RV Reference Books Winner

The winner of last week's gently used book giveaway is smthng. I used the random number generator on random.org to choose a number between 1 and 12. (There were 13 comments, but one of them was Sean's.)

Smthng, I contacted you via your website. Let me know where you want me to ship the books by replying through that interface or emailing me: louise [dot] hornor [at] cornell [dot] edu

Congratulations and thanks for helping us reduce, reuse and recycle.

Photo by MarkyBon

The old stomping grounds

We are at the Elks Lodge in San Jose, California (map). We've stayed here many times before; long-time readers know that we lived in San Jose before we hit the road full-time back in 2004.

We come back to this area fairly regularly; historically, all our primary doctors are here, and we try to set up our annual visits when we are in town. We also own rental property here -- the downtown condo we used to call home when we lived here. And, of course, we each have a lifetime of friends and business associates in the area, and we like to visit and catch up whenever we can. We also have four "nieces and nephews" here -- children of close friends who call us aunt and uncle -- and we see them whenever we are in town.

We had a pleasant drive up from Monterey Friday, after availing ourselves of the dump station at the Monterey Elks Lodge (there is none here in San Jose). Since arriving here in San Jose, the weather has been perfect, or even a tad hot -- it's in the 90's today and we have two air conditioners on -- we're taking advantage to get some al fresco dining in before it drops back down into the 60's in a few days.

We have a pretty full schedule while we are here, and we paid for a full 14 nights. In addition to doctor appointments and family and friend visits, we have some condo business to attend to, and there are some meetings involving our restaurant in Phoenix (long story -- all the owners are here in San Jose). We'll also be meeting with our financial planner, who is likely wrung out from meeting with all her clients since the great meltdown.

I don't expect to post much while we are here in town, although we've both been tweeting occasionally. We will be back on the road around May 1st, when we will head north along the coast. We're leaving ourselves a couple of weeks to get to Sumner, stopping for some visits with old friends along the way.

Photo by kalyan3

RV reference books give away

It's time for another give-away! I just received my order of new books from RVBookStore.com. They are the latest versions of Casino Camping by Jane Kenny and The RVer's Friend. Part of our extensive camping reference book library, we use these books a lot to find places to spend the night and/or dump stations.

If you can, I recommend that you buy the latest editions. The Kenny book has added dozens of additional casinos that allow overnight parking by RVs. There are many updates to the list of truck stops, as well.

However, the old books pictured above still contain a ton of useful information and I hate to just throw them away. (If you can't see the photo, the books being given away are the 2007 version of RVer's Friend and 2nd edition of Casino Camping.)

The topic is specialized enough that I know they will languish unused if I donate them to a charity like Goodwill or Salvation Army. So I am offering the two books FREE to one of our readers. I will pay for the shipping costs to any US address. Just enter a comment below, and if more than one person wants them, I'll do a random drawing for the winner. Don't enter your address in the comments. I would hate for someone to spam you based on something you write here!

Comments to win the books will remain open until noon on Saturday, April 25th, 2009.

Quick update from Monterey

You can see the ocean from the dump station!

We are at the Monterey Elks Lodge, on a hill overlooking Monterey Bay (map).

They have perhaps a dozen tightly packed RV spaces here, with water and 30-amp electrical service, for $15 per night. Considering the location, this is an incredible deal, although there is a three-night limit. No problem for us, since that's how long we usually stay. The county parks at the fairgrounds and Laguna Seca raceway, by contrast, are upwards of $30 per night (although the spaces are considerably more spread out).

Oddly enough, this is our first stay at this lodge, even though we've stayed in Monterey several times. Usually we are southbound, and Laguna Seca is north of here; we did not want to drive the extra 15 miles or so only to find the lodge either full or inaccessible (the driveways are steep here, and we had concerns about getting Odyssey in; also, only two or three of the RV spaces will accommodate our 39' length).

