Draconian measures

Our friends Shahn and Ross have been living in a vehicle even more unusual than Odyssey -- an all-wheel-drive Oshkosh airport fire apparatus converted into an awesome go-anywhere full-timing rig. Ross is often wheelchair-bound, and the rig includes a wheelchair lift for ingress and egress, along with many features specific to it's uber-boondocking "mission."

Shahn has been looking at selling the rig, named "Draco," off and on for the past couple years. Recently, I got a note from him saying that circumstances have forced his hand, and he will be selling the rig at this January's Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was kind enough to pass along a graphic of the flyer (as with all images on the blog, click to view full size):



This is an amazing rig, and all the more impressive when viewed in person. If we were not already well settled in Odyssey, I would buy it myself, as it is perfectly equipped for the type of travel that we ourselves prefer. In fact, I had happened across the design details of Draco while we were working on Odyssey, and I have to confess to getting a certain amount of inspiration (as well as some envy) from it.

You can read more about Draco as well as some of Shahn and Ross's adventures at their web site, www.steelwheels4x4.com. I did notice that some of the more interesting links there have stopped working (presumably due to the referenced pages, on other sites, going away over time), but still interesting reading nonetheless.

We wish Shahn and Ross success at Barrett-Jackson, as well as in all their future endeavors.

San Manuel tribe hospitality, revisited

We are parked high on a bluff above the San Manuel casino, in the hills north of San Bernardino (map). From our perch here we had an impressive view of the valley below, and enjoyed a beautiful sunset last night, followed by the city lights shimmering below us. I say "had" because today it is raining, and we have been engulfed in clouds all day.

We are only about an hour further east than we were yesterday, continuing our slow roll while I see if my tooth will improve. We had thought to just stop back by the "river" where we spent three weeks working for the Red Cross, but then remembered seeing rigs parked here at the casino when we came here for brunch on our day off. Our casino camping guide confirmed that overnight parking was available in one of the back lots. Little did we know that we would have million-dollar views right out our windows. We took the shuttle down the hill to the casino for dinner last night at the buffet, which was just as good as we remembered it.

We'll spend another night here. The weather is too crappy today to want to drive, and we're still trying to drag our heels on moving away from Santa Clarita and the dentist's office. We'll have to move tomorrow, though -- we are out of water.

Expensive Real Estate

Odyssey at the San Manuel Casino. The upper parking lot with room for RVs has fantastic views of the valley. Our view, should it be attached to a conventional home in this area, would be worth close to $1 million.

Fuzzy Friday: Cat Scratch Fever

On Fridays I write about our pets

Even though our two cats wear SoftPaws nail caps, they still need a place to scratch. (If you don't know what SoftPaws are, read this post.) Scratching is an instinctive cat behavior, used to mark territory, to slough the old claws, and for exercise.

In order for that to happen, the cats need to "get a grip" into something. The SoftPaws keep George and Angel from poking sharp claws into soft material like fabric or carpet. When they try, the smooth plastic caps just slide over the couch.

We needed to find alternative scratching materials that were inexpensive, widely available, and had an open enough structure to accommodate the nail caps. We found this one at the grocery store:



If you can't see the video, George is going to town on a cardboard scratch pad. It is simply a flat box with strips of cardboard mounted on edge inside. I think we paid about $5 for one and it lasts about six months. The holes in the cardboard edges must have just the right feel for her toenails, because she loves this thing. A little catnip inside doesn't hurt, either.

Angel found the second scratcher:



This loosely woven sisal-type basket was originally purchased to hide a box of Kleenex from the dog. Opal loves to snack on tissues. After a couple of days, Angel started clawing at the box, probably to see what was inside. Curiosity didn't kill the cat, it showed her a great scratching post. She returned to the box again and again, knocking it over and exposing the tissues. Eventually it was just easier to give her the box and let her enjoy it. I paid about $8 for this basket which should last for years. It looks pretty ratty, so it lives behind my chair.

Slow rolling

We are at the Wal-Mart in Duarte, just east of Pasadena (map). This store is something of an anomaly here, inasmuch as most Wal-Marts in the metropolitan LA area forbid overnight parking, mostly due to local ordinances. Consequently, there were four other rigs in the lot last night, even though it is a relatively small one.

Tuesday night we were visited by the security patrol for the lot we were in. They don't allow overnight parking (no surprise), but were satisfied when I explained the dental work situation and allowed us to stay for one night. I did wander in to the dentist office about mid-day to provide a progress report, which was that I was experiencing some dull pain. I got instructions to fill a script for antibiotics to start taking immediately, and to continue to monitor things for a few days. If the pain continues, I will need to return on Monday for a root canal.

