The Road to Seaside, Oregon Dispatch #1

Day 18 Wednesday June 15 2011 Dispatch #1

TECH STATS FOR THOSE WHO CARE
1823 miles as of Tuesday 6/14/11
Track us on the map...
1st load of fuel	67 gallons at $3.84	$256.00
2nd load of fuel	227 gallons at $4.27	$967.00
Totals:	294 gallons	$1,223.00

...On the road again...doot doot doot doot doot... the road again.... Fred and I are back on the road, this time looking forward to adventures in the Northwestern United States. We feel like seasoned travelers and are already half way through our third week of our third adventure.

Our days have been full and satisfying leaving no time to blog. On Sunday Fred worked from 9:00 am until 2:00 in the morning rising early on Monday to continue toiling on the QRZ website. Turns out a simple upgrade takes 29 hours to sort out. I stayed out of Fred's way by meeting all the dogs in the RV park, (I want a bus puppy) reading a book, feeding Fred occasionally and reviewing my initial blog entries from our first two trips. It seems I always start out with a mirror story. Well, here it is....

As we loaded the bus for the trip, The mirror fronts on the remaining two medicine cabinet doors came off in Fred's hands. They didn't break like the first one did for me so he removed the doors and glued and clamped the mirrors back on them. The mirrors on the wall behind our bed began falling off around El Paso on our last trip. While it was parked at our house, more fell off and broke; all except the one we had re-glued by the repair shop. That one won't budge. So, we have three strips of mirror and the rest is bare plywood except for the swirls of old glue that remain to flake off daily into the sheets. During our open house, most visitors just stared and said nothing. When we explained that the mirrors had fallen off, more than one person said they thought it was “unique artwork.” Unique in this case meant, “tasteless.”

We started our trip on Sunday, one day late, because I was sick and kept laying down every hour or so to whine. Our first night was spent in a parking lot behind a Dairy Queen with a few other trucks in Needles, CA. Fred worried about battery voltage which was down to 11.9V by morning, whatever that means. I was worried about skanks and hobos wanting to move in with us. Fred assured me that low voltage was a much bigger and more likely problem.

Our "home" in Needles, California

We headed toward Barstow on I-40, then across a state highway to Bakersfield, on to I-5. Ladies, I only mention the route because Fred insists that the men reading this will want to know. So there it is. We had a great meal at the famous Harris Ranch Steak House and Resort. The house generator failed on the bus while we were eating dinner. No restart. This is definitely a problem that even I understand. When you are not plugged in to a campground's power, the house generator runs to charge the house batteries which run the A/C, stove, etc. Remember....the battery voltage was already low. I've forgotten all about hobos and am concerned about not having coffee in the morning, a much bigger problem. We meet up with a bad accident on I-5 and are the lead vehicle waiting to advance. Imagine, if you can, Fred hanging outside the bus window taking pictures of crushed cars and trailers and paramedics working on bloodied bodies. I am mortified but Fred could not resist the urge to photograph the rescue helicopter close up. We stopped in Gustine, CA for the night in a small RV park. We barely fit in the spot and when the owner came by he said we could stay for free in honor of Memorial Day. Nice!

We spent the last day of May driving through rain in beautiful countryside with snow on the mountain peaks about 1000 feet above us. Fred already sent you the link to the youtube video of the drive. We stayed in a KOA in Mt. Shasta which I thought was gorgeous. When the sewer shot its contents at Fred and the WIFI didn't work, he was not as enthralled as I was. We continued our journey north on I-5 to Salem, OR and then took smaller roads to the coast. The narrow, winding road (OR-22) through dense rain forest lasted about 90 minutes, but seemed forever since it was late in our day and was harrowing at times. The shoulders were steep and Fred kept pulling over to let faster cars pass us. I assumed, each time, that he was driving us off the road to our death as he has been known to do. Ok, it was only once, we were in the jeep, and we didn't die. I must congratulate him on a fine piece of driving that day. We stayed in Tillamook that night, ate cheese, and waited for the sun to go down. We gave up at 9:00 pm, closed the shades and pretended it was dark. We needed a good night's sleep because Thursday, we would arrive at our first scheduled destination of Seaside, Oregon to experience SEA-PAC for the first time.