Since, this time, we were northbound, and the lodge comes up first in that direction, we thought we'd stop in and give it a try. We're glad we did; it's a great location, and, of course, we're saving at least $45 over the course of our stay. There are even a handful of restaurants within walking distance, should we have needed that. Since we're visiting Louise's dad and stepmom, though, we have use of a car for our stay, and we've been taking advantage of that to get some errands done while we are here.

Speaking of visiting, we've had a nice couple of dinners out, and Kay seems to be recovering nicely from her knee replacement (not well enough to drive yet, though, so lending us the second car has been no hardship). We will have a final meal with them this evening, and tomorrow we will roll north to San Jose.

We had a very nice drive here from Kirk Creek on Tuesday, although a dry weather system had moved in to California, bringing wind gusts to the coast of 50mph. Odyssey's 47,000 pounds make it pretty stable, even in high winds, although steering was more work than normal. We passed quite a few rental RV's, though, and a number of travel trailers, and I can imagine what sort of day they must have been having. That stretch of road is a lot of work even in dead calm (rare).

We learned in the comments here that we have been playing leap-frog with readers and fellow bloggers Hitek Homeless since Box Canyon. They've passed us now, but I am hopeful that we will catch up with them in Washington. Jenn is a web designer, and has been working on a great site for locating free campgrounds, FreeCampSites.Net -- check it out.

My steering workout for the month

We are at Kirk Creek campground, on the Pacific Ocean in Los Padres National Forest (map).

This is one of our very favorite spots on the entire California coastline, at the western terminus of the Nacimiento-Ferguson Road, which starts on the other side of the forest in Fort Hunter-Liggett. We've stayed here many times on our motorcycles, either coming down highway 1 or across the forest, and this is the third time we've been here in Odyssey.

Naturally, the first person we encountered here was the camp host, running out to stop us because "you won't fit." Harumph. We informed him that we'd been here before and that we, not him, would decide whether or not we fit. The Forest Service's own web site even lists the "average" spur here as 44' long.

Of course we had no problem fitting into a space once we found one available -- almost the entire campground is now on the reservation system, and it is no longer possible to just snag a primo waterfront site by driving in without one, such as the space we had three years ago. No matter; the campground is arranged on a hillside, and we have an unobstructed view of the ocean over the tops of the other camp sites and even the restrooms.

The fee is now all the way up to $22 per night here, in part to pay for the services of the private concessionaire that now runs it. We liked the place better back when it was strictly first-come, first-served and the Forest Service ran it themselves. Still, it is very beautiful here, and serene.

We paid for two nights when we arrived, and today I've been getting some more projects done around the house. We also walked down to the "beach" (really a jumble of rocks), and just generally enjoyed hanging out in camp. We had a great drive up from Oceano yesterday, albeit slow once we hit the length-restricted part of the road.

It's easy to see why vehicles longer than 40' are prohibited on this stretch of highway. At just 39.5', we still had to stick across the center line on several of the switchbacks, one of the consequences of doing the route in the northbound direction. Many folks prefer this direction, because the shoulder fronts a rock wall rather than a multiple-hundreds feet drop-off, but the reality is that it is harder to drive. The rock wall means you can never extend past the right edge of the lane, forcing you over the center line in several spots, wherease southbound I know I can swing wide as long as the wheels are left of the fog line. Also, visibility is more restricted on the rock side in right-handers.

We found enough turn-outs to mostly keep to the legal number of cars behind us (California law requires you to turn out when there are five or more vehicles behind you), and the ~25 mph average speed was no problem for us. (Another reason why southbound is an easier drive -- turnouts on that side of the road, many of which are scenic overlooks, outnumber the northbound side by at least ten to one.)

We squeaked out of the 5-Cities Elks Lodge just before the Easter Egg Hunt started; they sprinkled the eggs throughout the campground, and I had visions of having to gingerly slalom Odyssey through gaggles of egg-seeking tots. Apparently, we also just missed reader Lloyd, who was looking for us there right after we left.