This creates a sort of dilemma for us, in that we can't really get on the road and head far away from the LA area, which is what we'd prefer, and there is also really no place nearby where we can spend a few nights. So instead we are moving in our chosen direction, but v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. We left the dentist yesterday afternoon, and made stops in Sylmar to do laundry and pick up fuel filters for the Detroit, finally ending up here, just an hour away from where we started.

I was hoping that there would be continued improvement on the tooth front, and that tonight we could bast out of here, but I woke up in the middle of the night in a fair amount of pain. 800mg of Ibuprofen later I fell back asleep, and this morning so far, so good. But I need to give things at least another night to feel like things are improving rather than deteriorating, so perhaps we will try to move only another hour or two eastward from here.

Website Wednesday: Confessions of a Comics Junkie

On Wednesdays I write about websites that I visit often.

The Internet is a fantastic development for full-time RVers. It allows us to read periodicals anywhere we are. Favorite magazine? Most are available on-line. Daily newspaper? Ditto.

I'm the kind of person who always pulls the comics section out of the newspaper first. If I get around to the rest of the paper later, that's a bonus. But I read the funnies everyday.

I get most of my comics fix on the road from these two sites:

My Comics

Comics.com

Both charge a small fee for sending daily strips to my e-mail inbox, around $12 per year. Comics.com will also let you browse many for free on their site. I subscribe to many of the classics like Doonesbury, For Better or For Worse, and Pickles this way. In addition, I "test-drive" new strips for a few weeks to see if they have staying power. After five years or so of using these services, I read about 90 strips while drinking my morning coffee.

I told you I was a junkie! No dead-tree newspaper in the world carries that many comics. As a bonus, they are almost all in color.

I also read several free, web-only comics. These tend to be odd, so browse at your own risk.

Questionable Content (the name and the subject)


xkcd (geeky computer and math humor)

Basic Instructions (my current favorite)

Girly (sort of anime weirdness)

I also like two sites that analyze comics. These poke fun at bad artwork, belittle lame jokes, and generally are just snarky:

The Comics Curmudgeon (roasting the dailies)

Cartoon Violence (eviscerating the politicals)

Anyone else getting a daily electronic fix of the funnies? Remember: it's not an addiction, it's a way of saving trees, reducing clutter and saving the planet! (Yeah, right.)

By lowuh lib ith on da flooh

We are parked in a large lot adjacent to the dentist's office (map). I believe this lot actually belongs to a different multi-tenant office building than the dentist's, but it's close enough, large enough, and mostly empty so I don't think anyone will complain. With any luck, we can spend the night here undisturbed, and I can wander back into the office in the morning for a follow-up.

The lidocaine is finally starting to wear off. He had started the work without it, but the prep is very, very close to the nerve and even the little bit of work he had to do had me in excruciating pain. I'm difficult to numb, so he also had to inject me three times. And, of course, like many my age, I can't sit numb in the chair without thinking of the Bill Cosby routine about the dentist.

In any case, my new crown is in place, and I am hopeful that, after the residual pain from the drilling trauma subsides, it will have formed a complete seal and I will have no further trouble with it. I am to report in tomorrow on how it feels. We may have to remain in the area for another few days to make sure it is healing properly. I am a bit concerned that he ground the porcelain off all the way down to the metal in one spot to get the bite right, as the bare metal will conduct temperature differences to the nerve more quickly than if the porcelain was intact. It's just a pinhead-sized spot, though.

We ended up staying at the Elks lodge right up until this afternoon. Jerry and Kay did not head back to Monterey until yesterday morning, so we ended up having family dinners every night through Sunday. Yesterday we had a relaxing day at home, and I got the fuel filter changed as well as a bad gas strut on the curb side wet-bay door. We will need to stop at Cummins on our way out of town to pick up some spare filters, especially with the rate the new ULSD is causing them to plug.

Since I am proscribed from chewing too hard tonight, we are going to head over to Olive Garden, where I'll have a big plate of whole wheat pasta. By tomorrow afternoon, we should have a handle on when we will be leaving here.

Small Space Saturday: Souvenirs

On Saturdays I write about strategies for living in 300 square feet

Part of the fun of traveling is collecting souvenirs. I enjoy having something to remind me of all the neat places we've been.

