitigate it?
Even if you completely set aside the issue of global warming, it is clear that the planet's resources are not infinite, and the ever-increasing burden we place on those resources will eventually outstrip them, with dire consequences. My personal belief here is that the number one threat facing the planet is unchecked population growth, and, interestingly, the US and most of the highly industrialized nations are no longer a significant contributing factor to this growth. But the fact remains that the most highly industrialized nations, the US first among them, use the greatest amount of planetary resources per-capita. So effecting even, say, a 5% reduction in resource usage in the US will have a greater global impact that a similar reduction in, say, India, whose population is nearly four times as large.
We see ourselves as leading the world. We've seen ourselves as having saved the world. We have an opportunity to lead and save the world again -- let's seize it. If we develop the technology, methodology, and the philosophy of resource conservation, the world will follow.
Mind you, I'm no paragon of conservation. By global standards, we lead a life of privilege and luxury, as does pretty much anyone reading this. And, ironically, even the discourse on environmental issues is confined to persons of such privilege -- those further down in the "hierarchy of needs" generally can't concern themselves with the problems of the rest of the world. But, as I alluded to yesterday, it's not necessary to trade in one's standard of living to have an impact -- even something as simple and easy as exchanging an endless stream of bottled water for a good filter on your tap water can make a difference.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Blog action day
Today is "Blog Action Day," wherein many bloggers are uniting to promote environmental awareness.
This seems like an excellent opportunity to try to answer a question posed to us some time ago by one of our good friends and loyal readers:
Actually, yes, we've tried to do this. And I say "tried" because, really, it's not possible. I could go on for pages and pages about why that is, but, for the sake of simplicity, I'll just say it has to do with the fact that, while "primary" energy consumption is easy to measure (how much gasoline one uses in a year, for example, or how many kilowatts of electrical power), secondary, tertiary, etc., usage (for example, how much electricity is used to pump city water to your house) is difficult, if not impossible to measure for the average consumer.
As an example, consider the following scenario: You are currently driving a ten-year-old car which gets an average of 17mpg, uses a quart of oil every 3,000 miles, and puts out a certain level of exhaust emissions. It's otherwise in good shape and can continue to be driven, for, say, another five years and 60,000 miles. You are trying to decide whether to keep this car, or buy something more environmentally friendly, say a brand new car which gets 32 mpg, will use a negligible amount of oil, and has a cleaner exhaust system.
Looking at this only from a primary effects standpoint, it is a no-brainer: over the next 60,000 miles, you will burn 1,654 fewer gallons of gasoline, emit less exhaust, etc.. However, you will also have created a consumer demand for one additional new car, and you will have created one "scrap" or junk car as well. Probably not the car you will replace -- it will propagate downward through the consumer chain, and, presumably, a very clunky gas hog with horrible exhaust will be what gets scrapped (we hope). But, nevertheless, one new vehicle will have to be manufactured and one used vehicle will be scrapped.
So, in order to determine the net environmental effect, we need to consider how much energy is used to manufacture a new car. This includes such things as smelting and founding metals, creating the plastics (a petroleum product), mining the copper for the wiring, etc.. We also need to consider how much energy is used to scrap the used car, and what happens to the inevitable portion of the waste from that process that can not be recycled.
By the time you add up all these effects, you will have reduced the environmental "gains" of the higher-mileage, cleaner-burning car by a fair amount. It's conceivable, even likely, that some new car purchases, even of very "green" cars, have their environmental effects completely negated by the myriad second-order effects. Does that mean we should not buy newer, more environmentally friendly cars? Of course not -- if a new car is inevitably going to be manufactured and consumed, it should be as green as possible. I'm just trying to illustrate the complexity of the energy consumption (or "carbon load") calculation, and how difficult it is to really know how much impact one is having.
With that as a backdrop, imagine the complexity in trying to assign a carbon load figure to the life we lead aboard Odyssey, and to compare it to a different life we might lead in a fixed dwelling. I'm not even sure where to begin: if we assume a fixed dwelling, does that mean that we'll still do leisure travel? If so, will we be, perhaps, flying to various leisure destinations throughout the year? Will we be renting a car there? Or maybe we'll go back to touring the country on a pair of motorcycles, staying in hotel rooms, or the occasional campground where we will burn a wood fire for comfort heat and to cook food.
So, I'm sorry to say, I can not give a pat answer to the question. I can't simply say something like "our carbon load is 35 tons, compared to the national average of 40 tons per couple." In fact, I can't even calculate our carbon load, because the many, many carbon load calculators (such as this example) make several assumptions based on the average person in a fixed dwelling that simply do not apply to us. (If we try to use such a calculator -- as we have -- and just key in the data that we can, it gives a very lopsided answer that is certainly not correct.)
Instead, I'll try to run down a few of the major carbon load "hot buttons" and discuss how life aboard Odyssey pertains to each:
Direct use of fossil fuel
I'll start with this one, because it's the most obvious, and the biggest "down side," so things will only improve from here.
We consume approximately 3,300 gallons of diesel fuel, 30 gallons of gasoline,and 15 gallons of LP gas per year. The diesel not only moves the bus, but also provides some of our electricity, most of our home heat, and some of our hot water. (Most of our hot water, and a good bit of our home heating, comes from waste heat from the main engine -- we designed it that way to reduce costs and to provide a direct environmental benefit.) The gasoline powers our scooters, which are very fuel efficient (80-100mpg) and serve as our around-town transportation (although we also use mass transit whenever we can). The LP, which is mostly propane in this country, is used strictly for cooking on both our indoor stove as well as our outdoor grill.
By comparison, the average American couple (by which I mean two times the individual average) consumes about 2,300 gallons of refined petroleum products and about 2,000 gallons of LNG. The refined petroleum products includes motor fuel and heating oil. So we use more oil, but less gas than the average.
Electricity
Now, bear in mind that some of the electricity we use is generated by burning diesel fuel, and so it is included above. That includes not only the electricity that comes from our generator, which is (in the global scheme of things) very fuel-inefficient, but also electricity that comes from our engine alternator, which does the lion's share of our battery charging. The alternator is much more efficient than the generator, for reasons I will not delve into here.
Some of the electricity we use is generated by our solar panels. We have 330 watts of panels on our roof, and I would guess that they are, on average, 30% efficient (accounting for cloudy days, parking in the shade, the fact that they are flat, etc.) for about eight hours of every day. In any case, it merely serves to reduce the diesel load, described above, or the amount we draw from the grid, which I will get to in a moment. Also, it's important to remember that even solar energy has a carbon load: the panels have to be manufactured in a factory, and ultimately scrapped when they no longer produce energy. But we can say we derive about 300 KWH per year from solar.
We do spend some time plugged in to commercial power. Since we don't have a kilowatt-hour meter as most homes would have, again I have to make an estimate. I estimate that we use about 2,000 KWH of commercial electric power each year. That compares to the average couple's residential use of about 10,000 KWH per year. However, bear in mind that total per-capita electric usage is actually higher, because most people spend time at work, the mall, the skating rink, etc. and those spaces need to be lit, air conditioned, cleaned, and so forth. We do, too, of course (well, except for that pesky work part, outside of our Red Cross assignments), but we spend less time inside of those kinds of commercial spaces than most folks. How much less? I can't say.
One final note about electricity: we need to "smooth" our demand function by using batteries. We have over a thousand pounds of them, and we're on our second set. Without the batteries, the solar panels would be all but useless, and we'd need to run the diesel-guzzling generator far more often. Our actual electric demand/usage would not go up, but the carbon load certainly would. But the batteries themselves have an environmental cost -- they had to be manufactured, and they will need to be recycled (the good news is that batteries are highly recyclable these days).
