Archive for Uncategorized
August 10, 2007 at 9:56 am · Filed under Uncategorized
And once again … Eleanor and I went to our storage unit in the afternoon to get ready for moving. It’s like a never-ending story. But now we’ve moved beyond the sorting phase and have been just re-packing boxes to survive a long-distance move. That means the end of this arduous task is near.
The problem is the mammoth cost of moving. This is not a corporate move — we have to pay for it. Initially I got a quote from a mover who estimated we still have 6,000 lbs of stuff (which I think is high) and she figured a cost of $3,600 to get it to Tucson. (The new car came in at another $1,500, which is ridiculous. We’ll probably find someone trustworthy to drive it southwest instead, at a fraction of the cost.)
Then, the mover’s quote changed. Apparently the rep calculated the mileage incorrectly, and suddenly our estimate was $4,500 for the stuff (plus $1,500 for the car). Let me tell you, we don’t have $4,500 worth of stuff left in storage. I’d rather set fire to the entire pile than pay that. It would be cheaper in the long run.
U-Haul, et al, are not much better. A truck with a dolly for the car would cost about $2,400. Add in fuel, a one-way air ticket, and motels along the route, and it’s about $3,600. That’s a lot better than the mover, but still I look at what we are moving and wonder if a match and a gas can would be a better choice. Plus, I’d have to do the driving of the truck for a week.
Perhaps the mover’s estimate overstated our weight. We got rid of a lot of heavy stuff already. We will only pay for the actual weight of the shipment, so it could be much less than the estimate, but we won’t know that until we’ve committed to the move. Risky.
The cost of storage and moving are not topics we’d put a lot of thought to, when we decided to go full-time and eventually relocate. If I knew what I know now, I would have sold/trashed/donated 90% of what we had in our house at the outset of this. For what it has cost us to store it for two years, then give most of it away, then move the remainder, the bonfire would have been a financially much smarter move. Next time — if there is a next time — we’ll do it differently.
August 8, 2007 at 10:26 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Our local fair is Addison County Fair and Field Days. As fairs go, it’s pretty small, but it has all the key elements of a county fair: forbidden food, a Fairway with colorfully lit rides, farm animals, 4H exhibits, a parade, and all kinds of vendors.
You can walk from one end of the fair to the other in a couple of minutes, but if you’ve lived in Addison County for more than a few years you’re likely to encounter half a dozen people you know along the way. There are some people we only see at the fair, so it’s important to go every year just to stay in touch. It’s an August routine, waving at people with a smoked turkey leg or maple milk in your hand.
County fairs seem to be everywhere, but I’ve noticed in our travels that each region reveals its culinary traditions at the fair. Here in Vermont, maple syrup is king, so we are blessed with delights such as maple bread, maple milk, maple shakes, maple doughnuts, and maple cotton candy.
We bought maple cotton candy for Emma and her friend Kati, but it turned out to be so good that soon the adults had their own (and I still pilfered a few pieces from the kids). I also had maple milk (7 oz. whole milk with a healthy shot of Grade B Dark Amber maple syrup, delicious), but I was denied my traditional maple-frosted doughnut — they were out.
Like a lot of fairs, Addison County recognizes the agricultural background of the area. Tractor sales dominated the center of the fairground, and in the evening an antique tractor parade rumbled through, with old tractors by Oliver, Case, Allis-Chalmers, and Ford. Squashes and cakes and whole stands of corn were on display with red and blue ribbons. Young future farmers were outside the Cow Palace, carefully and throughly washing their livestock for judging. My daughter rarely gets as well cleaned as some of these cows were.
Of course, the real attraction of the fair for Emma and her buddy is the rides. A 15-dollar bracelet was their ticket to unlimited fun. Tilt-A-Whirl, Dragon Rollercoaster, a couple of slides, and Merry-Go-Round … all classic amusement park rides. The warm humid evening disappeared in ride after ride until finally the kids were sweaty and exhausted, and it was time to go home and talk about going to the fair again next year.
August 5, 2007 at 9:08 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
A fine weekend is more than just good weather. It’s a combination of subtle cues that build up to a happy, relaxed, slightly tired, and memory-filled conclusion. For me, it’s also a collaboration of colors (green trees, blue water, pink flowers, brown wood signs, and orange hues of sunset), and sounds of people playing, and smells of plant fragrance and cedar trees. By those measures, it has been a fine weekend.
On Friday Eleanor met a friend of hers and together they took the kids out for blueberry picking. Of course you can buy pre-picked flat of blueberries in the grocery store for less money than you pay to pick them, but that’s not the point at all. If the adults don’t get that point, the kids will, but in this case everyone saw that a sunny Friday afternoon was the ideal time to wander among the bushes, and so they did.