Certain souvenirs lend themselves to full-time RV travel more than others. Think small and easy to keep clean. I collect lapel pins and store them on a cork bulletin board mounted on the bathroom wall.



This photo is actually almost two years old and we have many more pins now. My favorites capture the feel of a place using color and a well-designed graphic. The pins are very secure on the board, and because they are vertical, don't collect dust. I don't plan to ever wear them as pins, so I discard the clutch backs.

Other common souvenirs that would work well in an RV:

Stickers could be mounted on a smooth surface such as a whiteboard or a piece of cardboard. You may not want to stick them on a permanent surface such as the refrigerator as the next owner of your rig probably doesn't want them.

Patches would make a colorful reminder of your travels. From what I've seen, patches are more consistent in quality than either pins or stickers. The embroidery is bright and nice. How about sewing them onto throw pillows? Some folks attach them to a windbreaker or vest and wear that at RV rallies.

Tea spoons aren't as widely available as souvenirs, but can be very attractive. As a bonus, you could use several favorites to stir your coffee in the morning. Figuring out how to display them is tricky. If you have a glass-fronted cabinet, you could attach a spoon rack like this behind the glass to keep the dust down.



An open display cabinet would require more cleaning and perhaps a small bungee cord to hold the spoons in place.

Thimbles, like spoons, are both small and useful. If you sew, that is, which I don't. Again, there are display racks built just for thimbles that could be modified to use in an RV. Replacing a glass door on one of these racks with a piece of acrylic might be wise. Search eBay for "thimble display" or "spoon display" for more ideas.

Shot glasses. I see lots of shot glasses for sale in souvenir shops, so I suppose folks collect them. Because they are a bit bulky and breakable, you would have to be careful about how to store and display them. Any suggestions?

Post cards are a great, small, lightweight item to collect. Because their picture area is so much larger than pins or even patches, they can better capture the spirit of a local attraction. I don't think we have enough surface area to display post cards in Odyssey, though. They could be stored in a pretty recipe file box and left out on a table. When the mood strikes, you could leaf through the cards and take a walk down memory lane. If your decorating style is really eclectic, you could attach them to the ceiling. How about lining the inside of your basement bay doors with fun postcards? Inside cupboard door inside would work, too. You could have your "beach post card" cabinet, your "views from mountain tops" cabinet, etc. Most of the visual clutter would be hidden, but your memories would be easily accessible.

Magnets are an obvious choice if the front of your fridge is magnetic. They do tend to get dusty, though, if they are elaborate.

Keychains seem to be for sale everywhere. They could be clipped to a horizontal rail for display. I suppose they would clank together and make a noise that either charmed or annoyed you. How about pinning them to a vertical fabric surface?

What do you collect, and how do you display it?

Awaiting my coronation

We are at the Elks lodge in Santa Clarita (map).

Unlike the last time we were here two years ago, there was room for us this time in the actual RV parking area, and we have power and water available. In this temperate weather, the power is not really a big issue, but after four full weeks away from an outlet, it was good to finally top off the batteries. At just $12 per night, it's only a tad more expensive than what it was costing us to run the generator every couple days.

We're here a full day early on account of my dentist visit yesterday. We did try to find alternative accommodations, but the Wal-Marts and even the Camping World in this area forbid overnight stays.


Speaking of the dentist, he had good news and bad news. The good news was that there is no actual decay in the tooth that has been bothering me. As I had hoped, the hot and cold sensitivity I am experiencing is due to the gum having receded from the enamel, exposing a section of the dentin. He advised me to simply continue using the Sensodyne toothpaste regimen that I started three weeks ago on my own.

The bad news was that the exterior deterioration I noticed a week or two ago on a gold inlay I had on one of my lower molars was really an indication that the inlay had begun leaking and there was likely decay underneath, even though I was experiencing no pain at all on this tooth. The option was to have the inlay removed and the tooth crowned, and so I spent yesterday afternoon in the chair having the tooth prepped. He did find a good deal of decay under the inlay, so prepping for the crown was the right move. I just hope we got to it in time to avoid a root canal. We'll see if it remains stable for the next few days.

The intervention of the Thanksgiving holiday means that the crown will not be ready until Tuesday, and I have an appointment for that afternoon to have it affixed. That means that the earliest we will leave this area is Wednesday morning, although we are thinking of bailing out of the Elks lodge Saturday, in favor of more rustic environs at Castaic Lake.