Tomorrow we will leave here mid-day and continue north, through Big Sur and into Monterey. There is just one more really tight stretch norh of here. Tomorrow night, we will either be at the Monterey Elks, or Laguna Seca.

Photo by hrtmnstrfr
(no, that's not Sean)

Laying over

We are at the Oceano Elks Lodge (map), just a block from the beach and access to Oceano Dunes.

Watching Gaviota fill so quickly yesterday morning gave us pause, and we reconsidered the notion of trying to find public camping north of here. The Elks Lodge here has over 50 camp sites, with water and 30-amp power, plus a dump station, for $20 per night, and still had a dozen or so spaces last night. By contrast, the county park (which is full) right next door is $30, and Pismo Beach State Park, across the street, is $29 (also full).

Speaking of full, Oceano Dunes, which is an off-highway vehicle recreation area, permits camping right on the beach, for $10 per night. They have a strict limit, though, of 1,000 camping vehicles (yes, you read that right), and they, too, were full last night. How romantic -- camping on the beach, with 999 of your closest friends, and the incessant sound of ATVs roaring by.

This stretch of the California coast, from Oceano Dunes to Pismo Beach immediately to the north, is the only place in all of California where the public is permitted to drive on the beach. The 4x4 crowd makes a habit of tearing across the soft part above the high water mark, but most vehicles can traverse the firm sand nearer the water, if you can just get across the short stretch from the pavement to the water line. We saw a minivan do it last night. Not sure I'd take Odyssey out there -- the permitted camping area is a mile down beach from the paved road.

We're thinking about running down there on the scooters today, even though my scoot is a real pig in the sand, just to see if there are any class-A rigs down there at all. We'd never even consider it on a crowded weekend like this, but maybe someday we'll camp out there on the beach if it is firm enough to support us. We'd have to drop the tires down to 50psi or so, which would mean driving very slowly.

Last night we walked over to the Rock-n-Roll Diner, a funky little place made from two vintage railroad cars. We ate in what looked to have been a seated coach in its day, but the other car was a boat-end observation car, typical of only the crack express trains of the era. The old rail fan in me wants to know what train pulled this car; a brief Internet search came up empty.

We've paid up for two nights here, in the hopes that tomorrow night the crowds will have dispersed from the public campgrounds north of here. With any luck, we'll be at Kirk Creek in the Los Padres National Forest tomorrow night.

Photo by bsterling

Squeaking in

We are at Gaviota State Beach, where Hwy 1 turns inland at Hollister Ranch (map).

Like many parks in the California state system, the spaces here are incredibly short; rigs over about 30' or so have a real challenge. Other than the two full-hookup camp host spaces, there is really only one space in the entire park large enough for Odyssey, and we were lucky it was free when we arrived. All sites here are $25, and there are no hookups, although bathrooms and a slop sink with hot and cold running water are available, as well as coin-op showers.

This morning, the park is starting to fill up -- Good Friday means many schools are off today, and lots of folks will be camping for the three-day weekend. Among other things, that means Kirk Creek would be full before we could get to it today, so we'll plan to stop sooner than that, perhaps near San Simeon or Morro Bay. We're going to take our chances on finding a spot; if we get aced out, we might have to hunt for a dispersed turnout someplace in the Los Padres forest.

This being the closest coastal access for many communities north of here, the park has a unique feature: a self-service boat hoist capable of lifting two tons. The hoist is at the end of the pier, and lets you drop your boat in the open ocean. You need to have your own ANSI-approved slings, and get trained on hoist operation before using it. So far, is has not seen any use since we arrived.

We had a nice drive yesterday along the Santa Barbara coast, and we are looking forward to today's drive as well.

Spoiled seascape

We are parked on highway 1, along the beach on the Pacific Ocean, at a Ventura county park known as the Rincon Parkway (map).

I wrote about this spot more extensively the first time we parked here (photos: 1, 2). The rate has since gone up to $25, but the stay limit has also increased, to 14 days in the off season, and 7 from April through, I think, October. Unlike the last time we were here, this time we had no trouble finding a space, and not all the spaces filled up last night.