With regard to the specific question about our fridge, and, by implication, our other appliances, the need to be able to run from batteries demands that our appliances be highly efficient. Our refrigerator is a 24-volt model, a mere 7.5 cubic feet in capacity, with no automatic defrost. It uses a tiny fraction of the energy of the typical house refrigerator. Likewise, our diesel heating is high-efficiency hydronic, we have a very efficient induction stove to reduce our propane consumption when on commercial power (or the generator is running anyway), and our coffee maker is the thermal carafe type, with no hot plate. Even our TV is an energy-efficient LCD model. We have high-efficiency xenon/halogen lighting for when we need it, but mostly use super-efficient LED lighting to get around after dark.
Water
This is an area where Odyssey really shines. Our total water consumption is about ten gallons per day -- less than 4,000 gallons per year. By contrast, the average couple's domestic water usage is over 100,000 gallons per year.
While water use doesn't sound like a big carbon-load contributor, the fact is that each gallon of water has to be pumped, filtered, treated, and stored -- all of which have carbon-producing energy impacts, and then every gallon becomes sewage, which also must be treated, producing more carbon.
Incidentally, on the subject of water, we don't generally use bottled water (or soft drinks). Not counting milk (about 30 bottles worth each year), we perhaps go through four dozen or so beverage bottles per year, both home and away. When we do get bottles, we reuse them. A water or beverage bottle typically lasts us a month or two. We have a good filtration system aboard Odyssey, and we simply refill our water bottles from the tap. I drink powdered beverage mix, which, admittedly and annoyingly, is highly over-packaged (Crystal Light and its knock-offs, which come in plastic tubs, six in a plastic tube -- at least the tubes are recyclable). But still, I get more than half a gallon from each packet.
America's obsession with bottled water, and individually bottled beverages in general, is a huge source of needless carbon load. And, as long as I am ranting, let me just say that the state of recycling in many parts of the country is appalling. As much as we try to recycle everything we can, in many (most?) states it's just not possible to recycle anything but aluminum cans. Environmental costs be damned, but when the base material is worth real money, then we'll put a program in place. Bah.
Trash
Not generally included in many carbon-load formulae, but I think it's important.
Since our storage space is at a premium, we try not to buy anything that is excessively packaged. Unfortunately, we also cannot buy in bulk (the 36-roll package of Costco toilet paper is out), so there are tradeoffs here. But we often spend extra money for a product simply because the packaging is more minimalist.
In any case, we try to minimize our trash, and there is an energy component to dealing with trash that is thus also minimized.
This brings me around to the last subject:
Consumerism
Living in a 300 square foot space means that one simply can not accumulate "stuff." If I buy three new shirts, then three old shirts have to go to the Goodwill (or the trash -- I tend to wear my clothes out). When we bought a new pot recently, the old one went on eBay.
Since we have mostly nice things, and we are mostly happy with them, the idea of giving or throwing them away is a powerful disincentive to bringing anything different into our lives. As a consequence, we have generally "checked out" of the American consumer culture. We simply do not buy very much "stuff." When we do, it is a real treat -- I just bought a new GPS to replace a five-year-old unit that wouldn't fit where I needed it (the old one, and all its clunky accessories, was sold on eBay). Louise treated herself to new towels for her birthday yesterday (the old ones will be donated someplace).
I mention this here because American consumer culture is one of the key reasons that Americans generate six times the carbon emissions of the world average. All of these consumer goods take energy and raw materials to produce, and then, generally, become just so much garbage at some later point in time.
The bottom line
I wish I could come up with a number here, but I can't. That said, I would have to guess that our total impact on the environment here aboard Odyssey is somewhat less than the national average, yet still far and away above that of the rest of the world. We are, after all, Americans, and have become accustomed to a certain standard of living that Americans in general take for granted, and people in developing nations don't even dream of.
We have a higher direct usage rate for motor fuel than most Americans, but the inherent energy- and water-efficiency of Odyssey and the limitations it imposes on our behavior likely completely offset that and then some.
I'm certainly not trying to sell anyone on the green benefits of an RV lifestyle -- this is a form of luxury consumption, after all (nobody really needs to see the country, and few need to travel). But we try to keep things as green as we can within the confines of what we've decided to do with our leisure time at the moment.
This seems like an excellent opportunity to try to answer a question posed to us some time ago by one of our good friends and loyal readers:
"...have you two done a comparison between Odyssey energy use and a single-family home with similar appliances/ features? I assume your MPG on the road are low, but how about your fridge, etc? ..."
Actually, yes, we've tried to do this. And I say "tried" because, really, it's not possible. I could go on for pages and pages about why that is, but, for the sake of simplicity, I'll just say it has to do with the fact that, while "primary" energy consumption is easy to measure (how much gasoline one uses in a year, for example, or how many kilowatts of electrical power), secondary, tertiary, etc., usage (for example, how much electricity is used to pump city water to your house) is difficult, if not impossible to measure for the average consumer.
As an example, consider the following scenario: You are currently driving a ten-year-old car which gets an average of 17mpg, uses a quart of oil every 3,000 miles, and puts out a certain level of exhaust emissions. It's otherwise in good shape and can continue to be driven, for, say, another five years and 60,000 miles. You are trying to decide whether to keep this car, or buy something more environmentally friendly, say a brand new car which gets 32 mpg, will use a negligible amount of oil, and has a cleaner exhaust system.
Looking at this only from a primary effects standpoint, it is a no-brainer: over the next 60,000 miles, you will burn 1,654 fewer gallons of gasoline, emit less exhaust, etc.. However, you will also have created a consumer demand for one additional new car, and you will have created one "scrap" or junk car as well. Probably not the car you will replace -- it will propagate downward through the consumer chain, and, presumably, a very clunky gas hog with horrible exhaust will be what gets scrapped (we hope). But, nevertheless, one new vehicle will have to be manufactured and one used vehicle will be scrapped.
So, in order to determine the net environmental effect, we need to consider how much energy is used to manufacture a new car. This includes such things as smelting and founding metals, creating the plastics (a petroleum product), mining the copper for the wiring, etc.. We also need to consider how much energy is used to scrap the used car, and what happens to the inevitable portion of the waste from that process that can not be recycled.
By the time you add up all these effects, you will have reduced the environmental "gains" of the higher-mileage, cleaner-burning car by a fair amount. It's conceivable, even likely, that some new car purchases, even of very "green" cars, have their environmental effects completely negated by the myriad second-order effects. Does that mean we should not buy newer, more environmentally friendly cars? Of course not -- if a new car is inevitably going to be manufactured and consumed, it should be as green as possible. I'm just trying to illustrate the complexity of the energy consumption (or "carbon load") calculation, and how difficult it is to really know how much impact one is having.
With that as a backdrop, imagine the complexity in trying to assign a carbon load figure to the life we lead aboard Odyssey, and to compare it to a different life we might lead in a fixed dwelling. I'm not even sure where to begin: if we assume a fixed dwelling, does that mean that we'll still do leisure travel? If so, will we be, perhaps, flying to various leisure destinations throughout the year? Will we be renting a car there? Or maybe we'll go back to touring the country on a pair of motorcycles, staying in hotel rooms, or the occasional campground where we will burn a wood fire for comfort heat and to cook food.
So, I'm sorry to say, I can not give a pat answer to the question. I can't simply say something like "our carbon load is 35 tons, compared to the national average of 40 tons per couple." In fact, I can't even calculate our carbon load, because the many, many carbon load calculators (such as this example) make several assumptions based on the average person in a fixed dwelling that simply do not apply to us. (If we try to use such a calculator -- as we have -- and just key in the data that we can, it gives a very lopsided answer that is certainly not correct.)
Instead, I'll try to run down a few of the major carbon load "hot buttons" and discuss how life aboard Odyssey pertains to each:
Direct use of fossil fuel
I'll start with this one, because it's the most obvious, and the biggest "down side," so things will only improve from here.
We consume approximately 3,300 gallons of diesel fuel, 30 gallons of gasoline,and 15 gallons of LP gas per year. The diesel not only moves the bus, but also provides some of our electricity, most of our home heat, and some of our hot water. (Most of our hot water, and a good bit of our home heating, comes from waste heat from the main engine -- we designed it that way to reduce costs and to provide a direct environmental benefit.) The gasoline powers our scooters, which are very fuel efficient (80-100mpg) and serve as our around-town transportation (although we also use mass transit whenever we can). The LP, which is mostly propane in this country, is used strictly for cooking on both our indoor stove as well as our outdoor grill.