From the road

-robin

Mardi Gras, beach and some bugs

We are driving through the hill country of West Texas this morning and there is road kill everywhere. To distract me from flat Bambi and other carnage, I thought I would write about our days in the little towns of Dunedin and Ozona.

Chris and Cheryl live in Ozona which is a little unincorporated area along the shoreline adjacent to Palm Harbor. They let us move in, familiarized us with all the local hot spots and promptly took off for a trade show in Vegas. They left us in charge of their dog, Holly Raisin who made us feel right at home in their little Ozona oasis. When they arrived home, Coach Worx had not even started on our bus repairs so we just stayed and stayed and had a marvelous time. I'm including some pictures of our home away from home. We don't have pictures of our time spent playing cribbage, enjoying Cheryl's home cooking, or competing on Final Jeopardy and Cash Cab; times that will undoubtedly become favorite memories.

The Pinellas Trail is just a few yards from Chris and Chery'ls driveway. It is a paved 26 mile path that runs north and south along the length of Pinellas County. Many of the old railroad bridges were left intact making the trail a pleasure for both bikers and pedestrians. It is perhaps one of the best uses of a former railroad right-of- way that we've ever seen and consequently gets a lot of use. Not by us, we just photographed it so you could see it.

We've included a few pictures of oranges painted on the walls of businesses in downtown Dunedin. Why, you ask? According to local folklore, these paintings are the work of an unnamed artist and they simply appear at dawn's early light. Unlike most places, shop owners here arrive each morning hoping they have been hit by orange graffiti overnight.

Dunedin is the Spring training home of the Toronto Blue Jays so we enjoyed a baseball game one afternoon. Based on the sheer volume of photos, Fred watched the entire game through the lens of his camera. He especially liked this action shot of the pitcher. 

We spent Fat Tuesday at Dunedin's Mardi Gras party. I explored the United Methodist church which is smack dab in the middle of town. They gave me some beads, a schedule of services and then Fred lured me out with a big beer and the promise of meeting new friends shown here.

 

The beach is one of Fred's favorite places so we spent quite a bit of time exploring, snapping pictures and playing with the pelicans.

We and the four Noell's went to Tarpon Springs, a Greek sponge fishing village and ate Greek food. Duh. We went to Jenny Noell's Treasure Island Fun Center and played unlimited skee ball. We went to the movies, golfed and shopped, and as you all saw, I fed some alligators and waved to a few more. Robert had just started a garden while we were there and by the time we left he was eating home grown radishes and the corn was six inches high. We saw thousands of worms on their own silk swinging from the oak trees and hundreds of baby grasshoppers planning their attack on the tasty garden treats. At night all the critters were singing like I have never experienced in Phoenix. Cheryl said the bullfrogs were announcing impending rain and sure enough, the rain came the next day. I rocked, fed and cuddled Jenny's baby, Brady, and took him for his first dip in the hot tub. We met our newest grand nephew, Baron Lloyd. Fred worked part of every day and some days all day but even that was fun....for him. He loves his work and it does make all this adventure possible.

We are coming up on a rest stop so I am on kitchen duty and off blog duty. Two tunas on wheat coming up.

We've got a bunch more pictures: click here to see them...

From the road:

-robin

Golfing with critters

Are you following our progress online? If you are you may be able to surmise that  I am posting this as I cross the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge. Since we are hurdling home at a rapid pace, I'm running out of time to blog. Here are a few pictures to look at while you're goofing off at work. Who isn't anxious to see Fred holding a toad?    click here for pictures

from the road
-robin

Fred and Robin Enjoy Unique Farm Implements

Did I tell you about the Florida Flywheelers Antique Engine and Tractor Show yet? It was there that I saw my first tractor parade. One more item crossed off the bucket list.

Here is Markey holding the reins (er, steering wheel) of his fine fiberglass pony.

Time moves quickly here as you can tell by the age progression of these train passengers.

At one point... and I'm sorry there are no pictures of this... Fred set his head on fire.

