Archive for February, 2007
February 7, 2007 at 9:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This morning I happened to notice a new wi-fi signal in the park: “Odyssey”. You may have noticed a link (left column of this blog) to a blog of the same name. Could it be?
Yes! I took a look out my dinette window and there it was, 44,000 pounds of mammoth motorhome. What an opportunity! Blog meets blog. So of course I grabbed my camera and headed over to see Sean and Louise, who I had never met before.
I knocked on the door and high above my head, a window popped open and Sean’s head appeared. It was a bit like talking to the Wizard of Oz … me, standing below in the shadow of Odyssey and looking up to Sean as we chatted. Later, Louise’s head popped into the window as well.
It’s a shame we were both preparing to leave. I would have liked to have heard more about their travels in Mexico, although I’ve read the blog entries. We’ll have to try to catch up again on the west coast this spring.
We have moved to our home for the next month, about ten miles east on I-10, still in Tucson. We have never booked a full month anywhere before, so it felt rather strange to set up here knowing we’d be so permanent. A month is nothing to an apartment dweller, but to us it feels almost like a commitment. What if we don’t like the neighborhood? What if we get an itch to go somewhere else?
Fortunately, the new park is fine. It’s situated out in the desert, with absolutely no neighbors except deer and jackrabbits. We can’t hear any traffic except an occasional train a couple of miles away. There’s free wi-fi and it actually works. And our site is pleasant enough, level gravel with nice views of the surrounding mountains and the desert.
After we settled in we got a visit from Mike and Tracy, who are parked just a few miles up the road at a “55+” park. It’s a bit more stuffy over there but Mike wanted to take some lapidary classes offered in the park. Our place is more relaxed. Eleanor and Emma pulled out all their rocks and suddenly the afternoon disappeared in a haze of mineral chat, until it was time for Emma’s evening bike ride.
Don’t worry about the blog getting dull while are here. We’ve got a ton of things to do: work, hiking trails, Saguaro National Park (right up the road), real estate hunting, bicycle paths, a trip to the Florida State Rally, and family day trips to places like Mt Lemmon, Catalina State Park, the Titan Missile Museum, Bisbee, Patagonia, etc. The blog will be busy.
February 6, 2007 at 10:27 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The real trick to this mode of travel is the fact that I have to keep working … and not just at an ordinary job, but a startup business that demands my attention at least six days a week. Often retired folks will say, “You’re so lucky to be doing this at your age!” and that’s true, but I envy the retired folks who don’t have to report in to a job every day, and who don’t have to worry about whether they can be reached by phone or get online.
So today was another day at the office. This morning I had a couple of calls to make early, so there I was again, wandering around outside and jabbering into my cell phone. I usually go outside so I can pace while I talk, but also so I can avoid waking Emma.
The difference today was that Mike Young, our Airstream neighbor, was out with his Nikon D70 and a very fast & massive 200mm VR (vibration reduction) lens. He spotted me and took these spy photos above of me talking to one of the magazine’s contributors.
In a campground in Idaho last summer, I was doing this same routine every day, sometimes in my pajamas. A neighbor spotted me and said, “You must not be a very good businessman!” I asked him why he thought that, and he said, “You spend too much time on the phone. You ought to be able to enjoy your vacation!”
Well, obviously this is not vacation. But I do hope to take one next month when we go to Mexico. Our ability to connect via phone and Internet will be limited. I could get a “North American” phone plan from Verizon and have some cell phone service, and I could seek out wi-fi campgrounds and cyber cafes, but instead I think I’ll take a real vacation.
So I’ve been working for months to get the business ready for me to be completely out of touch for two weeks. That might seem easy but it’s really not. After three years of being dependent on my daily involvement, the business needs time to separate from me. But the exercise of getting the business running more independently is healthy. Eventually it will need to stand on its own.
I mention this because those of you who are considering going on the road with their businesses or vocations need to appreciate that in most cases you can’t just flip a switch and go on the road. It takes time to get everything lined up. It took me months to get ready to go mobile, and it has taken months to get ready to go offline. But the effort is ultimately worth the investment.
February 5, 2007 at 7:19 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We are already right at home here in Tucson. We’re learning our way around town, getting to know the local events, attractions, traffic patterns, stores, etc. And it would be impossible not to like this weather: sunny, crystal clear, 70s, and dry.
