An Eclectic Mind

What I’ve been up to — and why I’ve been too busy to blog.

I haven’t been blogging regularly for the past week or so. That’s because I’ve been on the move.

Monday, July 28

I spent the morning cleaning out my hangar at Quincy for departure the next day. Then I flew up to Chelan and met my friend Jim. He flew us in his helicopter to Spokane, ID for lunch and then on to Coeur D’Alene, ID where he’s based. He demonstrated a confined space landing by setting down in the parking area of his business property in downtown Coeur D’Alene to offload a bunch of stuff. Then we went to the local airport, fueled up, and picked up his wife for the return flight to Chelan. I got some great photos of combines in action on the dry wheat fields. We landed at Chelan with just enough time to chat with another helicopter pilot before it was time for me to fly back to Quincy.

Tuesday, July 29

I spent much of Tuesday morning preparing to leave Quincy. I had to disassemble my helicopter tow bar and stow its pieces in the back of my truck, then clear out everything else still in the hangar I’d been renting. I also had to drop off my last month’s rent. I bought some cherries and other fresh fruit, too.

I had just enough time for a quick shower before visitors started coming. Louis, who would fly with me later in the day to Seattle, arrived first. Then Teresa, Jim’s wife, arrived with Jim’s pickup. He bought the remaining fuel in my transfer tank — about 50 gallons of 100LL — for $4/gallon. A great deal for both of us, since I wanted the fuel out to lighten up my truck. We pumped the fuel from my transfer tank to Jim’s and Teresa departed.

Then Louis dropped me off at Quincy Airport and drove my truck to Wenatchee. I took my helicopter to Wenatchee to meet him and we flew from there to Seattle’s Boeing Field, on a marginal weather flight I reported in some detail here. After a chat with my mechanic there, Louis and his mom dropped me off at SeaTac. I had a pretty good halibut dinner at Anthony’s before I caught a flight back to Wenatchee. I was back in my camper by 9:30 PM, exhausted.

Wednesday, July 30

Wednesday was the big day. I packed up the camper, stowed Alex the Bird on board the truck in his travel box, hooked up the camper to the truck, and pulled out. I’d been in my campsite for just a few days short of two months.

My destination was Walla Walla, WA, about 150-200 miles away. I chose a route that kept me on back roads. I don’t think I ever saw so much wheat in my life. My chosen route took me past Palouse Falls, so I stopped in and got some photos. It was an interesting place and well worth the stop.

From there, I continued on to Walla Walla, with a stop at a drugstore soda fountain in Dayton for an ice cream sundae. I checked into the Four Seasons RV Park around 5 PM, set up the camper for a two-night stay, and went out to grab some dinner. I wound up at a restaurant called Luscious, where I had an excellent polenta dish and a glass of wine.

This is also the first day I gave my new SPOT Messenger a workout. You can track my progress for this entire trip on my Share page, http://www.tinyurl.com/FindMaria. You’ll have to page back using controls under the Waypoints list to see the track for that day.

Thursday, July 31

There was something about dinner that didn’t agree with me, no matter how tasty it was, because I was up at 3 AM, leaning over the camper’s toilet and choking it all back up. I hate to puke but what they say is true: you do feel better when you’re done. But I wasn’t operating at 100% the next day, which I’d set aside to explore opportunities in Walla Walla.

It’s no secret that I pretty much hate where I live right now. Wickenburg is a dead town, full of ultra conservative retirees who live there only half the year and don’t spend much of their money in town when they’re around. They don’t have an emotional investment in the town and don’t seem to care what happens to it. As a result, new businesses — other than those that cater to the budget-conscious — don’t last more than a year or so. There are few decent restaurants and very few shopping opportunities. If it weren’t for the newly built and then remodeled Safeway Supermarket and a handful of longtime other businesses, I don’t know how I could live there at all. To make matters worse, the Mayor and Council seem more interested in growing the town’s population base for the financial benefit of their families and cronies than building an economic base that includes good-paying jobs that’ll attract young, vibrant people. The Chamber of Commerce pushed for an in-town “bypass” that’s destroying downtown parks and other facilities and adding a “roundabout” that’s sure to cause daily accidents. I love my home and its immediate surroundings and it’s painful to see how they’re destroying whatever was good about the town. There’s nothing else here for us anymore. All of our friends in our age group have already left town. We’re the only ones left.