On Saturday we drowsed and puttered until late morning, then headed back to the lake for more puttering. In the afternoon we were supposed to head 70 miles south, to attend the birthday party of “Two Ton Tillie”, the 1967 Airstream owned by our friend Gail. Tillie is, of course, 40 years old and still looking lovely at her age.
Gail and Tillie, October 2006
Alas, the beautiful weather seduced us and we never did get around to climbing in the car for the party. Instead, I joined Steve and Carolyn for a boat ride across the lake to Split Rock Point (NY).
The lake was disturbed on Saturday by sun, wind, and a cold front. In the bay the waves weren’t bad, but crossing the lake we encountered the biggest swells I’ve ever seen on Lake Champlain. The little Boston Whaler was definitely challenged at times, and we had to proceed carefully.
On the New York side of the lake, iron mining was once a huge industry. South of Split Rock Point you can see big heaps of blasted shale sliding down the steep hills to the lake’s edge. (Google Earth location.) At the shore here, a step into the water put you almost instantly in 40-50 feet of water, and not much further out, the bottom drops to 100-200 feet in depth. We tied up the boat here and hiked up the loose rock to find a few abandoned mines and some spectacular views up the lake.
The water is at its peak temperature right now, and there’s nothing better than jumping in deep clear warm water right from the rocky edge of the lake to cool off after a hike. We had just finished doing this and were hiking back to the boat when we came across a porcupine. He waddled rather haughtily away from us, and demonstrated his impressive climbing skills up a few boulders. Porcupines like rocky dens, and the loose debris from the mining operation was a bonanza for him.
Sunday morning Emma and I joined Steve and Carolyn for a hike up Mt Abraham (Google Earth location), whichi is part of the Green Mountain range that forms the spine of Vermont. We hiked the Battell Trail up to join the Long Trail and paused at a shelter. Unfortunately, Emma has had a minor cold for the past two days and she wasn’t up to the full hike, so we turned back at this point, making our hike about four miles roundtrip. The views from the peak at Mt Abe are supposed to be spectacular, and today was very clear so the viewing would have been superb, but compromises have to be made sometimes. We had a nice time checking out newts and toads along the way.
Eleanor has not been able to join us for hikes and other active things lately. A couple of weeks ago she stubbed her toe severely and may have broken it. She’s hobbling around and it seems to be healing slowly, so it’s all she can do to get down to the rocky uneven beach once in a while, and she definitely can’t walk into the lake right now. It has been frustrating for her to miss out on all that action.
Still, dinner on the deck is something everyone can enjoy, and this time of year that’s what we have almost every night. Salmon, mushroom risotto, and green beans were tonight’s dinner, which we ate while the sun dipped down into the Adirondack Mountains across the lake.
Already we can feel the end of the season coming here in northern Vermont. After dinner we are starting to pull out sweatshirts once in a while. The county fairs are starting up next week. Small towns are having their annual Fire Department Chicken BBQ’s. The blueberries are at their peak of sweetness. Last night we closed the roof vents in the Airstream and needed to pull warm comforters over our beds in the middle of the night. All of these things are subtle clues that Vermont will soon be saying goodbye to summer, and feeling the cool breezes of fall. It’s a short season here, which makes ideal weekends like this scarce and precious.
August 3, 2007 at 9:42 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
One nice thing about playing on the water is that there is something for everyone. You can swim, wade, ride in the boat, fish, ski, tube, and take photos. This is why everyone seems to be gathering at the lakeside every night while the weather is good.
Our friend Andy has arrived for a few days, and tonight my brother and Caroline popped by to take the boat out. Our Vermont friends Kristi and Zsolt and their three kids came over as well, bearing fresh picked blueberries from the local farm.
With all the people, it was a wild scene at the beach. We hauled down platters of Brie cheese and crackers to the Tiki Bar, the kids were busy chasing each other and collecting stones, and nearly everyone got in the water at some point. The breeze was blowing in from the lake and once we dipped in the water, the air felt absolutely perfect.
Then the games began. Andy was the first, bravely volunteering to be towed around on the ski tube by my brother. I say “bravely” because my brother is known for terrorizing people with this tube. Emma loves the abuse as the tube bounces on the waves and water splashes into her face, but most people find the experience to be challenging, to say the least. Andy survived without injury, which is more than we can say for other newbies. (A few years ago the tube jostled a friend so much that he went home early, exhausted. The next day he was in the hospital with a kidney stone that apparently been dislodged by the fun.)
Carolyn is the best wakeboarder in the crowd. She’s been goading me to keep trying it. But I was a miserable failure the one time I tried snowboarding, and I’ve never learned to ski downhill, nor waterski. For these reasons, I don’t regard myself as the most qualified candidate, but as it turns out wakeboarding is not all that hard. Only three sessions and I’m already getting up on the board reliably and having a reasonably good time. The muscle aches afterward aren’t that bad, either.
