Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

CapnBob

RV Trip Planning

Spring Travel Plan

Over the past several weeks, we have been planning on our spring excursion to visit relatives and to take in some scenic places on our way back home. The process for making a travel plan is much the same as preparing a flight plan with certain differences, of course (winds aloft may not affect our ground speed, etc.).

Lots of things require some planning: travel times, rest stops, fuel consumption, provisions (water, food, etc.) and camping facilities. While there are several on-line utilities to assist in this planning, we have supplemented them with some home-grown tools. We have spreadsheets which enumerate the itinerary and project the fuel consumption and refueling stops.

We already have the GPS programmed for the next trip. There is a utility on our Garmin to plan each day’s travel, including times, distances and fuel consumption. It’s a very handy feature. In addition, we have the “GAS BUDDY” application on the Android which finds fuel sorted by price for a given area.

At this point, we are probably finished with the planning, including the food menu, which Damsel has under control. The on-board freezer and fridge have the basics in stock and we will be doing additional shopping as we go along the way.

The route plan depicted above is the basic loop where we plan to travel. The map excludes a couple of side trips which will be made using a rental car. We have no desire to drive the 35 foot diesel into the San Francisco Bay area where the grandkids (and great grandkids) live, so we will rent for that day.

So, that’s it for the spring plan. We will post our progress when we are underway. We still have some minor chores and appointments to complete before departure. We anticipate a good trip, good weather, good visits with everyone and some spectacular scenery in the great American West.

19 Apr 2017 by Retirement Wanderlust

Announcing a Blessed Arrival

Baby Maci

Announcing our second great grandchild and our first great granddaughter. Meet little Maci – Born last night (4/12) at around 10:30, 7.3 lbs, 19¼ inches. Perfection!

We will formally meet the little one early next month when we take our spring excursion to Northern California to visit family. After that, we will take the long, scenic way home.

The other granddaughter, mother of our great grandson has also announced a new arrival due in November of this year. We’re going to be busy doting for a while. 😉

13 Apr 2017 by California People Something Shiny

Ammospermophilus Leucurus Fortitudus

White Tailed Antelope Squirrel

Damsel and I maintain a wild bird and animal feeding station on the hill just behind the RV drive behind our house. I was up there this morning replenishing the feeders when this little white-tailed antelope squirrel came right up to me and seemingly begged for a tidbit. I broke off a little piece from a sunflower seed bird bell and tossed it to the little critter. I had my little camera, so I snapped pictures of it as it consumed the tidbit I threw down.

The title of this post comes from the binomial name of this variety of squirrel combined with a bastardization of the Latin word for fortitude or “courageous.” It seemed like a brave little critter to come within a couple of feet from where I stood.

There were several other squirrels and a few birds in the area; a cardinal in the mesquite tree behind me and a curve billed thrasher already pecking on the bird block I just hung up as I started back down the hill. We certainly enjoy our desert critters and flowers.

04 Apr 2017 by Arizona Critters Retirement

Desert Camping Again

Desert Camping Again

Damsel and I drove the usual route down US 60 to I-10 and on into the RV park in Palm Desert, CA. It was a good trip with lots of desert wildflowers, lots of sunshine and at one point, lots of traffic. The latter only lasting a few miles just east of Chiriaco Summit where there was some construction and a one-lane restriction on I-10 westbound. Regardless of the brief slowdown, it was a pleasure to drive the new RV along the route.

As I mentioned in the post about the maiden voyage, this is likely our last trip to this campground for a while. We will, however, be on the road again next month for a longer excursion.

One quick anecdote about this campsite; we backed in to the parking slot and set up camp as usual. However, when we went to deploy the Winegard DirecTV satellite dish, it got fouled up in the low hanging branches of the Chinese Elm tree next to the site. I wound up having to break camp and move the rig to the right and forward on the pad to allow the dish to have unimpeded access to the part of the sky where the geosats hang out. After the move, everything is working great.

17 Mar 2017 by California Retirement Wanderlust

Happy PI Day

pi1.gifThe date 3/14 has lately become known as “PI Day.” For those of us that have worked in science and engineering disciplines, the constant relating to the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle is ubiquitous and indispensable in a variety of applications.

The little animation above is a clever method of showing how the ratio π works. I found the graphic in the Wikipedia page on PI. Here’s some more interesting things about it:

Because its definition relates to the circle, π is found in many formulae in trigonometry and geometry, especially those concerning circles, ellipses, and spheres. Because of its special role as an eigenvalue, π appears in areas of mathematics and the sciences having little to do with the geometry of circles, such as number theory and statistics. It is also found in cosmology, thermodynamics, mechanics, and electromagnetism. The ubiquity of π makes it one of the most widely known mathematical constants both inside and outside the scientific community; several books devoted to it have been published, the number is celebrated on Pi Day, and record-setting calculations of the digits of π often result in news headlines. Attempts to memorize the value of π with increasing precision have led to records of over 70,000 digits.

Happy PI Day.

14 Mar 2017 by Science Technobabble

“The Science Guy?” Really?

The SunJordan Candler and Joe Bastardi each mentioned Bill Nye in their two articles about climate change. Candler wrote about “Shining the Light on Climate Science” and Bastardi wrote about “Fact-Checking Bill Nye.” Both articles took the “science” guy to task for his blatant misrepresentations of the facts concerning climate change. I used “scary” quotes in the last sentence to illustrate that Nye is a science suppressor rather than his science guy moniker that he has worn for so many years. His tactic is to attempt to silence the discussion rather than debating the facts.

Image: Indisputably, the major cause of Earth’s climate variations

In Candler’s report, he quotes Bastardi as follows:

In an email to The Patriot Post, meteorologist Joe Bastardi responds: “I have not read enough of the study to comment on aspects I have not researched. But given my stated position that the sun is the conductor of the climatic orchestra of the oceans, stochastic events and the very design of the system, it would make sense that the sun should be considered as the source of climatic variations rather than the increase of one molecule of CO2 out of every 10 thousand molecules of air over a 100-year period.” The lesson here is that man’s footprint isn’t just relatively small, it’s minuscule. Perhaps it’s not the skeptics who are, as Nye says, “denying the evidence,” but rather those who want to silence the discussion.

Both authors referenced here are contributors to The Patriot Post.

08 Mar 2017 by Environment Global Warming Greenbats

Throwback Hoodoos

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon

Damsel took this image of Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon in July of 2008. Seeing it in the archives gave me some serious wanderlust, so Bryce Canyon NP just may be one of our vacation destinations this year after the weather gets a little warmer.

We have several excursions in mind over the next few months, not the least of which is to see our first great granddaughter in April and to go witness the All American Eclipse in August. We anticipate that during the extended eclipse excursion, we will be visiting the only two states in America that I have not been in – North Dakota and Iowa.

We will be taking a shorter trip this month which is a repeat of the maiden voyage when we will be out in the California Desert visiting with the Kids and our Grandson who will be nineteen months of age. This will be the last such trip to Palm Desert due to conflicts in the Kids’ work schedules that make it tough on them to meet us halfway. We will see them in April when we will go by their home on our way to see the new great granddaughter.

02 Mar 2017 by Photography Wanderlust

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