By comparison, the average American couple (by which I mean two times the individual average) consumes about 2,300 gallons of refined petroleum products and about 2,000 gallons of LNG. The refined petroleum products includes motor fuel and heating oil. So we use more oil, but less gas than the average.
Electricity
Now, bear in mind that some of the electricity we use is generated by burning diesel fuel, and so it is included above. That includes not only the electricity that comes from our generator, which is (in the global scheme of things) very fuel-inefficient, but also electricity that comes from our engine alternator, which does the lion's share of our battery charging. The alternator is much more efficient than the generator, for reasons I will not delve into here.
Some of the electricity we use is generated by our solar panels. We have 330 watts of panels on our roof, and I would guess that they are, on average, 30% efficient (accounting for cloudy days, parking in the shade, the fact that they are flat, etc.) for about eight hours of every day. In any case, it merely serves to reduce the diesel load, described above, or the amount we draw from the grid, which I will get to in a moment. Also, it's important to remember that even solar energy has a carbon load: the panels have to be manufactured in a factory, and ultimately scrapped when they no longer produce energy. But we can say we derive about 300 KWH per year from solar.
We do spend some time plugged in to commercial power. Since we don't have a kilowatt-hour meter as most homes would have, again I have to make an estimate. I estimate that we use about 2,000 KWH of commercial electric power each year. That compares to the average couple's residential use of about 10,000 KWH per year. However, bear in mind that total per-capita electric usage is actually higher, because most people spend time at work, the mall, the skating rink, etc. and those spaces need to be lit, air conditioned, cleaned, and so forth. We do, too, of course (well, except for that pesky work part, outside of our Red Cross assignments), but we spend less time inside of those kinds of commercial spaces than most folks. How much less? I can't say.
One final note about electricity: we need to "smooth" our demand function by using batteries. We have over a thousand pounds of them, and we're on our second set. Without the batteries, the solar panels would be all but useless, and we'd need to run the diesel-guzzling generator far more often. Our actual electric demand/usage would not go up, but the carbon load certainly would. But the batteries themselves have an environmental cost -- they had to be manufactured, and they will need to be recycled (the good news is that batteries are highly recyclable these days).
With regard to the specific question about our fridge, and, by implication, our other appliances, the need to be able to run from batteries demands that our appliances be highly efficient. Our refrigerator is a 24-volt model, a mere 7.5 cubic feet in capacity, with no automatic defrost. It uses a tiny fraction of the energy of the typical house refrigerator. Likewise, our diesel heating is high-efficiency hydronic, we have a very efficient induction stove to reduce our propane consumption when on commercial power (or the generator is running anyway), and our coffee maker is the thermal carafe type, with no hot plate. Even our TV is an energy-efficient LCD model. We have high-efficiency xenon/halogen lighting for when we need it, but mostly use super-efficient LED lighting to get around after dark.
Water
This is an area where Odyssey really shines. Our total water consumption is about ten gallons per day -- less than 4,000 gallons per year. By contrast, the average couple's domestic water usage is over 100,000 gallons per year.
While water use doesn't sound like a big carbon-load contributor, the fact is that each gallon of water has to be pumped, filtered, treated, and stored -- all of which have carbon-producing energy impacts, and then every gallon becomes sewage, which also must be treated, producing more carbon.
Incidentally, on the subject of water, we don't generally use bottled water (or soft drinks). Not counting milk (about 30 bottles worth each year), we perhaps go through four dozen or so beverage bottles per year, both home and away. When we do get bottles, we reuse them. A water or beverage bottle typically lasts us a month or two. We have a good filtration system aboard Odyssey, and we simply refill our water bottles from the tap. I drink powdered beverage mix, which, admittedly and annoyingly, is highly over-packaged (Crystal Light and its knock-offs, which come in plastic tubs, six in a plastic tube -- at least the tubes are recyclable). But still, I get more than half a gallon from each packet.
America's obsession with bottled water, and individually bottled beverages in general, is a huge source of needless carbon load. And, as long as I am ranting, let me just say that the state of recycling in many parts of the country is appalling. As much as we try to recycle everything we can, in many (most?) states it's just not possible to recycle anything but aluminum cans. Environmental costs be damned, but when the base material is worth real money, then we'll put a program in place. Bah.
Trash
Not generally included in many carbon-load formulae, but I think it's important.
Since our storage space is at a premium, we try not to buy anything that is excessively packaged. Unfortunately, we also cannot buy in bulk (the 36-roll package of Costco toilet paper is out), so there are tradeoffs here. But we often spend extra money for a product simply because the packaging is more minimalist.
In any case, we try to minimize our trash, and there is an energy component to dealing with trash that is thus also minimized.
This brings me around to the last subject:
Consumerism
Living in a 300 square foot space means that one simply can not accumulate "stuff." If I buy three new shirts, then three old shirts have to go to the Goodwill (or the trash -- I tend to wear my clothes out). When we bought a new pot recently, the old one went on eBay.
Since we have mostly nice things, and we are mostly happy with them, the idea of giving or throwing them away is a powerful disincentive to bringing anything different into our lives. As a consequence, we have generally "checked out" of the American consumer culture. We simply do not buy very much "stuff." When we do, it is a real treat -- I just bought a new GPS to replace a five-year-old unit that wouldn't fit where I needed it (the old one, and all its clunky accessories, was sold on eBay). Louise treated herself to new towels for her birthday yesterday (the old ones will be donated someplace).
I mention this here because American consumer culture is one of the key reasons that Americans generate six times the carbon emissions of the world average. All of these consumer goods take energy and raw materials to produce, and then, generally, become just so much garbage at some later point in time.
The bottom line
I wish I could come up with a number here, but I can't. That said, I would have to guess that our total impact on the environment here aboard Odyssey is somewhat less than the national average, yet still far and away above that of the rest of the world. We are, after all, Americans, and have become accustomed to a certain standard of living that Americans in general take for granted, and people in developing nations don't even dream of.
We have a higher direct usage rate for motor fuel than most Americans, but the inherent energy- and water-efficiency of Odyssey and the limitations it imposes on our behavior likely completely offset that and then some.
I'm certainly not trying to sell anyone on the green benefits of an RV lifestyle -- this is a form of luxury consumption, after all (nobody really needs to see the country, and few need to travel). But we try to keep things as green as we can within the confines of what we've decided to do with our leisure time at the moment.
Cool at the Hot Site
We are in Montgomery, Alabama (generic map), at the Red Cross disaster relief "hot site," a facility which is ready and waiting to receive hundreds of volunteers on very short notice to jump-start a relief operation whenever another hurricane or other disaster strikes the region. Possibly sooner than one hopes: we are currently watching Investigation Area 99, a low pressure region developing in the gulf with the potential to become a tropical cyclone, and whose forecast track would bring it straight here in about three days' time.
As usual, I can not disclose the actual location of the hot site. Suffice it to say that it is a warehouse-like facility in a rather run-down part of town, but we've been quite comfortably parked here for the last three days, with access to 15 amps of power and a water spigot. We only had about a day's worth of work to do, setting up networking and some equipment to support an advance team for the next relief operation. Everything here will be on hot standby, monitored from headquarters in DC and the maintenance center in Austin. We have two cases of cabling supplies that now need to be returned; this morning we are waiting for FedEx to pick them up, and then we are done here.
Where we go next is, at this writing, very much undecided.
As usual, I can not disclose the actual location of the hot site. Suffice it to say that it is a warehouse-like facility in a rather run-down part of town, but we've been quite comfortably parked here for the last three days, with access to 15 amps of power and a water spigot. We only had about a day's worth of work to do, setting up networking and some equipment to support an advance team for the next relief operation. Everything here will be on hot standby, monitored from headquarters in DC and the maintenance center in Austin. We have two cases of cabling supplies that now need to be returned; this morning we are waiting for FedEx to pick them up, and then we are done here.