This morning a blog reader dropped by: Mike Young. Mike has been following our blog for a long time, and commenting too, so it was fun to finally meet him in person. He and Rosemary will be here at the park through Wednesday, so we’ll get together for something fun tomorrow.
But our visit was shortened by the fact that today was a work day. Other than Mike’s visit, our adventures have been limited to a bike ride around the park after work. Emma is still reveling in her ability to ride a bicycle, and after a day at the computer a bike ride is just the thing to relax.
I don’t mind working all day when the sun is shining in the open windows and the warm breeze is blowing. You’d think a beautiful day would be enticement to go outside and play — and it is — but sometimes it’s also just as nice to put on some music, work at the table and look out at the mountains. Eleanor made another batch of lemonade from the fallen lemons of our tree, and suddenly it felt like summer.
An Airstream can be marvellously relaxing even on a work day. There’s something about the interior curves of the space that makes it feel like a cozy secret getaway. My secret vice is to wait until Eleanor and Emma are out on errands, and sneak a nap in the afternoon between tasks. Sleeping in the Airstream on a warm sunny afternoon is as relaxing as a massage. For the record, I didn’t do that today, but …. I would have liked to.
February 4, 2007 at 7:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
One nice thing about this place is that there are fruit trees all around: lemon, orange, or lime. Every time we’ve been here, the lemons have been ripe and we manage to collect enough drops to make tangy lemonade.
Finally — beautiful weather. 70s and clear sunshine is predicted for several days. We took the opportunity to check out some local real estate. (The Catalina Foothills area is beautiful, but we also saw some nice in-town bungalows from the 1940s.)
Emma only cared about one thing, getting out on her bicycle. The roads in the park are pretty quiet, so it was a nice safe place for her to take me for a cruise. I think she’s ready to step up to a real bike path now, and there are several good bike paths around Tucson to try.
It’s a measure of how much I don’t care about football that I wasn’t wasn’t even aware it was Superbowl Sunday until someone mentioned it this morning. But back in the RV Resort, everyone seemed to be geared up for super-TV-watching.
A lot of Class A motorhomes are built with big outdoor TVs mounted on roll-out trays in the lower section. These always struck me as sort of ridiculous, but to each their own. Tonight several motorhome owners are sitting outside watching the Superbowl, despite the evening chill. I guess if you have an outdoor TV you need to use it for an event like the Superbowl, even if it would be much more comfortable watching the indoor TV.
February 3, 2007 at 8:19 pm · Filed under Places to go
The observatory was great last night, until the full moon rose and obliterated the darker objects in the sky. Emma saw the a few bright stars, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Orion Nebula, and a star cluster. With a Meade LX-200 telescope, you can really get a nice view. Check out the Butterfield RV Resort in Benson AZ if you want to try the telescope some time.
Of course it was a homeschooling event as well. Emma didn’t really appreciate how far away or how large stars were. It was fun to show her a blue giant star and explain that the light we were seeing has been traveling for 1400 years to get to our eyes. We also talked about how nebulas are giant clouds of gas in which stars are born, a concept that Emma seemed to find fascinating. Of course, a six-year-old’s grasp of these things is pretty limited, but at least we’ve gotten a start.
A few geodes at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show
Today we moved about fifty miles to Tucson and set up at Beaudry’s. Our Google Earth location. There are at least three other Airstreams here, and hopefully we’ll meet up with some of their owners on Sunday. But today we headed straight out to one of the many Gem & Mineral Show venues to look at more rocks.
Emma spent most of her time watching the ground. Lots of fragments end up discarded on the ground, and nobody seems to mind if she picks them up. So I ended up with a pocket of a wild variety of small stones collected by Emma: opalite, lapis lazuli, goldstone, “sleeping beauty” turquoise, black opal, fire citrine, green catseye, and several other interesting bits we can’t yet identify. None are larger than 1/2″, and some are just tiny chips.
The nice thing about the show is that every venue is different, with all kinds of interesting stuff — not just rocks. Jewelry, crafts, beads, food, Indian art, leather, tools, etc. The other nice thing is that admission and parking are free. We saw just one venue today, so there’s a lot more for the next few days.
Book report: Dr C sent me a copy of “On The Border” by Tom Miller, which I finished last week. It’s a great series of vignettes of real life in the Mexican border zone in 1980s. Miller argues that the border is functionally its own country, with unique laws, rules, customs, and problems, and he documents it beautifully in stories both funny and sad. Although the book is a little dated now, my experience with the border suggests that things haven’t changed much since 1985.