OK, let all those who say I am never pictured in the blog, be silent! Here I am, sporting a fine “farmer’s tan” and attempting a fancy trick that I call “DON’T FALL DOWN”. This is about the limit of my abilities on the wakeboard at present, and even this trick fails from time to time. But it’s still fun, and I’ll probably try again. Maybe with practice I’ll be able to do some wakeboarding on Lake Mead (NV) or Roosevelt Lake (AZ) next winter.
You might wonder, with us parked so long this summer, “Is this full-timing?” Why, yes, it is. See, the definition of “Airstreaming” or “full-timing” is up to you. Most full-timers I have met have long ago come to realize that it’s not all just travel. Sometimes the best use of the RV is to stop somewhere special, near family or friends, and stay a while. We’ll be traveling again in three weeks, but in the meantime I’m glad we are stopped here to enjoy the fruits of Vermont’s summer.
August 2, 2007 at 9:56 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We’ve reached the peak of summer here in Vermont. Today the temperature soared to the mid-90s, which is just about as hot as it ever gets here. For the record, it was warmer here today than it was in Tucson, and certainly more humid.
With this weather there’s only one thing to do: head to the water. Even with all three Fantastic Vents running, the interior of the Airstream got warm. Rather than seal it up with the air conditioning running, I joined Eleanor and Emma at the town pool during the “open swim” period in the afternoon. Emma taught me how to dive properly, and then we had a competition with some other kids to see who was the fastest at swimming from one side of the deep end to the other.
I am starting to see that she will soon be a better swimmer than me, so I may drop in for post-swim class lessons from her more often. I’ll need to practice to stay up with her.
Now we are experiencing the full host of summer activities. For example, Eleanor has been sucked into the vortex known as Harry Potter. After watching all five movies and hearing my father and I discussing the events of Book 7, she has finally decided to read the series from start to finish. She started the first book last night and will probably finish it tonight. That’s more of a testament to the enjoyable readability of the book than to her reading speed. Clearly, another Harry Potter addict has been created.
I finished Book 7 within 48 hours of receiving it. For a while there I was having fun teasing my father, who was choosing to savor it more slowly, with spoilers that I made up. “I’m just amazed that Snape turned out to be Harry’s real father!” “Wow, can you believe that the Weaslys all become Dark wizards?” “McGonagle and Hagrid get married? Didn’t see that coming!” That kind of thing. Unfortunately he didn’t fall for any of those. But I can try again with Eleanor later …
Another summer activity: This evening I was cajoled into trying wakeboarding again. The last time I tried, about a week ago, I crashed three times and ingested half a quart of lake water through my nose. Like teasing my Dad about Harry Potter, this is all considered part of the fun. So today I tried again, and did much better. But wow, can I feel it now, in the muscles of my legs, arms, and lower back. My 44th birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m starting to feel like it. Will I have to take Advil every time I want to do something fun from now on?
And finally, we are approaching an annual ritual that defines August to me. I have to make the big decision of what sort of birthday cake I want. I ask for no presents, but Eleanor does always make me whatever dessert I can describe. That’s a bonus worth ten presents, and it gives her an interesting challenge. In the past she has made some incredible things, so each year I take some time, flip through a few cookbooks, and have serious long talks with Eleanor about the birthday cake/pie/exotic creation. It’s worth thinking about.
One year, long before we started Airstreaming, the birthday dessert was a sort of hazelnut butter cream and raspberry torte that was indescribably good. There were salted and sugar glazed nuts on it, as I recall. It was so good that I would take a minute to slowly let each bite dissolve in my mouth. The best part was that it sounded awful and nobody liked it as much as I, so for once I got leftovers to take home. We froze it and ate pieces of it months later during the dark cold winter. I still remember the butter cream melting in my mouth and it makes me hungry all over again. Now there‘s a dessert!
July 31, 2007 at 9:46 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
After posting my call for more Airstream visitors, I received an email last night from Mac and Linda, who have been traveling all over the US for the past three months. Now they are visiting family in Lake George NY, which is about 90 minutes south of here. On their way up to the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Vermont they stopped to meet us.
Emma and Eleanor were in the trailer getting ready for Emma’s swim class when Mac and Linda arrived, but we’ve grown used to having visitors to the trailer at any time, so it wasn’t any problem at all. E&E stayed inside while Mac, Linda, and I caught some shade under the awning. (It’s been another 85 degree day here.)
I thought Mac and Linda would just say hello and zip back out to the highway to get on their way to Ben & Jerry’s, but we had such a nice time talking that they stayed for about an hour. Not long after they headed off, I got a call from my parents inviting me to join them for a sandwich by the banks of Otter Creek. We rarely get a chance to do something like that together, so I jumped at it.