Also unlike last time, this was a noisier stay. I wrote back then that the only sounds we heard were the constant roar of the surf, and the occasional train. On this visit, shortly after we parked (and had already dropped our site-specific payment in the box), a class-C pulled into the space right in front of us, and immediately set up his little Honda generator. Anyone who thinks these are "nearly silent" has not spent an evening right next to one. He carefully placed it at the very back of his rig, likely so he would be less disturbed by it, but that put it right below our living room.

I had imagined (silly me) that he'd run it to make dinner, or charge his batteries, or whatever, and then be done with it. Nope -- it ran all night. It's still running now -- it has been running full time since they parked yesterday at 3pm. They are not even in the rig right now -- their tow car is off someplace. I was sorely tempted to just go out and turn the thing off last night around midnight. But there is nothing posted here about generator hours, and, who knows, maybe they have a CPAP machine or something. But it definitely spoiled some of the magic of this place, for me at least.

I'm not spending another night behind this moron's generator, though, so instead of another night here, we'll head a bit further along the coast, and try for a spot at Gaviota State Beach for the same price. Besides, Louise needs a post office, and we'll pass a couple on the way.

We're definitely glad we stayed, though, because it really is beautiful here, with the channel islands visible across the water, and the gray outline of the mountains to the northeast along the coast. And this is really as far as I wanted to drive yesterday; it was a four hour slog through the LA area on uninteresting freeways, and we were delayed by no fewer than three accidents. We also had something of a challenge finding water -- there was no spigot at the Morongo fuel station, nor did we find any at the T/A truckstop in Ontario. We finally pulled in to the Ontario Elks lodge, where we knew we'd find water from a previous stay there. They graciously allowed us to fill our tank.

Fortunately, we were well rested and relaxed from our massages at the spa Tuesday, which was extremely nice. Our spa package also got us in to the pool complex, where we enjoyed the water slide and the endless-river pool with inner tubes freely sprinkled throughout. The whole pool experience was nice enough that I asked about passes; it turns out that a day pass to the spa is $30, which gets you all the spa ammenities (showers, hot tub, steam and sauna rooms, and a locker with robe and slippers) plus use of the gym in additional to pool access, and a pool-only pass is $20 on the weekdays and $25 on the weekends. Not bad, considering how nice the resort is, and I applaud them for making it available, unlike some of our previous native American casino experiences.

VHS Tape Giveaway Winner: Rob

A week ago I offered three VHS tapes to anyone who wanted them and was willing to make a small donation to the Red Cross. Two folks left comments, and in a random drawing, Rob won the tapes. Rob, please email me with your address so I can ship the tapes to you.

You can contact me using louise "dot" hornor "at" cornell "dot" edu

Congratulations, and thanks for helping us declutter and supporting a good cause.

Photo by damclean

Talkback Tuesday: From the Archives

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

Last year, I posted a place where our readers could share their websites. Over 65 folks did, so if you haven't looked at the list lately, you might want to check it out. If you're a new reader, feel free to add your site to the list as well.

Some of the links are other travel blogs, some are professional business sites, and others are hard to categorize. We have visited them all. Thanks for sharing!

Sean also answered a question about cell phone amplifiers in the comments of that post. If that is of interest to you, be sure to read the comments.

Photo by kakachu

End of silence

We are back at the Morongo Casino in Cabazon (map). This time we are in the lot north of the Casino, which appears to be the new designated RV area, something we discovered on our last visit two weeks ago.

In stark contrast to Box Canyon, which was blessedly silent and mostly dark at night, here we can hear the freeway, the wind is omnipresent here at the top of the pass, and the parking lot is completely lit all night. Back to the reality of civilization.

We decided to stay here because the spa in this AAA 4-diamond resort has a 2-for-1 offer on Tuesdays, and we booked a pair of massages for this afternoon. While 2-for-1 sounds like a great deal, frankly, that brings the price of the massages down to what we consider to be "standard" for a 50-minute treatment. But there is a great deal to be said for being able to park overnight at the same facility.