Miller couldn’t foresee the massive increase in border paranoia that would come. Concern over drugs, terrorism, and “UDAs” has made the border more tense, more complex. But the book is still good reading if, like us, you spend time in this unique territory.
February 2, 2007 at 6:30 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Eleanor and Emma got out for a little more rock hunting this morning before we packed it up and headed west. Even with the cold wind, Rockhound is a fun place with just awesome, ever-changing views.
The sign at the dump station made me pause …
Sign of the week
How exactly do you “dump slowly”? Not to get into too much detail, but opening the black tank valve less than fully is not a good idea. I’ll leave it at that.
We pulled the Airstream along I-10 to Benson, AZ today. There’s not a lot along the way, except for three more tourist traps run by the same organization. This time I was granted permission to skip them.
We have at last gotten into the gorgeous scenery that I have come to associate with southern Arizona. In the afternoon the sun lights the desert floor and the craggy mountains all around, and the skies become so blue it doesn’t seem real. I can see my camera will be getting a workout in the next few weeks, although it will have to go in for service at the “camera doctor” in Tucson soon.
Our friend Joe recommended this RV park. It has the unique distinction of having a good-sized telescope on site in a real observatory, and nightly viewings with an astronomer. Tonight the show starts at 7 pm, so we’ll be there. The skies are marvelously clear out here in Arizona, and the viewing should be spectacular.
Our Google Earth location.
February 1, 2007 at 6:16 pm · Filed under Places to go
It’s a good thing we went rockhounding yesterday and didn’t wait for today. The wind is blowing so hard and cold we can barely stay out for a few minutes. The national weather service says it is gusting occasionally to 40 MPH but it seems like 40 is the rule rather than the exception. Just opening the door of the trailer is an effort against the wind. I should have put the stabilizers down when we arrived, because the wind is hitting us broadside and making the trailer rock like a cross-country train. But now it’s cold and I’m comfortable in here, so we’ll just enjoy the ride.
Days like this make me feel almost guilty for being so comfortable in the Airstream. There are couple of intrepid rockhounds in a tent nearby, and their tent has been battered all day but is somehow still standing. They have to be freezing — the wind chill is about 27 degrees. Meanwhile, we are living cozily. I have been working on the bed all day with the furnace purring. Eleanor and Emma have been homeschooling and working on bead art projects. At lunchtime we took a short hike down the road, paid for another night of camping, and let the wind blow us back to the trailer for hot lunch and root beer.
Rockhound State Park is a beautiful spot. The campground is not much to look at, although it is in good condition. But the setting is marvelous. To the southeast we have craggy peaks covered in a light snow. To the north, the hill rises from the campground to expose ledges of rock filled with jasper. To the southwest, flat open ground is criss-crossed with the streets of Deming, and the sun beams down through gaps in the clouds to illuminate the desert in gold. Far south, we can see another range of mountains in Mexico. The visibility today has fluctuated but at times it is incredible — probably 75 miles.
At night the air is so clear that the lights of little Deming (5-9 miles away and 1,000 feet below us) glisten like they’ve been polished. It looked like a miniature Los Angeles last night in the full moon. If the wind doesn’t blow me to Las Cruces, I’ll break out the tripod and try to get a night shot.
We have discovered the identify of two of our rocks: red jasper and yellow jasper. The yellow is particularly beautiful. We’ll ship it home to Papa to see if he can polish it up.
We have also solved another mystery: the amazing refrigerator smell. A week or so ago, we noticed that everytime the fridge was opened, an incredible odor rolled out. This odor, reminiscent of bad meat mixed with garlic, was so intense that we’d immediately want to open the windows no matter how cold it was.
Last night I had had enough, and emptied out the refrigerator in search of the culprit. I found nothing except some jars of mustard and black bean sauce that had some slight odor to them. But this morning Eleanor found it: the darned stinky cheeses we bought back in Austin! That Cowgirl “Red Hawk” cheese is really powerful. Mixed with a little gorgonzola it can find its way through a sealed plastic bag.
The offending cheese has since been double-sealed in bags and the smell is — thankfully — gone. You may find it amazing that we’d eat something that smells so bad, but it tastes better than it smells. I guess it would have to …
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