Where we go next is, at this writing, very much undecided.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Fuzzy Friday: Pet bed photos
On Fridays I write about our pets
No earth-shattering insights today, just pictures of our animal companions in their beds. The beds are fairly new; after we got rid of the carpeting it seemed unkind to make Opal sleep on the hard floor. While I was looking at dog beds, the cat beds were so cute I had to try one of those, too.
Angel is the main user of the cat bed. As an unexpected bonus, it has been keeping the couch cleaner. Most of her fur is now in the bed.
George will sleep anywhere, but prefers whichever chair has just been vacated by a human. Extra credit if you were planning to come right back to your chair; George will have settled in and will have to be booted off. She also likes the dog bed, but since Opal isn't allowed in the cat bed, we boot George out of the dog's.
She does occasionally sleep in the kitty bed. It's a tight fit.
Opal's bed is covered in a stylish bone-shaped camouflage pattern. Who designs these things?
No earth-shattering insights today, just pictures of our animal companions in their beds. The beds are fairly new; after we got rid of the carpeting it seemed unkind to make Opal sleep on the hard floor. While I was looking at dog beds, the cat beds were so cute I had to try one of those, too.
Angel is the main user of the cat bed. As an unexpected bonus, it has been keeping the couch cleaner. Most of her fur is now in the bed.
George will sleep anywhere, but prefers whichever chair has just been vacated by a human. Extra credit if you were planning to come right back to your chair; George will have settled in and will have to be booted off. She also likes the dog bed, but since Opal isn't allowed in the cat bed, we boot George out of the dog's.
She does occasionally sleep in the kitty bed. It's a tight fit.
Opal's bed is covered in a stylish bone-shaped camouflage pattern. Who designs these things?
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Leaving the gulf behind
We are at the Wal-Mart in Saraland, Alabama, just north of Mobile (map). Today turned out to be a short driving day, mostly due to errands we ran en-route.
After leaving our wonderful spot on the beach in Long Beach, we drove through Gulfport and Biloxi. There was still plenty of damage in evidence along the waterfront, but many businesses have returned, including some tourist hotels, timeshares, and, of course, the casinos. A legislative change pushed through after Katrina has allowed the casinos to rebuild on dry land -- they previously floated on barges, with devastating results in the storm.
We skirted around Biloxi bay, as the bridge to Ocean Springs is still under construction, and came back down to US90 in Ocean Springs via MS609 from I-10. Ocean Springs, the bulk of which is a few miles inland from the gulf, is in pretty good shape. So much so that we ended up stopping there in the Winn-Dixie parking lot for nearly two hours while I took care of some errands.
The specific errand that took the most time was shipping six packages from my eBay sales. We chose the Winn-Dixie lot because it was adjacent to the Post Office, where I needed to get some Priority Mail supplies. We put the dish up and I generated labels for everything right there, a sometimes frustrating and very lengthy process -- I'm not sure why eBay/PayPal/USPS integration is so tediously slow, but the pages take forever to load, and it took a full hour to generate and print six labels. Arrrgh. But it felt great to cart everything over to the post office and get it out of the living room.
Louise picked up a few things at Winn-Dixie, while I also stopped into Radio Shack in that same parking lot, and picked up a new GPS to go on the scooter. It's a Mio brand, C320 model, which is only available at Radio Shack. It remains to be seen how well it does, but I have 30 days to try it out. I'll report here when we see how it works out. (This is to replace the clunky Garmin 176C that I just sold on eBay.) NAPA across the street turned out to have 40-weight oil in stock, and dodging traffic to get some rounded out this stop.
With most of the eBay stuff off my plate, I had two other pressing items: finding a notary to notarize my title paperwork for the new scooter before I mail it off to Washington, and finding a box large enough to ship the last eBay item, a pair of motorcycle saddlebags. Just a few blocks further along, still in Ocean Springs, we spotted a UPS store, and they had both a notary and a box, which mostly finished up the errands. By this time it was past four in the afternoon, and we both declared a moratorium on any further errands for the day.
The rest of the drive through Pascagoula and up to Mobile, mostly on US90, was uneventful. We segued onto I-10 south of Mobile and then to I-65. We ditched off the freeway in Mobile at the same exit where we stayed 18 months ago (to eat at Olive Garden), looking once again for the Wal-Mart that was reported to be there, but our maps were out of date. This one was just another eight miles up the road, so we got back on the freeway, only to spot the mystery Wal-Mart just a mile north of the exit, on the frontage road.
Tomorrow morning we'll swing by another UPS Store just a block from here to drop off the saddlebags, then head across Big Bayou Canot, the Mobile River, the Middle River, and the Tensaw River on I-65 (really, the only way across the Mobile delta here) before veering off the Interstate for a road that suits us more, US31. We should be in Montgomery by mid-afternoon.
After leaving our wonderful spot on the beach in Long Beach, we drove through Gulfport and Biloxi. There was still plenty of damage in evidence along the waterfront, but many businesses have returned, including some tourist hotels, timeshares, and, of course, the casinos. A legislative change pushed through after Katrina has allowed the casinos to rebuild on dry land -- they previously floated on barges, with devastating results in the storm.
We skirted around Biloxi bay, as the bridge to Ocean Springs is still under construction, and came back down to US90 in Ocean Springs via MS609 from I-10. Ocean Springs, the bulk of which is a few miles inland from the gulf, is in pretty good shape. So much so that we ended up stopping there in the Winn-Dixie parking lot for nearly two hours while I took care of some errands.
The specific errand that took the most time was shipping six packages from my eBay sales. We chose the Winn-Dixie lot because it was adjacent to the Post Office, where I needed to get some Priority Mail supplies. We put the dish up and I generated labels for everything right there, a sometimes frustrating and very lengthy process -- I'm not sure why eBay/PayPal/USPS integration is so tediously slow, but the pages take forever to load, and it took a full hour to generate and print six labels. Arrrgh. But it felt great to cart everything over to the post office and get it out of the living room.
Louise picked up a few things at Winn-Dixie, while I also stopped into Radio Shack in that same parking lot, and picked up a new GPS to go on the scooter. It's a Mio brand, C320 model, which is only available at Radio Shack. It remains to be seen how well it does, but I have 30 days to try it out. I'll report here when we see how it works out. (This is to replace the clunky Garmin 176C that I just sold on eBay.) NAPA across the street turned out to have 40-weight oil in stock, and dodging traffic to get some rounded out this stop.
With most of the eBay stuff off my plate, I had two other pressing items: finding a notary to notarize my title paperwork for the new scooter before I mail it off to Washington, and finding a box large enough to ship the last eBay item, a pair of motorcycle saddlebags. Just a few blocks further along, still in Ocean Springs, we spotted a UPS store, and they had both a notary and a box, which mostly finished up the errands. By this time it was past four in the afternoon, and we both declared a moratorium on any further errands for the day.
The rest of the drive through Pascagoula and up to Mobile, mostly on US90, was uneventful. We segued onto I-10 south of Mobile and then to I-65. We ditched off the freeway in Mobile at the same exit where we stayed 18 months ago (to eat at Olive Garden), looking once again for the Wal-Mart that was reported to be there, but our maps were out of date. This one was just another eight miles up the road, so we got back on the freeway, only to spot the mystery Wal-Mart just a mile north of the exit, on the frontage road.
Tomorrow morning we'll swing by another UPS Store just a block from here to drop off the saddlebags, then head across Big Bayou Canot, the Mobile River, the Middle River, and the Tensaw River on I-65 (really, the only way across the Mobile delta here) before veering off the Interstate for a road that suits us more, US31. We should be in Montgomery by mid-afternoon.
Thursday Tips: Organizing Receipts
Thursday is tip day.
I used to keep paper receipts in my wallet, and it drove me crazy. I prefer a small wallet, so in order to make the receipts fit I had to fold them up to the size of a credit card. It only takes about 5 thickly folded papers to make my wallet feel really stuffed. And don't get me started on those 12 inch long novels that Home Depot seems to feel we need as a receipt!