Tomorrow my in-laws will arrive by car from Monterey, and we will go out for a nice Thanksgiving dinner with them. (Eating in is out of the question, as my stepmother-in-law is allergic to our pets.) Friday we will all spend the day with Louise's cousins in a big traditional family gathering. By Saturday, I expect we will be tired of eating and ready to fast for a day or two.

In other news, one of our readers commented on the Scooter Dog video:

To get that dog to do that is amazing!!! ... you are animal trainers as well!!...

To which I feel compelled to respond: We did not train Opal to ride the scooter at all. She only had to be coaxed up onto the floorboard once -- she loved it so much, that now when I let her out for a walk, if the scooters are outside, she jumps up on the floorboard spontaneously. I think she really enjoys experiencing all the great smells she encounters while riding around, When we realized she was always going to stick her head out around the fairing knee-guard, we ordered her the goggles, and a little helmet as well.

Talkback Tuesday: You're Welcome, and Thank You

Tuesday is "Talkback" day, where I share what other people have to say

Regular readers have noticed that we don't post much here when we are working a Red Cross job. But when we do, we often get a comment that thanks us for our volunteer work.

Well, gosh, that is just so nice! We honestly don't volunteer to receive kudos; we really, really enjoy the work. It is a great fit with our skills and we meet many kindhearted and fun people. The main reason we blog about the Red Cross is to keep you from wondering if we ran the bus off the road into a ditch. So when you write your thanks, it is unexpected treat. You're most welcome.

And here's a big THANK YOU to all of you, for sticking around and waiting for the blog to return to our regularly scheduled programming. My visitor statistics counting program shows that our 200 or so returning readers have stalwartly peeked at us almost every day during the last month. I can't tell you how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel, to know that you care that much about what we're up to. The Internet Age is one of short attention spans, so thank you for waiting so patiently.

Back at our home park

We are at the Wal-Mart in Palmdale (map).

The dentist near Santa Clarita had an opening today at 1:30 (actually, he also had an opening yesterday afternoon, but I did not think we could get loaded, packed, and over there in time), and so we decided to park here at Wal-Mart, since we only had one night. This will put us in Santa Clarita at least a day ahead of plan, but getting the dentist over with is paramount.

The last time we went through the Cajon Pass, 138 was closed. It appears from our drive yesterday that they have not only completely repaved it, but also regraded and even realigned it in some places. Yesterday's drive was pleasant and fast, with a minimum of traffic delays.

We'll be leaving here shortly, to allow plenty of cushion for finding parking at the dentist.

A change of plans

We are still in San Bernardino, along the Santa Ana River.

Yesterday, as we were catching up on back emails, cleaning up around the coach, and trying to plan out our route into Mexico, Louise got a call from her dad. They are making plans to head down to his niece's place in Santa Clarita for Thanksgiving. Since Santa Clarita is only two hours west of here, we will join them, and likely stay through the weekend.

In the meantime, we've heard back from our friends in Indio with a dentist recommendation, and now I also have one in the Santa Clarita area. So I will be trying to make an appointment this week or early next week in Santa Clarita, and, if that does not pan out, I will try for Indio, which is on our way to Calexico whenever we get heading that way.

We plan to leave here today, as we don't want to overstay our welcome now that we are no longer under the aegis of the Red Cross. The whole area was deserted over the weekend, but several businesses are open today. We'll be loading up the scooters in a little while -- we took them out Saturday after we returned the rental car, and have been using them to get to dinner and run errands.

That sort of begs the question as to where we will stay tonight. Our plan for Thanksgiving is to stay at the Santa Clarita Elks Lodge, where we stayed two years ago on a similar visit. The lodge parking there is really unappealing, though, so we don't really want to arrive any earlier than Wednesday. That leaves us three days to drive the 90 miles from here to there.

The slightly more direct route is to head west on I-10 to I-210 through the LA basin and up the San Fernando valley. However, I think we will, instead, head north on I-215 to the Cajon Pass, then cut west on California 138 into Palmdale through the Antelope Valley, picking up California 14 down to Santa Clarita. It's only a couple of miles longer, although it does mean crossing the hills twice. But it will circumvent the congested LA area with its associated traffic, and it will also be easier to find a spot to overnight along this less populated route.

It will now be at least a week before we are southbound to Mexico, which will give us time to get some errands done, including selling a pair of laptop computers, cobbling together the front end bodywork, and picking up spare filters and such for the foray across the border. As much as I hate the chaos, I am also contemplating braving the Black Friday crowds to buy a new LCD TV, as our four-year-old Zenith is on the fritz (it developed annoying vertical lines about two days after the warranty expired, and the problem has steadily worsened ever since).