The earliest they could get us in was 2:30, which means we will likely be here tonight as well. We don't want to be rolling out of here at 4:00, only to slog through LA traffic, and arrive at Rincon Parkway at 8:00 -- we'd almost certainly be aced out of a spot by then. Instead, we will roll out to the coast tomorrow morning.

We once again took advantage of the "stimulus package" dinner last night at the 27th-floor Cielo restaurant. This afternoon we will relax around the pool complex before our massages; spa treatments include access to the pool facilities, which are actually quite nice. We're hoping the pool area is fairly protected from the constant wind, which is buffeting us as I type.

Just as we were packing up to leave Box Canyon yesterday, blog readers Pat and Nancy, along with their puppy Koumori, stopped by in their Casita travel trailer on their way up canyon. We had a nice visit, and got a kick out of seeing their Casita, which Pat referred to as a "plastic tent," although it seemed pretty well equipped to us.

We had all the holes filled in, the area cleaned up, and the bus ready to go just a little past noon. We rolled out of the sandy wash without drama (even though we always sweat it when we are in the soft stuff), and headed down to the wastewater plant in Indio again to avail ourselves of the free dump station. We had forgotten that the railroad grade crossing in Mecca was to be closed yesterday, and we had to detour several miles north along the tracks.

Louise had located a laundromat in Indio as well, and we spent a couple hours there catching up on laundry. Our next stop was the Wal-Mart in Palm Desert, where we uncharacteristically filled an entire shopping cart with provisions. It was past 6 by the time we finally rolled in to Morongo, and we spent another half hour at the tribe's fuel station, where diesel was $2.23 a gallon, among the cheapest in southern California (Flying-J a few miles west is $2.27 right now). Diesel in Whittier was as low as $1.99 when we left -- had I guessed it would go up nearly a quarter in these two weeks, I would have filled up on our way out of town.

This morning we've been catching up on phone calls; being out of cell phone range for two weeks created something of a backlog. Among other things, we needed to get Louise's new scooter onto the insurance policy, and the old one off. I think we are mostly caught up now.

With any luck, our next post will be from the coast.

Photo by ashley.adcox

Final morning in Box Canyon

The time has come, finally, for us to leave this great spot here in Box Canyon. We have been here 12 full days, just two days shy of the dispersed camping limit.

We still have a couple days' tankage, but we are out of almost everything else; two weeks in the desert has cleaned out the larder. Except for a single package 0f veal, the freezer is empty, there are no fresh veggies left in the fridge, the salad dressing ran out yesterday, and the clincher: we finished the last drop of red wine, a Chianti, last night, including our "backup" stash of bottles we keep for unexpected company.

Yesterday we packed up most of the gear, including the scooters and the giant pile of tools and parts I had out for the last ten days. Today's first stop will be the wastewater plant in Indio, followed by the Wal-Mart in Palm Desert to restock the cupboards and fridge, somewhere nearby to do laundry, and ending up at the Morongo Casino in Cabazon tonight, a nearly exact reversal of our stops en route here two weeks ago. After some of the projects took their toll on my creaky body, I could use a massage, and we remembered from last visit that their spa has a 2-for-1 deal on Tuesdays, which we will try to take advantage of tomorrow morning.

From there, we will head out to the coast, after a much-needed fuel stop, to begin the trek northwards to the bay area. I am hoping on a Tuesday that we will have no trouble getting a spot on the Rincon Parkway for the night.