In order to zip my wallet closed, I had to keep pulling the papers out and putting them in their more permanent home, an accordion file sorted by month. That file is stored out of sight, so transferring the paper was a pain and so I'd put it off another couple days and then my wallet got even more wadded up. Argh!
I had an "aha!" moment about four months ago, and started putting receipts in a separate zippered pouch in my purse. This photo shows from top to bottom: my purse, the receipt pouch, and my wallet.
The zippered pouch is slightly shorter than a checkbook and can easily hold a month's worth of receipts without getting overly full and messy. Many of the papers fit without folding, and most only need a single fold to fit. At the end of the month, I transfer the whole kit and caboodle to my monthly file. In the meantime, if we need to return something, the receipt is usually still in my purse for easy access.
As a bonus, I get to use the really pretty silk pouch that my Mom gave me for my birthday last year. It reminds me of her and is a pleasure to use.
I've been enjoying Rocks in My Dryer's "Works for Me Wednesday" (WFMW) so much lately that I'd thought I'd participate again. For more household and organization tips, cruise on over to Shannon's site. It's fun, but I'm not changing my tip day to Wednesday.
I used to keep paper receipts in my wallet, and it drove me crazy. I prefer a small wallet, so in order to make the receipts fit I had to fold them up to the size of a credit card. It only takes about 5 thickly folded papers to make my wallet feel really stuffed. And don't get me started on those 12 inch long novels that Home Depot seems to feel we need as a receipt!
In order to zip my wallet closed, I had to keep pulling the papers out and putting them in their more permanent home, an accordion file sorted by month. That file is stored out of sight, so transferring the paper was a pain and so I'd put it off another couple days and then my wallet got even more wadded up. Argh!
I had an "aha!" moment about four months ago, and started putting receipts in a separate zippered pouch in my purse. This photo shows from top to bottom: my purse, the receipt pouch, and my wallet.
The zippered pouch is slightly shorter than a checkbook and can easily hold a month's worth of receipts without getting overly full and messy. Many of the papers fit without folding, and most only need a single fold to fit. At the end of the month, I transfer the whole kit and caboodle to my monthly file. In the meantime, if we need to return something, the receipt is usually still in my purse for easy access.
As a bonus, I get to use the really pretty silk pouch that my Mom gave me for my birthday last year. It reminds me of her and is a pleasure to use.
I've been enjoying Rocks in My Dryer's "Works for Me Wednesday" (WFMW) so much lately that I'd thought I'd participate again. For more household and organization tips, cruise on over to Shannon's site. It's fun, but I'm not changing my tip day to Wednesday.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Our own private beach
We are just a block away from where I posted yesterday afternoon, on a different beach parking lot in Long Beach, Mississippi (map). After I posted here, I went out to wander around, looking for signs, or maybe a suitable place to park for the night. The Gulfport/Biloxi casinos really did not call to us -- we knew parking there would not be on the beach.
I found signs on the beach itself ("No Camping," among other things) with a notice that rules were enforced by the Harrison County Sheriff. The only sign I found in the parking areas, though, forbids posting of vehicles for sale there. The signs are clearly post-Katrina -- it's interesting that this is the issue of most concern to the city of Long Beach. I will say that we saw plenty of vehicles parked in abandoned lots across the street with "For Sale" signs on them.
Anyway, the beauty of the spot and the fact that there was clearly plenty of parking on a weekday prompted me to call the Long Beach police department. The call-taker there didn't really know what the city's policy was on staying overnight in the lots -- she thought I'd need to call city hall. But city hall was closed by then, and when I asked her directly about enforcement, she told me that Long Beach officers would not bother us unless they received some sort of complaint. I also asked about jurisdiction -- apparently, the sheriff patrols the beach, but their jurisdiction stops at the edge of the sand. Long Beach PD enforces the asphalt. So we took that for as close as we could get to "permission" and moved over to this part of the lot so we could be right next to the sand, which has the consistency of sugar here.
One or two people have passed by this stretch of beach, but we've mostly had it all to ourselves. In better times these beaches were crowded with tourists, but there are still no services open along this stretch of coast.
Speaking of services, they are coming soon. 18 months ago Louise snapped this photo of an empty square of land where the Waffle House used to stand, with a sign proudly proclaiming "We'll be Back!" Here is the same spot today, which is just a block west of where we are parked:
They kept their promise -- the sign in the window says "Opening Soon" and there were folks in there last night working. This photo also reveals that traffic is picking up on US90, and there are now working traffic signals along this stretch. The heavy equipment on the right is busy today removing the last vestiges of the Kangaroo gas station.
A bit closer to us, McDonalds is also rebuilding:
The gray foundation in the foreground is actually a different business. The new McDonald's will be on the rosy fill that the maroon pickup truck is sitting atop. Rebuilding here means raising the foundations above the guestimate for the next surge.
Right across the street from us, Burger King is much further along:
The building was without signage or awnings when we pulled in yesterday -- those went up this morning. The architecture is surprising for Burger King, until you realize that hurricane-ready buildings can have no eves, leading to this boxy, "roofless" store. Even the drive-through has no overhang to catch the 150mph winds. And, here again, they've raised the foundation another dozen feet or so from pre-Katrina levels.
Today, we will continue east into Biloxi, where we will have no choice but to head north to I-10, as the bridge is still out east of there. We may swing back down to 90 on the other side of the bay. I've neglected to mention here before that we are heading to Montgomery, Alabama -- the Red Cross has a disaster "hot site" there that needs some work. We need to be there Thursday night, so we will spend today and tomorrow working our way there.
I'll close with a couple more shots of our great digs here in Long Beach:
Our private beach.
I found signs on the beach itself ("No Camping," among other things) with a notice that rules were enforced by the Harrison County Sheriff. The only sign I found in the parking areas, though, forbids posting of vehicles for sale there. The signs are clearly post-Katrina -- it's interesting that this is the issue of most concern to the city of Long Beach. I will say that we saw plenty of vehicles parked in abandoned lots across the street with "For Sale" signs on them.
Anyway, the beauty of the spot and the fact that there was clearly plenty of parking on a weekday prompted me to call the Long Beach police department. The call-taker there didn't really know what the city's policy was on staying overnight in the lots -- she thought I'd need to call city hall. But city hall was closed by then, and when I asked her directly about enforcement, she told me that Long Beach officers would not bother us unless they received some sort of complaint. I also asked about jurisdiction -- apparently, the sheriff patrols the beach, but their jurisdiction stops at the edge of the sand. Long Beach PD enforces the asphalt. So we took that for as close as we could get to "permission" and moved over to this part of the lot so we could be right next to the sand, which has the consistency of sugar here.
One or two people have passed by this stretch of beach, but we've mostly had it all to ourselves. In better times these beaches were crowded with tourists, but there are still no services open along this stretch of coast.
Speaking of services, they are coming soon. 18 months ago Louise snapped this photo of an empty square of land where the Waffle House used to stand, with a sign proudly proclaiming "We'll be Back!" Here is the same spot today, which is just a block west of where we are parked:
They kept their promise -- the sign in the window says "Opening Soon" and there were folks in there last night working. This photo also reveals that traffic is picking up on US90, and there are now working traffic signals along this stretch. The heavy equipment on the right is busy today removing the last vestiges of the Kangaroo gas station.
A bit closer to us, McDonalds is also rebuilding:
The gray foundation in the foreground is actually a different business. The new McDonald's will be on the rosy fill that the maroon pickup truck is sitting atop. Rebuilding here means raising the foundations above the guestimate for the next surge.
Right across the street from us, Burger King is much further along:
The building was without signage or awnings when we pulled in yesterday -- those went up this morning. The architecture is surprising for Burger King, until you realize that hurricane-ready buildings can have no eves, leading to this boxy, "roofless" store. Even the drive-through has no overhang to catch the 150mph winds. And, here again, they've raised the foundation another dozen feet or so from pre-Katrina levels.