Scooter Dog

A little video about Opal, the Scooter Riding Wonder Dog.

Free at last

The wild fire relief operation is finally over (well, the one here in San Bernardino -- they are still working in San Diego, probably for another week). We packed and shipped the last of the equipment yesterday afternoon, and had headquarters cleaned up and turned back over to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians tribe by the end of the day. By the time we wrapped up, there were only four of us left, including fellow DOVEs Beth Ann and Shashi, who also parked their rig on the street here in front of HQ. The four of us had a celebratory dinner last night, after a shuttle run to return one of the two rental cars to the Ontario airport. I brought the other car over to the Inland Empire chapter, along with three boxes of excess office supplies, this morning, and turned it over to one of the remaining caseworkers who is staying behind at the chapter office until all the casework is closed.

Now that headquarters has disappeared, I can share with you this map link to our cozy location on the street.



We are parked right along the Santa Ana river (which is bone dry and dusty at the moment), across from the yet-to-open San Bernardino International Airport, formerly Norton Air Force Base. Too bad they are not yet open for business, it would have saved us at least two trips to Ontario to retrieve and deliver cars, and I know the transportation department also made many shuttle runs over there as well. As a side note, the airport served as the base for both the fixed-wing and rotor firefighting aircraft, and we saw many take-offs and landings during the early part of the operation. The fully-laden tankers in bright orange and white livery were quite an impressive sight.

The city of San Bernardino, for some reason, has deactivated all the street lights along this stretch of Riverview Drive, and so it has been blessedly dark, and mostly quiet, every night. The street is not really a through-street, and so there is very little traffic. We are filing this away as a potential future suburban-stealth-boondocking site should we ever have the need to return to San Bernardino. A bonus is that there are quite a few restaurants just a mile or two from here, along the aptly named "Hospitality Lane," including Olive Garden, Claim Jumper, Outback, California Pizza Kitchen, and several faster-food outlets such as Chipotle. We were not lacking for variety when it came time to go to dinner each evening.

The tribe, by the way, operates an impressive casino on their reservation just a few miles from here, and on our day off last Sunday, we went up there with coworkers for the fantastic and inexpensive buffet. We went at brunch time, but they really serve the prime rib dinner spread from 10am onward on Sundays. We did not look around for RV parking, but I would guess they could accommodate us. Another possible stop-over alternative when traversing I-10/I-215.

Now that the job is over, we are trying to get the rest of our lives back in order. We are still intent on heading to Mexico from here, entering at Calexico, and so we will head back through Palm Springs and along the Salton Sea down to Brawley. First, though, we have a couple of things that need to get taken care of.

For one thing, I still need a dentist. Many thanks, by the way, to the several people who wrote in with suggestions. None of those was close by, though, and so I was not able to schedule an appointment and time away from the job to make it happen. Now that we have no rental car, we'll probably focus on finding one that is close to our route. We have friends in Indio, and have asked them for a recommendation. Of course, nothing can happen on that front now until Monday, and, even then, it will be problematic to get anything done during Thanksgiving week. So, even though we are chomping at the bit to head across the border, we may be stateside for another week.

The second item needing attention is the front end bodywork. Notwithstanding a mostly uneventful cross-country trip to get here (other than the windshield chip, which we fixed), on the very last half-mile into headquarters, we hit a drainage swale at about 20mph that caused our front end to take quite a bounce off the pavement. Neither of us saw how dippy the road was until we were already on top of it. The bash plate on the bottom of our 'roo bars prevented more serious damage, but we did do a number on the left side fiberglass, and I'll need to either have it glassed back together, or just epoxy the broken area together before we put any more stress on it. It's all still hanging on, but I fear it can come apart at any moment.

Speaking of which, we dumped our tanks mid-job at the nearby Redlands Elks lodge (one of our backup locations in case staying on the street did not work out). It was very convenient, but the driveway was a bit humpy. We did not notice it until today, but, apparently, between the driveway hump and the bus leaning hard left during a turn, we also scraped some of the Bondo off the left side underbelly between the steer and drive axles. Neither of us noticed this happening at the time, and we must have just grazed it, as the Bondo was chipped, but the underlying metal was untouched. I sprayed it all with black primer this afternoon, to keep it from rusting, which makes the damage all but invisible. I'll have to get some Bondo to smooth it all back out, or maybe I'll just get it done in Mexico, where such work is often quite inexpensive.