So I’m exploring possibilities and Walla Walla was high on my list. I spent some time checking out the very pleasant historic downtown area, where it was nice to not be the youngest person on the street. Then I went over to the airport to meet with the airport manager about moving my flying business there. She was extremely helpful and enthusiastic and said a lot of things that made me believe I’d be welcome there. (What a refreshing change that was.) There would certainly be a lot more opportunities in that town than where I’m based now. I also checked out a few wineries — there are dozens in the area! — although I couldn’t do any tasting with my stomach so iffy all day.

By 4 PM, I was exhausted. I went back to the camper to relax and wound up staying in for the rest of the night.

Friday, August 1

On Friday, I needed to get an early start. I was expected in Salt Lake City at 6 PM. I’d be spending the night at the home of my friend and editor, Megg, and her family. Utah (MDST) is 1 hour ahead of Washington (PDST) so I’d already lost an hour. Trouble was, I needed to visit the post office to see if a General Delivery letter (containing a large check) had arrived. So I got as much prepared as possible before 9 AM and drove into town again. The check was there. I stopped at an excellent bakery that had been highly recommended by a Twitter friend and bought a fruit tart to bring to my friend’s place. Then I gassed up the truck.

Back at the camper, I was all ready to hook up the trailer when I realized that I was missing a leverage bar I needed for the hitch. I wasted an hour searching for it, then gave up and went to Home Depot to buy a replacement. That little fiasco cost me another hour. I didn’t get on the road until 10:30 AM.

That meant I had to take highways. I drove down to Pendleton and hopped on I-84 eastbound. And thus started a very long, very grueling day of driving. The trouble is, my 1994 Ford F150 8-cylinder pickup truck, when towing, is no match for hills and mountains. On flat areas (or downhill, of course), I could get it up to 65 MPH. But as soon as I started to climb, my speed deteriorated. Down to 35 MPH. Trucks were passing me.

And the roads through eastern Oregon and southern Idaho are very hilly.

I plowed on, stopping only for fuel and some fast food that I ate while driving. The hours slipped away. I was just entering the Salt Lake basin area when the sun set. It was about 8 PM. After making two wrong turns, I pulled up in front of Megg’s house just after 9 PM. I’d been on the road for more than 10 hours and was exhausted.

Megg fed me and helped me bring Alex the Bird’s cage into her dining room. By 11 PM, I was asleep in her guest room.

Saturday, August 2

We got up early and hit the farmer’s market in downtown Salt Lake City. This was, by far, the best farmer’s market I’d ever been to. Plenty of fresh produce, baked goods, and other items you’d expect to find at such a place, as well as other non-food items that generally dominate most other farmer’s markets in this country these days. Megg had her 5-year-old son, Cooper, along and we joined Megg’s friend and her 5-year-old son for coffee and scones at a shady table in the park. I felt as if I could have spent the whole day there — it was so pleasant.

But we headed out to the Snowbird ski resort area, where we took a hike in Albion Basin. The area had been recommended by photographer and Twitter friend Ann Torrence, who linked to a photo of the place that made it irresistible. The three of us hiked about 2 miles round trip to Cecret Lake (also spelled Secret Lake). I took a lot of photos; this is one of them. The place was amazingly beautiful. Again, I think I could have spent the whole day there. But we didn’t have a whole day. In fact, I was hoping to be back on the road by 1 PM.

The departure time slipped as we went to the Snowbird Ski Resort and took the tram to the top of Hidden Peak. I’m so out of shape I was huffing and puffing at 11,000 feet. We headed back to Salt Lake City where I scrambled to get everything together. It was 3:30 when I said goodbye and hit the road again with Alex.

My goal had been to reach Page, AZ before nightfall. That simply was not going to happen — especially with the way my truck was climbing hills. I wound up in Beaver, UT, where I had dinner at a truck stop before pulling into an RV park for the night. I didn’t unhook the trailer or pop out any of the beds. Instead, I just plugged in the power cord, opened the sofa, and snuggled up in a comforter with a pillow.

Sunday, August 3

I pulled out of the RV park at 6 AM sharp and continued south on I-15 to SR 20 to US 89. It wasn’t until I got to Mt. Carmel Junction that I stopped for breakfast and fuel. I was back in familiar territory — the turn at this junction leads to Zion National Park. After breakfast, I continued down through Kanab, stopping to take a photo of a reflecting pool alongside the road along the way. Then I continued east and was very pleased to see the silhouette of Navajo Mountain off in the distance.