Today, we will continue east into Biloxi, where we will have no choice but to head north to I-10, as the bridge is still out east of there. We may swing back down to 90 on the other side of the bay. I've neglected to mention here before that we are heading to Montgomery, Alabama -- the Red Cross has a disaster "hot site" there that needs some work. We need to be there Thursday night, so we will spend today and tomorrow working our way there.
I'll close with a couple more shots of our great digs here in Long Beach:
Our private beach.
Flanked by casinos in the distance. The shack on the right is a snow-cone stand, which is closed now but I imagine open on weekends, as it looks like the beach gets some traffic now.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
The big uneasy
We spent the night at Bayou Segnette State Park, in Westwego, a west bank suburb of New Orleans (map). We had tried to get into this park three years ago, and it was full (we missed the last space by minutes, and had to stay in a commercial park across town). It turns out to be a lovely park, right next to the bayou, with 50-amp power, free wi-fi, and two swimming pools that were closed for the season -- one strictly for overnight guests, and a wave pool in the day use area.
We stopped here principally to visit with our friend Ben, who works at the Waterford nuclear plant west of the city. He met us at the park and we had a nice dinner, wherein he shared with us that he is basically fed up with New Orleans and is looking for work elsewhere -- a sentiment in which he is not alone.
Loyal and long-time blog reader Spyderman commented that New Orleans is one of their favorite stops, and I will say that it used to be one of ours, also. However, I can't really say that we look forward to it now. Perhaps we are somewhat jaded by having spent so much time there after Katrina, but there is more to it: the place is unsafe now, and, outside of a couple of blocks in the French Quarter, and perhaps the River Walk, the town is uninviting and even depressing, mired in its own corruption and indifference and helplessness.
Long time readers will know that it takes a lot for me to say a place is unsafe -- we've stayed all over the country in places that many RVers simply would not go. But New Orleans is snowballing into anarchy. Law enforcement is disorganized and indifferent, and the criminal element has been emboldened by the lack of enforcement. Property crimes and even murder are spiraling out of control -- one of the reasons we chose, this visit, to stay out at Bayou Segnette instead of in town at the French Quarter RV Resort where we stayed last visit (the other reason being that it is very expensive for what it is -- the state park was only $18).
In any case, we did have a lovely stay at Bayou Segnette, and a great visit with Ben, and even relished the opportunity to drive through the city again and see what's been fixed and what hasn't. And we hope some day to return to a New Orleans that calls to us in an inviting way.
After we left the city this afternoon, we drove east on US90 through the still run-down neighborhoods along Chef Menteur. There are few signs of recovery along this corridor, although we did actually see a brand new housing development before we got to Chef Menteur pass. 90 took us all the way into Mississippi, and I am typing this in Long Beach, along the gulf coast, at a little park along the road where we are regrouping (map). The towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis seem to have recovered quite well, although there are still plenty of undeveloped properties and closed businesses.
We crossed the brand-spanking-new bridge (the old one collapsed completely in the storm) from Bay St. Louis to Pass Christian. The recovery here along the gulf is still in slow motion. Many private residences have been rebuilt, but there are few businesses on 90 in Pass Christian. The Wal-Mart, in whose empty parking lot we stayed our last time through, has been razed. Long stretches of beach are officially closed, although for what reason we cannot tell.
We had hoped to find a road-side boondocking opportunity along here for the night, but many lots have been fenced off, and the unfenced ones are of indeterminate ownership, so it's hard to tell whom to ask for permission. The Wal-Mart property is now fenced. No transient RV parks are open, and there are no operating businesses to ask. The lot we are in now, a large city parking lot that is virtually empty and right on the beach, likely prohibits overnight stays, although nothing is posted. But we don't want to have to "move along" after dark. So we have the dish up for research -- we will probably end up at one of the casinos now open in Biloxi.
We stopped here principally to visit with our friend Ben, who works at the Waterford nuclear plant west of the city. He met us at the park and we had a nice dinner, wherein he shared with us that he is basically fed up with New Orleans and is looking for work elsewhere -- a sentiment in which he is not alone.
Loyal and long-time blog reader Spyderman commented that New Orleans is one of their favorite stops, and I will say that it used to be one of ours, also. However, I can't really say that we look forward to it now. Perhaps we are somewhat jaded by having spent so much time there after Katrina, but there is more to it: the place is unsafe now, and, outside of a couple of blocks in the French Quarter, and perhaps the River Walk, the town is uninviting and even depressing, mired in its own corruption and indifference and helplessness.
Long time readers will know that it takes a lot for me to say a place is unsafe -- we've stayed all over the country in places that many RVers simply would not go. But New Orleans is snowballing into anarchy. Law enforcement is disorganized and indifferent, and the criminal element has been emboldened by the lack of enforcement. Property crimes and even murder are spiraling out of control -- one of the reasons we chose, this visit, to stay out at Bayou Segnette instead of in town at the French Quarter RV Resort where we stayed last visit (the other reason being that it is very expensive for what it is -- the state park was only $18).
In any case, we did have a lovely stay at Bayou Segnette, and a great visit with Ben, and even relished the opportunity to drive through the city again and see what's been fixed and what hasn't. And we hope some day to return to a New Orleans that calls to us in an inviting way.
After we left the city this afternoon, we drove east on US90 through the still run-down neighborhoods along Chef Menteur. There are few signs of recovery along this corridor, although we did actually see a brand new housing development before we got to Chef Menteur pass. 90 took us all the way into Mississippi, and I am typing this in Long Beach, along the gulf coast, at a little park along the road where we are regrouping (map). The towns of Waveland and Bay St. Louis seem to have recovered quite well, although there are still plenty of undeveloped properties and closed businesses.
We crossed the brand-spanking-new bridge (the old one collapsed completely in the storm) from Bay St. Louis to Pass Christian. The recovery here along the gulf is still in slow motion. Many private residences have been rebuilt, but there are few businesses on 90 in Pass Christian. The Wal-Mart, in whose empty parking lot we stayed our last time through, has been razed. Long stretches of beach are officially closed, although for what reason we cannot tell.
We had hoped to find a road-side boondocking opportunity along here for the night, but many lots have been fenced off, and the unfenced ones are of indeterminate ownership, so it's hard to tell whom to ask for permission. The Wal-Mart property is now fenced. No transient RV parks are open, and there are no operating businesses to ask. The lot we are in now, a large city parking lot that is virtually empty and right on the beach, likely prohibits overnight stays, although nothing is posted. But we don't want to have to "move along" after dark. So we have the dish up for research -- we will probably end up at one of the casinos now open in Biloxi.
Talkback Tuesday: Where are you from?
Tuesday is "Talkback" day, where I share what other people have to say
It wasn't until after we moved into the bus and out onto the open road that I realized how often people ask each other this question.
When folks meet for the first time, within minutes they ask, "Where are you from?" or "Where do you live?" If you're not a full-timer, the answer is so easy that you may not even notice the question. "Sunnyvale," I used to answer. If I was traveling, the answer was, "California." 99 times out of 100, these answers were sufficient. No further questions. Thanks and have a nice day.
Now, the answer is still short, but rarely goes unquestioned: We live full-time right here in this bus. "But where are you from?" they want to know. One answer is the name of whatever town we were in last night. Another is California; we lived there for 20 years. Another is Washington, our legal address. For Sean, another answer is New Jersey, where he grew up. I could list the dozen or so towns I lived in before I graduated high school.
Each answer is only a part of the truth, though. It fascinates me that people just have to have some answer. Okay, fascinates and sometimes annoys me. Why is it important? Does knowing that the person in the next parking space at Wal-Mart comes from Indiana really tell you something about them as a person?
There's a discussion on the Escapees forum about this same topic. Seems many full-timers struggle with this.
I think "Where are you from?" is the same type of question as "How are you?" As long as the answer is, "City, State. Where are you from?" or "Fine, how are you?" then the correct bit of social lubrication has been applied and that may be the end of that. But as soon as you deviate from that script with "I live in my RV," or "I'm actually feeling pretty crummy today," the conversation turns a different direction. You've signaled that you want to talk about it more in depth.