Hindsight proved this to be untrue, however, it is important to realize that I THOUGHT his head was smoking and I was laughing....a lot. I was driving the golf cart, unfortunately I was driving the wrong way on a one way lane but that doesn't really have anything to do with the story. Fred suddenly started flailing around flapping his hat at his head which was clouded by lots of smoke. What else was I to think? I thought he lit himself up somehow and was trying to put his burning head out. What actually happened was several (OK, many) people were hollering at me for going the wrong way. Fred fled the embarrassing situation by jumping out to check out the smoked barbecue beef stand. As I was trying to turn around, the National Anthem began to play so I hollered at Fred to removed his hat. When he returned to the cart, the wasp that had moved into his hat, stung him on the top of his big bald head. He was flapping and flailing and barbecue beef smoke was everywhere. And...I was laughing a lot so you can see how I got the idea that he had set himself on fire. It could happen.
 

 

After looking at acres of antique engines and parts of engines and old oily rags that wipe off engines, we returned to The Noell's Ark Messmythsoneum. The name says it all and we have included a few pictures of it so you can see for yourself. The building is stuffed full of...well...stuff, inside and out. The owner, Bobby Noell, is Chris and Robert's Dad and is famous for his card tricks. He has a couple of calliopes full of instruments and a piano in the building that play music for visitors while he entertains them. They had stopped playing so Fred opened them up, reprogrammed them and tuned some of the instruments while he was in there. It was his maiden voyage into a calliope and resulted in a happy ending. He does love a challenge.

 

Click here for more pictures

And below is my first ride on a Segway!

From the road

-robin

Where's Robin and when is she coming home?

Fred took me to Disney World as promised and afterward treated me to a brake job.

Below is a picture of our “home,” for three days after leaving the “happiest place on Earth.”

We drove to Sanford, FL where the repair shop was located and while maneuvering around some small parking lots, Fred said that a metal fence post “jumped out and scraped the side of the bus”. Well, the insurance company said something about “collision with a stationary object,” but Fred insists that wasn't so. Never mind, it still needs to be repaired.

Fred thought all the incidents that I wrote about in the past were trivial compared to this one. Oddly, this was the one he didn't seem too anxious to share with his friends on the Bus Owners website.

Our next stop, about 100 miles to the west in Palm Harbor, FL, was supposed to be the same RV park we stayed in last summer but it seems that this time of year, everyone wants to be in Florida. Something about “high season” here and no vacancy anywhere. Our friends, Robert and Trisha Noell let us park in their driveway for a night and it was a mighty tight squeeze getting down their narrow dead end street. After what could now be considered as very light contact with two street signs, Fred managed to get us parked. At least at this place, they had a new grand baby for me to play with. THAT was heavenly. I want one.

While Robert and Trish's driveway was comfy enough, it lacked the basic necessities that the bus required, namely, power and sewer hookups.  We tried in earnest to find a nearby RV campground that would take us but instead we opted to take the bus down to Coach Worx, a local repair facility.  They had full hookups and we were invited to stay there while we waited for our turn in the repair shop.  And that, my friends,  is where our bus has been parked since February 18^th... 30 days!

Here are some of the reasons we have not come home as planned:

This is the new floor that replaced the broken tile and plastic covered carpet.

This is the tile that replaced the mirrors that kept falling off in the kitchen.

When you see the next picture, you will realize how desperate my situation has become...

This is how I'm forced to spend my time while my bus is being remodeled by men in greasy shoes

Disney World is much easier than golf. And golf is much harder than most anything else except childbirth. I guess that is why men choose to play golf and skip the childbirth thing. You can lie about golf, but no matter what you do, that 10 or 11 pound piece of humanity comes ripping out of you no matter what club or excuse you offer up.

Click here for more pictures of our day in Disney World / Animal Kingdom

Lessons Learned:

Objects next to the bus are closer than they appear.
Repairs take as much time that you have, times two.
It's imperative to have very good friends with a large guest apartment nearby!