I arrived at the Glen Canyon Dam visitor’s center at 10:30 AM. Mike was already there with his truck and Jack the Dog. We had another breakfast in Page, then went to the airport to chat with the folks I’ll be flying for there, and finally to the campground, where we were told we were “lucky” to get a spot. (There’s more to this story, but I don’t feel like going into it now.) We spent the rest of the day picking up a few things for the camper and then just taking it easy. We had dinner in town, then came back to the trailer and watched a movie on my laptop before falling asleep.

Monday, August 4

We did a lot of chores that morning. We had to button up the camper to move it to another site (which we were “lucky” to get) that was suitable for monthly use. It turns out, the only thing that made it suitable was an electric meter, so if I sucked too much electricity, they could charge me for it. The new site is right near the road, which I’m not happy at all about. But I’m hoping it’ll be close enough to the office to connect to the WiFi network there.

We left Mike’s truck with the trailer and climbed back into my truck with the stuff I wouldn’t need anymore — including Alex’s cage. Then the four of us headed home. We’d gotten about 15 miles south of Page when Mike realized he’d forgotten his cell phone. We went back to fetch it, then bought milk shakes that were way too big (and way too expensive) for the ride. At 2 PM, we were in Flagstaff, where we stopped for a Thai food lunch. We were still full from the damn milk shakes, so we wound up taking most of the food home with us.

We were in Wickenburg by 5:30 PM. I fetched one of my cars from my hangar and came home.

Busy enough for you?

So that’s a whole week and then some, all accounted for here. You can see why I didn’t blog regularly. Hopefully, this long post will make up for it — if you could last through it all.

We hit the road again on Friday morning, when we fly to Seattle to fetch the helicopter and bring it down to Page. I hope to be able to share more stories and photos with readers then.

Until then, remember that you can track my progress for most of my trips these days on my SPOT Share page, http://www.tinyurl.com/FindMaria. Use controls under the waypoints list to scroll back through previous days.

And be sure to check out my photo gallery for larger images of what I’ve shared here: http://www.FlyingMPhotos.com/.

About the Photos, Days in My Life, Travels with Maria Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Page, photography, Salt Lake City, Utah, Washington

Petrified logs, petroglyphs, and more.

On Saturday, I treated myself to an afternoon outing. My intended destination was the Wild Horse Wind Facility in Kittitas County. But I made a few stops along the way. One of them was the Interpretive Center for the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park near Vantage, WA, on the Columbia River.

I’m familiar with petrified wood. Arizona is home of the Petrified Forest National Monument (on I-40, east of Winslow) and I’ve been there a few times. But this forest was different. In Arizona, the wood was petrified as it became part of sedimentary rock. Here, the wood was encased in lava. But the results are similar: wood that’s been turned to rock.

I’ll admit I did the lazy tourist routine. I didn’t take a hike on the 3 miles of trails. It was hot and the trails were hilly. And I did have another destination. Instead, I stopped at the Interpretive Center about a mile north of Vantage. The small building offered sweeping views of the Columbia River from a cliffside perch, as well as many samples of polished petrified wood, scientific exhibits for all ages, and a small movie theater with visitor’s choice of informational movies about the area.

After studying the various displays, I went outside. There we numerous petrified logs between the building and the parking area. I had my good camera with me and tried to get some shots of the textures of these logs. Here’s one of them. What I find most interesting about petrified wood is the colors. While I’m sure there’s a good chemical and geological explanation for all the colors, it would probably be lost on me. I don’t really care how they got the colors. I just like the colors.

Around the side of the building is a display, behind an iron fence, of some petroglyphs that were rescued from floodwaters when the Wanapum dam was completed downriver in 1963. But to understand why the rocks these drawing appear on look so uniform, I need to discuss the geology of the area a bit.

The entire area sits on layers of basalt from repeated lava flows in prehistoric times. With each flow, the land rose. Then, 15,000 to 13,000 years ago, a huge lake, Glacial Lake Missoula, formed in what is now Montana. It broke through the “dam” created by a finger of ice age glacier and quickly carved through the area. It did this at least 25 times over a period of 2,000 years, carving out canyons known as coulees. You can read more about the Missoula Floods on Wikipedia.