The problem is that I often don't want to talk in depth with a stranger who has merely asked a polite social question. And given the amount of attention that Odyssey attracts, we could be asked this 5, 10, 25 times a day. Call me anti-social, but I just don't want to meet that many potential Bestest Friends.
I am trying to train myself to give an answer that is a polite truth without opening it up for a big discussion. But neither "California" nor "Washington" seems right. The former can raise further questions because we don't have California license plates. The latter feels wrong because of all the many, many places we've both lived, neither one of us has ever actually had a home in Washington state!
I've tried some of the other options like "El Paso, TX," where I was born. But it's almost inevitable that the person I'm talking to worked for 20 years in El Paso! "What a coincidence! Do you live on the north or south side of town?" Then I have to explain that I really only lived there for two months as an infant and now I live in my RV and blah blah blah here we are explaining the whole darn thing again.
Full-timers, where are you from?
It wasn't until after we moved into the bus and out onto the open road that I realized how often people ask each other this question.
When folks meet for the first time, within minutes they ask, "Where are you from?" or "Where do you live?" If you're not a full-timer, the answer is so easy that you may not even notice the question. "Sunnyvale," I used to answer. If I was traveling, the answer was, "California." 99 times out of 100, these answers were sufficient. No further questions. Thanks and have a nice day.
Now, the answer is still short, but rarely goes unquestioned: We live full-time right here in this bus. "But where are you from?" they want to know. One answer is the name of whatever town we were in last night. Another is California; we lived there for 20 years. Another is Washington, our legal address. For Sean, another answer is New Jersey, where he grew up. I could list the dozen or so towns I lived in before I graduated high school.
Each answer is only a part of the truth, though. It fascinates me that people just have to have some answer. Okay, fascinates and sometimes annoys me. Why is it important? Does knowing that the person in the next parking space at Wal-Mart comes from Indiana really tell you something about them as a person?
There's a discussion on the Escapees forum about this same topic. Seems many full-timers struggle with this.
I think "Where are you from?" is the same type of question as "How are you?" As long as the answer is, "City, State. Where are you from?" or "Fine, how are you?" then the correct bit of social lubrication has been applied and that may be the end of that. But as soon as you deviate from that script with "I live in my RV," or "I'm actually feeling pretty crummy today," the conversation turns a different direction. You've signaled that you want to talk about it more in depth.
The problem is that I often don't want to talk in depth with a stranger who has merely asked a polite social question. And given the amount of attention that Odyssey attracts, we could be asked this 5, 10, 25 times a day. Call me anti-social, but I just don't want to meet that many potential Bestest Friends.
I am trying to train myself to give an answer that is a polite truth without opening it up for a big discussion. But neither "California" nor "Washington" seems right. The former can raise further questions because we don't have California license plates. The latter feels wrong because of all the many, many places we've both lived, neither one of us has ever actually had a home in Washington state!
I've tried some of the other options like "El Paso, TX," where I was born. But it's almost inevitable that the person I'm talking to worked for 20 years in El Paso! "What a coincidence! Do you live on the north or south side of town?" Then I have to explain that I really only lived there for two months as an infant and now I live in my RV and blah blah blah here we are explaining the whole darn thing again.
Full-timers, where are you from?
Monday, October 8, 2007
Me gotta go pole the pirogue down the bayou
We are in Charenton, in the heart of Acadiana (cajun country -- say Acadian fast), along the Bayou Teche on the tribal lands of the Chitimacha, who have a casino here (map).
The Cypress Bayou Casino actually has a full-hookup campground, which is a great deal at $10 per night if you have a (free) players club card. The 50 amp power came in handy to run our air conditioning -- it's still hot and sticky here -- and charge our batteries, which got a workout running the AC while we were at the ferry landing. We had an eerie feeling of déjà vu as we pulled in to the place; it took us a few moments to realize we had pulled in here three years ago to dump our tanks -- it must have been listed in one of our dump site directories.
The casino also has five restaurants. The very pricey steakhouse was highly rated, according to the Internet, so we stopped in for dinner. We split one piece of prime rib between us, and, at 22 ounces, even split we could not finish it. It was tasty, though, and now we have leftovers.
Our drive yesterday along the eastern half of Cameron parish and into Vermillion parish revealed a bit more unrepaired damage than we had seen west of Cameron, but, still, recovery is happening, albeit slowly. As we moved further inland toward the Atchafalaya basin things began to again look normal.
Today we will continue east on US90 all the way to New Orleans.
The Cypress Bayou Casino actually has a full-hookup campground, which is a great deal at $10 per night if you have a (free) players club card. The 50 amp power came in handy to run our air conditioning -- it's still hot and sticky here -- and charge our batteries, which got a workout running the AC while we were at the ferry landing. We had an eerie feeling of déjà vu as we pulled in to the place; it took us a few moments to realize we had pulled in here three years ago to dump our tanks -- it must have been listed in one of our dump site directories.
The casino also has five restaurants. The very pricey steakhouse was highly rated, according to the Internet, so we stopped in for dinner. We split one piece of prime rib between us, and, at 22 ounces, even split we could not finish it. It was tasty, though, and now we have leftovers.
Our drive yesterday along the eastern half of Cameron parish and into Vermillion parish revealed a bit more unrepaired damage than we had seen west of Cameron, but, still, recovery is happening, albeit slowly. As we moved further inland toward the Atchafalaya basin things began to again look normal.
Today we will continue east on US90 all the way to New Orleans.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Super Sunday: Unexpected Beauty
On Sundays I write about one of the joys of full-timing
In yesterday's post, Sean wrote about how we were looking for a place to stop for the night, and that we passed several RV parks, difficult to access beaches, and the full state park. What he didn't write was a bit of mounting anxiety as we kept driving.
This area was devastated by Hurricane Rita and has undergone great changes in the three years we've been visiting. Our famous library of camping resources is almost useless here. We knew the road was very narrow and bordered by wetlands, with limited places to turn Odyssey around. We worried that if we drove too long, it would be even harder to find a place to stop after dark.
So when we ended up here at the Cameron ferry dock, we were both relieved and a bit disappointed. I was relieved that it looked like boondocking was allowed. Sean had hoped to camp on the sand east of Holly Beach with a view of the open water, so he was a bit disappointed. After all, this is an unpaved boat ramp next to a low-budget ferry terminal on a shipping channel. But we were both ready to stop, and we both enjoy watching boats and industrial works zones, so this was going to be good enough for a night's rest.
What surprised both of us, however, was how unexpectedly lovely it turned out to be.
Within minutes of parking, we saw two dolphins swimming up the channel, their slick gray fins slicing through the chop. A great Blue Heron landed on a stump of old pier near us and stretched his plumy head. They are so elegant and deliberate; one of my favorite birds.
Huge towering cumulonimbus clouds piled up to the east. As the sun set behind us, those clouds slowly turned from white to yellow to orange to a fierce red, pink, then slowly faded to gray. They were magnificent! We sat in our big front window, sipped wine, and smiled.
When the clouds were orange and red, the dolphins returned down the channel, and several v-shaped flocks of sea birds sailed by overhead. Right after the light faded, the wind kicked up and blew the clouds into a foggy mass, but not until after we admired them for almost an hour.
This morning, the channel is back to its industrial self, with the rusted hulks of Rita-ravaged ships on the near shore and cranes and barges near the ferry terminal. Cars are lined up to take the ferry and fishing boat trailers are parked next to us. The trash barrels are overfull and the parking lot is weedy and muddy.
But last night we were privileged to see the secret evening soul of this out-of-the-way place, and I feel blessed.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Calcasieu Pass
We are parked at the boat launch next to the Cameron Ferry dock, on the west side of the Calcasieu Pass (map). The ferry departs one side or the other every 15 minutes, so every half hour we get a good blast from the horn. Fortunately, train and ship whistles do not bother us. This is very nearly the exact spot where we spent several hours trying to re-inflate our suspension back in January of 2005, after a less-than-graceful ferry embarkation.