Vergennes has a little Falls Park that few people visit, or even know about. It’s just a short distance from the tiny downtown that defines this “smallest city”. Boaters from Quebec come all the way down Lake Champlain and then up Otter Creek to get to this peaceful spot. There are even electric and water hookups at dockside (not accessible to RV’s, sadly). Coming down to the Falls Park you can get a perspective on Vergennes that most people never see. I sat there with Mom & Dad and had a moment to just hang out together in a beautiful spot. That’s a great summer thing to do.
This evening was another mellow experience, with some local friends and their 1-year-old boy, and a few pizzas from the Brick Store. The Lake went dead calm, which means warmer water in the shallows, and so we waded in for a little while. Even on its warmest days, Lake Champlain is refreshing. After dinner, a few yellow sparklers, and time to plan next week’s trip to the County Fair, it feels like we’ve had the perfect summer day. We’re going to try for another one tomorrow.
July 30, 2007 at 10:56 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Not every day is an adventure. Some days we have to put our heads down and do the routine stuff. So I’m just going to do some clean-up here in the blog today.
Item #1: We have worked out an approximate schedule for getting back on the road. I’m trying to avoid a rigid schedule because it’s always easier to just wing it. But we do have to be in Jackson Center OH (home of Airstream) the week after Labor Day, so that does force us to get moving in August. Right now we are thinking we’ll pull out of Vermont around August 25.
First stop will probably be Massachusetts, where we’ve got family and friends to visit. We’ve been hearing about a campground in Salem near Massachusetts Bay, and so we’ve decided to give it a try for a weekend. From the campground I can catch a ferry to downtown Boston, which is both a scenic ride and a fun way to get into town to visit friends at their jobs and do a little street-hiking.
From the Boston area, we’ll be heading straight west to the Albany NY area, where we want to take Emma on her first-ever “wild” cave trip. Then we’ll keep west to Ohio, and eventually follow I-90 all the way to Washington state. By November we will have driven almost every mile of I-90 from coast to coast.
Item #2: To get out of town on schedule, we need to complete our personal divestiture project. What I mean is that we need to finalize our stuff in storage and get it in the hands of the movers. Eleanor and I went up to the storage units again today (and it feels like our thousandth visit). We’re almost done. Just a few more things to donate, a few more boxes to repack, and a few more boxes to sort through. I think 2-3 more sessions and we’re done. Can’t be soon enough for us.
Item #3: Frustrated with spotty Internet here at the campground, and many other campgrounds we have visited, I am investigating better ways to receive wi-fi signals in the Airstream. Right now I’m interested in the Hawking Technologies HWREG1 wireless range extender combined with their 9 db omni-directional antenna.
The Hawking extender works like my current Linksys WRE54G wireless range extender, by repeating an existing wi-fi signal. But it has two major advantages. First, it runs on 12 volt power, which means I can wire it into the trailer’s power system. Second, it accepts an external antenna, so I can have the repeater inside and an antenna on the roof for maximum convenience. I am seriously considering adding this to the permanent equipment in the Airstream.
Item #4: It’s getting to maintenance time for the Airstream. We’ve put on about 10,000 miles since we last replaced the disc brake pads and repacked the wheel bearings. I’m putting together a list of items to be serviced when we get to the factory in Jackson Center. I should have had those things done a couple of weeks ago when I was at Colin’s shop, but forgot. I’ll also be checking the running gear before we get on the road later in August, just to make sure everything is set for the 800-mile tow. I’ll verify the condition and pressure of the tires, look for leaking wheel bearing grease, check the lug nut torque, lube the Hensley Hitch, and check the underside of the trailer for damage.
A few other things need to be done on the trailer as well. The entry door hinges are starting to squawk — they need a little lubrication. The Fantastic Vent screens need their semi-annual clearing of dust, which I do with a small brush on the screen and a damp towel on the blades. I may want to use a little sandpaper and paint to touch up rusty spots on the gray paint of the trailer’s A-frame or bumper compartment.
We’ll borrow a Shop Vac to clean up embedded dirt in the carpet and corners, and break out the glue for minor repairs on trim and counter edging. I’ll also replace the water filter in the kitchen’s Moen faucet, and probably the cabin air filters in the Armada as well.
This is also a good time to get spare keys made, clean out stored stuff that hasn’t been needed, replace any broken or lost tools, verify the essential spares, donate or store books, and wash the rugs.
We’ve timed a lot of other annual events to be done in August. Our car registrations, inspections, etc., are set to expire in August. This makes it easy to get it all done when we are back at home base. When our home base moves to Arizona, we’ll reset all those things to be done in the winter instead.
It may seem like a lot of maintenance to think about, but really it’s less than we had to do on our previous house. Taking care of the Airstream is a pleasure most of the time, because it is so simple, and the Airstream rewards us with trouble-free travel for a relatively small amount of work.
« Previous entries ·
Next entries »