In addition to some quiet relaxation, we got a great deal of the way through our project backlog while we were here. A block of uninterrupted time with no distractions and great weather was just the ticket, for both of us. In addition to "spring cleaning," here are just a few of the things we got done:

• Got the video capture box installed on the computer, and converted our entire collection of VHS and 8mm tapes either to files on our server, or DVDs. Mind you, these were not pre-recorded tapes, but rather things like our Red Cross interview on Portland television that Louise posted here last week, construction videos from our condo remodel, the video we made of Odyssey the day we bought it, and my brief moment of fame when the Vice President of the United States (Al Gore), the Governor of California (Gray Davis) and the Mayor of San Jose (Ron Gonzales) all dropped in on my Network Operations Center for a tour.
• Touched up water damage on the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. In five years of constant use, sometimes being not entirely level, occasional splashes of water from dishwashing, coming out of the shower, etc, had caused some of our natural maple cabinet doors, drawer faces, and even sections of wall to become rough and discolored. The correct fix would be refinishing, but I thought I'd try my hand with some 400 grit sandpaper, Minwax Natural finish, and a spray can of Delft Semi-Gloss, and try to "feather" it in. In came out surprisingly well -- I'm sorry I did not take before-and-after photos. This should stave off actual refinishing for several more years.
• Touched up several scrapes, dings, and blemishes on the outside of the bus, routine wear-and-tear for our low chassis. I needed to apply "rust converter" in some spots, hit everything with primer, then shot some quick touch-up paint that more-or-less blends in to the body color (metallic black) in those areas. What I did not get to is filling in some of the larger spots with body filler ("Bondo"); that will have to wait till another "project week."
• Rewired part of the dashboard. When we converted Odyssey five years ago, I put in a small panel of six LED indicator lights, mostly to cover an ugly hole in the dashboard where a radar detector had been. I figured I'd hook the lights up to "something" eventually, and I finally got around to it. I also connected a dash switch to the driver fan (previously I had to scooch out of my seat to reach the switch on the fan itself), connected the heated mirrors which I also never had got around to connecting, replaced some burned-out dash lamps, and fixed a problem with the backup camera (a broken wire) that made it hard to switch back to forward view.
• Rewired the A/V cabinet. As a result of the tape-conversion project, we can now get rid of the VCR, which went right into the Goodwill pile. That prompted a cleanup of the whole cabinet, and we decided to rewire so that the entertainment system (TV, surround-sound receiver, DVD player, and DirecTV box) would be on a separate circuit from the network equipment (HughesNet modem, file server, and wireless router). The network stuff stays on 24/7, and with it all on the same circuit, the parasitic loads of the other gear (energy they continue to use even when switched off) could not be eliminated from the batteries. A real waste, since we seldom use A/V gear. I also added a pilot light, to let us know if we've left the A/V breaker on, and changed the cabling so we can watch DirecTV without having to turn the surround-sound receiver on (impossible with our first monitor, but that changed when we had to replace it a year ago). The freed-up shelf in the A/V cabinet got repurposed as storage for items that previously were harder to get to.
  
• Cleaned out "the garage." Like many people's real garages, the scooter bay ends up being a repository for things we've acquired along the road that don't have a designated place in the rig. Such as the extra jugs of coolant and distilled water we bought when we had a major coolant leak, or the spare jug of oil from when we were leaking oil, and even an extra fire extinguisher we picked up on our last Red Cross job (being one of the few with room to carry them, we often end up the recipient of safety and other supplies that have been opened during the operation when it closes down -- I don't think we've had to buy a bottle of hand sanitizer since becoming volunteers: there are always dozens of half-used bottles left over). I was able to "use up" or find a home for everything except the bundle of "hot wood" firewood we bought months ago -- we've burned nothing here except the mesquite littering the desert and our trash, including some we found lying around.
• Installed a pilot light for the patio light. Our patio light is an incredibly bright (read: annoying to any neighbors, but great in the boonies) emergency vehicle "scene light." On more than one occasion, we forgot it was on after walking the dog or whatever, to discover in horror that it had been shining on another rig into the late hours when we take the dog out for her final walk of the day. I used a bright blue LED that I salvaged from one of those keychain flashlights; it's very annoying, even in the daylight, so we're not likely to make that mistake again.
• Repaired our solar-powered patio lights. These cheapo units from Target have barely lasted a year. I was able to make two working from the three we have left, out of the four that came in the set. When these two crap out, we'll get something more robust, but I think I can keep these running for another year. I'm keeping the innards of the third as a hangar queen.
• Built a giant mound of stuff to get rid of. This includes the aforementioned Sony VCR along with the last few pre-recorded VHS tapes, the Hitachi 8mm video camera kit (complete with tripod, carrying case, and half a dozen unopened blank tapes), the Pinnacle Studio Movie Box video capture device, which we no longer need now that everything's converted, a full (used once, for a test) spray can of Delft Satin Wood Finish (turned out we needed Semi-Gloss), Louise's motorcycle boots (Daytonas seem poseur overkill on a 125cc scooter), her old Alinco scanner (replaced with a less powerful but easier to reprogram Bearcat), and a bunch of miscellaneous items rounded up in spring cleaning.