Because the basalt from lava flows forms as columns of rock — think Devils Tower (of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame), which is similar — the force of the floodwaters carved away complete columns of rock, leaving behind other columns. The Columbia River flows in one of these canyons from Crescent Bar (west of Quincy and south of Wenatchee) to Vantage and beyond.

From 1000 to 300 years ago, native people drew on these columns of dark rock near the river’s edge. There’s actually an impressive variety of petroglyph drawings. About 300 of them were physically moved from what would soon be Lake Wanapum to the side of the Interpretive Center at the park. That’s what I saw and what is pictured here. (And no, the building isn’t curved. I was using my silly fisheye lens in an effort to capture more petroglyphs in a tight space.)

I highly recommend a visit to the park, even if you’re just passing through the area. It’s not far from the Vantage exit on I-90, just west of the Columbia River. Vantage has fuel and a handful of restaurants. (I recommend a “Logger burger” at the burger joint on the corner closest to the highway.) There’s also camping in the area for RVs and tents. If you want to make it a quick stop, you can visit the Interpretive Center in less than an hour. But if you want a more in-depth look at the petrified logs and aren’t too lazy to walk, continue up the road to the park’s hiking trails. Be sure to bring plenty of water; I don’t think there’s much there.

For more info, check out the Ginkgo Petrified Forest/Wanapum Recreational Area Web site or give them a call at (509) 856-2700.

Days in My Life, Travels with Maria history, State Park, Washington

How many updates can a person stand?

I’m off the Internet grid these days. Indeed, every single time I post to my blog, I’m doing so by connecting my MacBook Pro to the Internet through my Treo 700p’s Dial-Up Networking (DUN) feature.

This is not a fast connection. In fact, it can take over an hour to download a 30 MB file. When I need to do a real update, I have to find an Internet cafe with a fast connection. Or sit in my truck in front of a neighborhood home and use its connection.

So imagine my annoyance when Windows Vista on my Dell laptop popped up with this message today:

Are they kidding?

I just updated three days ago when I was fortunate enough to pick up the neighborhood connection in my trailer. Yet Microsoft has 67.1 MB more of “important” updates for me. That doesn’t count the 43 “optional” updates or the 2 “extras.”

No wonder the Internet connection at the local library is so slow. The five or six Windows PCs at the workstations there are probably spending all day every day downloading updates.

Call Me a Geek, Days in My Life software, Windows

It’s really out of control.

Yesterday, I drove into Wenatchee to take care of some errands. I had to do laundry, fill my truck’s transfer tank with 100LL fuel for my helicopter, buy a new set of sheets to replace the flannel sheets for the summer, and treat myself to a good Thai lunch. These days, I’ve been spending just about all of my time in my camper on the golf course, listening to NPR while I work on a book revision. It’s a sheltered life that doesn’t include many glimpses of the outside world.

One of the first things I noticed on my day out was an advertisement on the handle of a window-washing squeegee at a gas station. Throughout the day, advertisements would jump out at me at the most unexpected or annoying places. Here are three of them.

• Gas station squeegee. You know the device. It sits in a container of fuel at a gas station. You use it to get the bugs off the windscreen while pouring a portion of your life savings into your vehicle’s gas tank. This particular squeegee had a normal round handle, but that was attached to a three sided shaft that connected to the squeegee and its sponge. Each side of the shaft had a graphic on it with or without text. When you rotate the handle to read the three sides, it was an advertisement to go inside the gas station’s convenience store to buy stale weak coffee. Well, it didn’t say stale or weak, but we all know what kind of coffee is in service station’s mini mart. This advertisement was in an unexpected place.
• Office Depot receipt. I went to Office Depot to send a fax. When I paid the $3.51 fee with cash, I got two slips of paper as receipts. It wasn’t until I was going through my pockets this morning that I realized that the second cash-register generated paper was an advertisement for something called LifeLock Identify Protection Service. This advertisement was also in an unexpected place.
• TV screens throughout Wal-Mart. I went to Wal-Mart to buy sheets for my camper bed. (Disclaimer: I hate what Wal-Mart is doing to this country, but it is quickly becoming the cheap and easy choice for buying items. I knew where Wal-Mart was; I didn’t know where any other store that sold bedding was. So I went to Wal-Mart.) The Wal-Mart I went to has television screens hanging from the ceiling throughout the store. Every single one is playing commercials for items you can buy at Wal-Mart. They all have the sound turned on — I guess that eliminates the need to pay licensing fees for something more pleasant, like music. Even at the cash register, while still waiting on line, a flat screen TV pointed at the line played a different stream of commercials, conflicting with the nearby ceiling television. The cashier was painfully slow and the overall experience was extremely unpleasant. I guess I get what I deserve for shopping there. These advertisements were in annoying places. (I did get a measure of revenge, however. While walking past the electronics department, I used my TV-B-Gone to turn off half a bank of televisions on display. It was unfortunate that my TV-B-Gone wouldn’t shut off any of the ceiling TVs.)