Our current plan is to pull up to the spigot at the San Manuel warehouse here that has served as HQ and put some water in our tank, then probably spend another night right here. Tomorrow is Sunday, and the weekend crowd should be thinning in the Palm Springs area, and we'll head down there to one of the casinos, or maybe (gasp) even one of the high-zoot RV resorts for a night or two.

Need help from our readers...

We are still on the job here in San Bernardino, which is why you are not hearing much from us. At least HQ hours have been cut back now to 7:30-6:00, so we are getting a bit more sleep.

Meanwhile, my need for a dentist is increasing in urgency. So I thought I would take advatange of my extensive audience here to see if anyone can recommend a good dentist in the neighborhood. The neighborhood, by the way, is San Bernardino, Redlands, Fontana, Riverside, and Loma Linda. Further than that will be impractical, at least until the job here is over (or runs long enough for us to get another day off).

So, if you live in the area, or know someone who does, please pass along any suggestions. I can turn up hundreds of dentists by looking on the Internet, but I'd rather have a personal recommendation.

A slow day...

I am posting from Red Cross relief operation headquarters in San Bernardino. As Louise has written, we are parked out on the street, just a block away, with the blessing of the San Bernardino police. There are other DOVEs on the operation as well, and we have a fifth wheel parked just down the street from us. As usual, I can not post a map link for security reasons.

The space we are occupying is very generously being lent to us by the San Manuel tribe, who have a casino nearby. The building we are in is a storage warehouse for their gaming operation. We are also not far away from the National Orange Show (NOS) grounds, where we have been running a shelter (closing today), kitchen (closing soon), and casework Service Delivery center. At least one other DOVE rig is over at the NOS -- I think they are in the kitchen department.

We've been working 12+ hour days, and so I have not had a chance to blog from the rig. Today is a slow day, though, and it's quiet here -- the speedway over at the NOS is hosting a night of racing (stock car, I think) free for all Red Cross volunteers and evacuees, and we've kicked the rest of the department loose early tonight so they can go take in the races. Louise and I are covering the shop, which is still very quiet -- I think many other departments also released folks early for the races.

Lately, we have been deployed to operations mostly in supervisory capacities, and, on this job, Louise was moved into that role on our first day, replacing someone who had to leave the job early because her own home was threatened by the fires. I, on the other hand, had a glorious three days as an individual contributor, which meant, among other things, that I was available for field work. As such, I was part of an early-entry party that went "up the hill" into the disaster area just behind the firefighters mopping up, and just ahead of the first residents. I have to say, it hit me pretty hard, even though I have seen a lot of destroyed homes. Our disaster response vehicles were distributing shovels and "sifters" -- an arrangement of steel mesh on a wood frame. It is rather heartbreaking to envision people shoveling ash through a steel grate in the feeble hopes of finding some small mementos of their lives -- perhaps a piece of jewelry, or traces of the family silver. I had to fight back tears.

My availability for the more cherry field assignments was short-lived, as I moved back up to a supervisory role on our fourth day. So I am now chained to a desk, more or less. I did get to go over to the NOS site briefly to help the team we deployed there get their satellite dish on-line -- we had a bad cable set, and I brought a spare with me.

Celebrities Elisabeth Röhm (Law and Order) and Tasha Smith made an appearance here at headquarters today, and some of the more star-struck members of our department went out to the parking lot to snap a photo with them in front of the ECRV. We opted out of the photo-op circus.



It's hard to say when we will wrap up here, but we are expecting to spend Thanksgiving. If previous Red Cross experience is any guide, they will find a way to provide us with a nice turkey dinner with all the fixings. That being said, if the hotshots knock all these fires down in the next few days, we may be on our way before then. In either case, the end of the month will likely see us in Mexico, making our way down the east coast of Baja.

I will try to post more as time becomes available, but it will be sporadic until the operation ends or they reduce the working hours here at HQ.

Workin' 9 to 5

Actually, we're working 7:30 to 7 and obviously not blogging much.

We are in San Bernardino, CA at the Red Cross headquarters, doing the job we are trained to do. As our regular readers know, we usually don't post much while we are deployed because the hours are long. At the end of the day, we have just enough energy left to grab a quick dinner out and fall into bed.

We also don't post a precise map link because the headquarters location is not public knowledge. Folks who need Red Cross assistance are served in another location, so this one is fairly under the radar.

We prefer to park as close to our work site as possible, and on this job we are parked on the city street with the blessing of the local police.

Sean will probably write more sporadically.