If we stayed another week, I'm sure we could knock out a bunch more on the to-do list, but we are very satisfied with what we accomplished, and being out of food, nearly out of water, and extremely close to the fuel level where the generator will no longer run (1/4 tank), we have little choice but to head back to civilization. Besides which, BLM rules would require us to move at least 25 miles on Wednesday anyway.

Other than being productive, we've really enjoyed it here. Traffic on the paved road has been very light, only a few vehicles each day, with maybe a dozen or two on the weekend. In two weeks, only one motorcycle, four automobiles, and two ATVs have passed by on the dirt roads. We've been in shorts and t-shirts most of the time, and have dined nightly outside on our portable table, with the exception of just two nights where it was too windy or brisk. Even here, the lights of LA take their toll on the night sky, but still even that has been beautiful. We even had a chance to hike a little in the side canyons, which are designated wilderness and even more serene than right here.

In a few minutes, I will go bury our two animal-waste pits and our fire pit, and restore the area to pre-visit conditions. I've already had to fill in half a dozen holes the dog excavated, including the one under the bus, where she nearly completely undermined one of the front tires -- I'm glad we caught her before the bus slid down into the hole, possibly landing on her.



Opal's dangerous "nest"

We should be rolling by mid-day sometime. If you're one of the several people waiting on call-backs from us (there is no cell coverage here), we should be able to return your calls this afternoon or evening.

Decluttering Give Away for a Good Cause

Edited to add: Rob is our winner! Rob, please email me with your address so I can ship the tapes to you. louise "dot" hornor "at" cornell "dot" edu

As part of our project to convert our videotapes to digital format, we're cleaning out our cabinets and getting rid of the last of our movies on VHS. As a result, we have three gently used movies that we're giving away free to one of our readers.

The three movies are:

The Color of Money, starring Paul Newman and Tom Cruise
rated R

Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris
rated PG

Liar Liar, starring Jim Carrey
rated PG-13

There are only three catches. (Always a catch or three, aren't there?)

First, you get all three movies. I'm too lazy to wrap, address and ship more than one package, so winner takes all. If you don't like one of the movies, give it away to someone else.

Second, in keeping with that same laziness, I will only send the movies to a US address. Sorry, non-US residents. International shipping is a pain!

Third, I ask that instead of reimbursing me for the shipping costs that you make a small donation to the American Red Cross. Three VHS tapes will cost me about $5 to ship. Would you please donate $5 (or more)? Thanks. Here's the link to donate: Yes! I would love to help the American Red Cross! (Because your giving is confidential, this "catch" is strictly on the honor system. And just to be clear, folks who don't want the tapes are also more than welcome to make a donation.)

If you're interested in these tapes, please leave a comment on this post. If more than one person wants them, I'll do a random drawing on Wednesday, April 8, 2009. Watch back here after that for the winner. I'll arrange to get your address off-line; please don't leave addresses in the comments.

Good luck!

Edited to add: I will ship the tapes to you anywhere in the US. Instead of you paying me for the shipping, you pay the Red Cross. Sorry if that wasn't clear!