These are just three examples or unexpected or annoying places from just one day in my life. I’m sure I’ll come up with more as time goes on. What about you? Have you seen advertisements in an especially unexpected or annoying place? Use the comments link or form for this post to share them.

Days in My Life, Deep Thoughts advertising

Quote of the day.

If you follow this blog, you may have read about my Quincy Golf Course RV Park Internet woes. I thought I had them licked before I went away to Pateros on June 26, but when I returned on July 7, it was down again.

Recap

Let me review the situation:

• The Internet people put an antenna on the roof of the Golf Course Pro Shop building.
• The antenna points to another antenna about a half mile away to pick up an Internet signal.
• The Internet people put a WiFi router in the Pro Shop and connected it to the antenna.
• The WiFi setup operates at normal WiFi frequencies.
• The Pro Shop has a Toro irrigation system which uses an antenna on the building to turn various sprinklers on or off based on a computer schedule and manual inputs on a radio.
• The Toro system operates on a completely different frequency in a different range.
• The irrigation guy is convinced that the Internet system conflicts with the irrigation system.
• The Internet people moved the antenna and ran extensive tests with the irrigation guy to assure that his system continued to work. There was no conflict at that time or any other time that the Internet people were here.

That’s where things were on June 26 when I left town for 10 days. When I got back, the Internet was disconnected and the router was missing — although all the other equipment was in place and even powered up.

Evidently, while I was gone, the irrigation system failed again. Coincidentally, there was also a power failure here — I know this because my microwave’s clock was reset. But the irrigation guy — who I think I’m going to rechristen the irritation guy — is certain that the failure is due to the Internet setup. And now he’s convinced management.

So they won’t let me reconnect the system.

So I don’t have full-time Internet anymore. Again.

And I’m out the $70 I paid for two months of Internet service.

And I’m working on a book for a software product that attempts to connect to the Internet every third time I click a button or choose a menu command.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

I’ve spoken to numerous people about this situation. People who know more about the technical aspects of wireless operations than I ever will. All have agreed that there should not be a conflict.

I talked directly to Toro technical support. They told me there should not be a conflict.

During the troubleshooting process, I disconnected the entire Internet system and asked the irritation guy to test it. He claimed it wouldn’t work. When I pointed out that nothing was connected, he admitted that his radio transmitter battery was low and that could have caused the problem.

Every single time the Internet people were here to test the system with the irritation guy, the irrigation system worked flawlessly.

Yet the first time it doesn’t work properly, the irritation guy blames the Internet and disconnects part of the system. He gets it to work and assumes that the problem is the Internet — not whatever else he did to get it to work.

When I recited these details to my editor, Megg, she gave me a quote from her husband: “You can’t fix stupid.” I had to write it down. It fits this situation perfectly.

Stupid is not a word I use lightly. I prefer the word ignorant, which has a very different meaning. Ignorant means uninformed. Or, more specifically, from the New Oxford American Dictionary in the Dictionary application in Mac OS X:

lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated

I wanted to think that the irritation guy was just ignorant. He’s not technically savvy. Heck, he had to have his daughter come out and help him disconnect an Ethernet cable from a computer! All he knows about the irrigation computer is what the setup guy told him. He doesn’t touch it without assistance from the local support person. So, obviously he’s not informed about how computers work.

But when several people go through the exercise of testing the system with him to prove that it works and multiple people explain that the two systems are on different frequency ranges so there shouldn’t be any conflict and he still refuses to believe, I have to start applying the stupid label to him.

And you can’t fix stupid.

Call Me a Geek, Days in My Life, Deep Thoughts ignorance, Internet, stupidity, technology