This is where we've been hanging out (on the bottom floor) for the past 3 weeks.

from the road:

-robin

Orlando Hamcation

We have arrived in sunny Florida and for the first time, I understand why Fred loves it here so much. I've known this place to be hot and steamy or home to torrential rains and flooded streets. This time, the skies are blue, the grass and trees are green and the weather is simply marvelous.

Our official first destination was the Orlando Hamcation. We reconnected with some folks that we met last summer and are now proud to call them friends. 

When Fred finished his presentation at a forum, a gentleman named M. Walter Maxwell came up to meet him. Turns out he had worked for RCA Laboratories and later became a charter member of its new Astro-Electronics Division in Princeton, New Jersey. From 1960 until retirement in 1980, Walter was in charge of Astro's Space Center Antenna Laboratory and Test Range. More than 30 Earth-orbiting spacecraft utilize antennas that were designed solely by Walt, which include the world's first weather satellite, TIROS1. He also designed the the follow-on TIROS-ESSA-NOAA weather satellites, and ECHO 1, the first satellite used in an attempt to achieve global TV. He invented so many other things it would make your head spin around if I continued to list them here like thingys for search and rescue and gizmos to relay signals from emergency locator transmitters aboard aircraft in distress.There is one that I think most of you will remember. He was one of the three-man team that designed the Moon-to-Earth TV dish antenna used on the Moon on Apollo's lunar rover-the moon buggy. 

It was an honor to meet someone who designed electronics equipment that sits on the surface of the moon still today. He was a pretty fascinating guy to us and we bought his book which he was eager to autograph. (I barely understand the introduction, and have no clue what “Impedance” Bridges or Evidence of a Conjugate Match are). Most surprising to us was the enthusiasm he showed for the opportunity to meet Fred. He requested a picture of us all together so he could post it on his own website to prove that he had, indeed, met the man who created QRZ.com. Simply astounding! 

Click here for more pictures of the Orlando Hamcation

Next time....True to his word, Fred took me to Disney World

from the road

-robin

Fred and Robin go to Florida

Imagine Willie Nelson singing...On the road again...doot doot doot doot doot... the road again....

That's right folks, Robin and Fred are rolling down Interstate 10 this time looking for adventures on our way to Florida. And once again things did not go as planned.

“The Plan,” was to host a QRZ users meeting at Quartzfest 2011 in Quartzsite Arizona the last week of January. It did not happen. Prior to that, “The Plan” was to move the QRZ software from our own equipment to equipment owned by other people. Other people being Amazon.com. Such operations are commonly referred to as running in the cloud, which means that you don't know where the hardware is and you don't care. It just automagically works. That did happen, however, the ascent into the cloud wasn't as divine as Fred anticipated. In fact, that cloud rained on his parade for weeks on end and it is still drizzling. Every lunch stop on the road so far involves a quick check of the website and minor adjustments. Every night requires at least two hours of programing and email. Fred keeps insisting that it is getting better. Of course, when everything is finally running smooth, it will be time for new improvements and additions to this website that keeps fuel in this bus and keeps us rolling down the highway to new ham radio adventures.

The mirrors, ah the mirrors. They are not as hard to keep clean this time since the entire bathroom cabinet mirror came off in my hand. I had little experience with standing in a pool of shattered glass with which to draw on so I just waited for Fred to come save me. And he did. One less mirror to clean.

Since I have so little to report, adventure wise, I'll update you on the current roadkill count. 1 coyote, 1 mouse, innumerable skunks (are they dumb, slow, or just can't resist a dare from their friends) 1 javalina, 8 deer, 1 raccoon, 1 armadillo, 3 dogs, 1 cat, 1 fox and 10 certified UFOs (unidentified furry objects). We just saw a live deer next to the road so Fred figures he still has a chance to bag one before the season's over. What a sportsman!

As we fast approach our destination of the Orlando Hamcation I would like to note that we drove so far around Fredricksburg, TX and New Orleans, LA that I have no clue what they even look like. Last year when I was disappointed at missing these places, Fred assured me that we were coming their way again in February and would explore them then. Well it is February and we blew past them once again with similar assurances that we could return on the way back. Fred must hope I'm as dumb as 10 skunks.