That same day, if you read the whole post, we spent the night in a little Texas state park (Umphrey) just across the Sabine Pass, and that's where we had intended to stop tonight. Back on that pre-Rita date, the park was completely deserted -- today, it was full. But not full of transient RV's, as one might expect of a state park -- these rigs all belonged to long-term residents, probably folks displaced by Rita or working in the area on long term recovery. I'm guessing that the normal two-week stay limits have been suspended at that park since the hurricane, a full two years ago. A sign at the park entrance still warns of unrepaired hurricane damage. We likely could simply have boondocked at the boat launch or the day use parking area, seeing as the rules are apparently in suspension, but the charm of the place is gone.
Thus we continued east into Louisiana and again along the Creole Nature Trail. I'm happy to report that there has been a great deal of recovery in the 18 months since we last passed through. There were few signs of derelict structures, the ad-hoc dump sites are gone, the on-premise trailer village at the oil facility has been vacated, and there are many shiny new homes in Johnson's Bayou, Ocean View, and Holly Beach. There are also still some FEMA-trailer encampments, quite a few RV parks that did not exist pre-storm (mostly full of long-terms, but apparently open to transient stays as well), and, not unexpectedly, many empty lots with "For Sale" signs. That's just the western half of the parish, though -- tomorrow we will cross on the ferry and see how the rest of Cameron Parish is recovering.
We spent the last two nights parked at the property of our friends Don and CC, in Channelview, a few miles east of Houston. They are full-timers, like us, and thus I had not checked, when we were in Houston a week ago, to see if they were around. They are also DOVEs and Red Cross technology volunteers, and we all participate in an Internet/amateur radio voice conference every Sunday evening for Red Cross disaster communications personnel. When they saw me check in from Galveston, they messaged us that they were in Channelview and we simply had to stop by. So that's where we headed when we left Galveston Thursday afternoon. We had not really intended to swing back that close to Houston, but it did give me a chance to run back over to the scooter shop (in their car) to pick up the title paperwork.
We took TX146 from Galveston to Baytown (where 330 would take use into Channelview), and just after crossing Baytown's signature Fred Hartman bridge, a fairly serious automobile accident happened right in front of us. A woman in a compact car apparently hit a truck tire carcass, which was whole and standing partly upright in the middle of the center lane when we passed it, and then spun out and slammed into the Jersey barrier in the median. We were very nearly the first-on-scene.
There was lots of hard braking all around us (and we had to do some ourselves), with the potential for more cars to pile into the wreckage, which was sideways across the #1 lane. I maneuvered Odyssey quickly into that lane just a hundred feet or so upstream of her -- far enough away that we were not in danger from the gasoline that was already running out of the wreck onto the concrete, but close enough that no one could hit her car. Not only did we constitute a nearly immovable object, but also we have very bright turn signals and brake lights mounted at the 12' height, and I had the four-way flashers and the brakes on.
After determining that she was not seriously injured and that 911 had already been called, I headed back in a reflective vest to put cones out behind us, and see if I could get the alligator out of the roadway before it claimed another victim. The police arrived while I was doing so, and after he positioned his cruiser behind my cones, lights a-blazing, I dragged the carcass off to the median, collected my cones, and went back to the accident site to tell him we were going to head back out into traffic, as we did not actually witness the crash and likely could not provide any further information or assistance. Much to my surprise, the officer was intent on asking me a bunch of questions about Odyssey, particularly around potential for windshield damage. Clearly, he had already assessed the accident scene as a non-emergent matter.
In any case, Louise snapped this photo of me in my dorky safety vest, walking back toward the coach from my discussion with the officer. Somehow, she managed to capture me just after I whirled around, and it looks like I'm waddling with my arms outstretched on both sides. Thanks. The silly squiggly line emanating upwards from my head is the non-functional radio antenna built into our windshield (the one the cop was so interested in). You can also make out the giant puddle of coolant/motor oil/gasoline running out from under the car.
The whole accident issue delayed our arrival in Channelview, but it made for a good story at dinner.
That same day, if you read the whole post, we spent the night in a little Texas state park (Umphrey) just across the Sabine Pass, and that's where we had intended to stop tonight. Back on that pre-Rita date, the park was completely deserted -- today, it was full. But not full of transient RV's, as one might expect of a state park -- these rigs all belonged to long-term residents, probably folks displaced by Rita or working in the area on long term recovery. I'm guessing that the normal two-week stay limits have been suspended at that park since the hurricane, a full two years ago. A sign at the park entrance still warns of unrepaired hurricane damage. We likely could simply have boondocked at the boat launch or the day use parking area, seeing as the rules are apparently in suspension, but the charm of the place is gone.
Thus we continued east into Louisiana and again along the Creole Nature Trail. I'm happy to report that there has been a great deal of recovery in the 18 months since we last passed through. There were few signs of derelict structures, the ad-hoc dump sites are gone, the on-premise trailer village at the oil facility has been vacated, and there are many shiny new homes in Johnson's Bayou, Ocean View, and Holly Beach. There are also still some FEMA-trailer encampments, quite a few RV parks that did not exist pre-storm (mostly full of long-terms, but apparently open to transient stays as well), and, not unexpectedly, many empty lots with "For Sale" signs. That's just the western half of the parish, though -- tomorrow we will cross on the ferry and see how the rest of Cameron Parish is recovering.
We spent the last two nights parked at the property of our friends Don and CC, in Channelview, a few miles east of Houston. They are full-timers, like us, and thus I had not checked, when we were in Houston a week ago, to see if they were around. They are also DOVEs and Red Cross technology volunteers, and we all participate in an Internet/amateur radio voice conference every Sunday evening for Red Cross disaster communications personnel. When they saw me check in from Galveston, they messaged us that they were in Channelview and we simply had to stop by. So that's where we headed when we left Galveston Thursday afternoon. We had not really intended to swing back that close to Houston, but it did give me a chance to run back over to the scooter shop (in their car) to pick up the title paperwork.
We took TX146 from Galveston to Baytown (where 330 would take use into Channelview), and just after crossing Baytown's signature Fred Hartman bridge, a fairly serious automobile accident happened right in front of us. A woman in a compact car apparently hit a truck tire carcass, which was whole and standing partly upright in the middle of the center lane when we passed it, and then spun out and slammed into the Jersey barrier in the median. We were very nearly the first-on-scene.
There was lots of hard braking all around us (and we had to do some ourselves), with the potential for more cars to pile into the wreckage, which was sideways across the #1 lane. I maneuvered Odyssey quickly into that lane just a hundred feet or so upstream of her -- far enough away that we were not in danger from the gasoline that was already running out of the wreck onto the concrete, but close enough that no one could hit her car. Not only did we constitute a nearly immovable object, but also we have very bright turn signals and brake lights mounted at the 12' height, and I had the four-way flashers and the brakes on.
After determining that she was not seriously injured and that 911 had already been called, I headed back in a reflective vest to put cones out behind us, and see if I could get the alligator out of the roadway before it claimed another victim. The police arrived while I was doing so, and after he positioned his cruiser behind my cones, lights a-blazing, I dragged the carcass off to the median, collected my cones, and went back to the accident site to tell him we were going to head back out into traffic, as we did not actually witness the crash and likely could not provide any further information or assistance. Much to my surprise, the officer was intent on asking me a bunch of questions about Odyssey, particularly around potential for windshield damage. Clearly, he had already assessed the accident scene as a non-emergent matter.
In any case, Louise snapped this photo of me in my dorky safety vest, walking back toward the coach from my discussion with the officer. Somehow, she managed to capture me just after I whirled around, and it looks like I'm waddling with my arms outstretched on both sides. Thanks. The silly squiggly line emanating upwards from my head is the non-functional radio antenna built into our windshield (the one the cop was so interested in). You can also make out the giant puddle of coolant/motor oil/gasoline running out from under the car.
The whole accident issue delayed our arrival in Channelview, but it made for a good story at dinner.
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