This past week, I traveled with my sister as part of a convoy of vehicles moving her from New Jersey to Florida. The other vehicles included my dad in a Budget rental truck (see photo) containing the contents of my sister’s recently sold condo and my dad’s wife in an SUV. We buzzed down I-95 at highway speed, stopping only for food, fuel, and bladder demands.

If you’ve ever driven I-95 — or most freeways, for that matter — you know how mind-numbingly boring the trip can be. You’re moving at 55 to 75 miles per hour down a corridor that’s often straighter than an arrow shaft. Although there are occasional scenic vistas, they’re usually ruined by the tractor-trailer trucks you’re passing (or passing you). The main points of interest are the billboards and the variety of fast food joints and hotel chains at exits. The only excitement comes when some jackass cuts you off or something falls off the trailer in front of you.

The benefit of the interstate highway system is speed, of course. If there’s no construction or accidents or rush-hour traffic in a major metropolitan area, you can zip right along to your destination. We travelled almost exactly 1,000 miles over a day and a half. My dad routinely makes this drive to/from farther south without an overnight stop. It’s a lot of driving, though. And it just isn’t fun.

Each year, I drive from the Phoenix area to Central Washington State and back towing a travel trailer. It’s about 1,200 miles each way. Although Google Maps tries to put me on freeways for the entire trip, I don’t go that way. Instead, I take the back roads that criss-cross the western states. Last year, I was mainly on Route 93. This year, I was mainly on Route 95. These are long two-lane, so-called “blue highways” that pass through small western towns and cities. Along the way, you can get a feel for the landscape and the way folks live. There’s seldom any traffic and the speed limit is often as high as 65 mph so you can move from place to place at a reasonable pace. You can stop just about anywhere along the way and although your choices for meals and fuel and hotels might be limited, they’re not just the same chain establishments you’ll see along the freeway. It’s a whole different way to travel, a whole different experience.

What I like about the blue highways is the opportunities to stop at interesting spots along the way. Instead of pulling into a McDonald’s for lunch, I might stop in a parking area with a scenic view and have a picnic lunch there. Instead of staying overnight at a Super 8 motel adjacent to a truck stop or parking my camper in a Walmart parking lot, I might roll into a state park and camp alongside a creek. If there’s a historic site or roadside attraction, I can easily pull over to take some time there and enjoy it. I can change my route at any intersection. Best of all, I set the pace.

Back in 2005, I conducted what I like to call my “midlife crisis road trip.” I hopped into my little red Honda S2000 with some luggage and credit cards and hit the road for 16 days. I traveled almost every day, getting as far away from Arizona as Mt. St. Helens in Washington, western Montana, and Yellowstone National Park. I had a general idea of where I wanted to go, but no reservations and no need to be anywhere on any day. I slept in motels, hotels, rustic cabins, and even a yurt. I ate all kinds of meals, from crappy fast food and terrible coffee at drive-thru joints to fine dining at the foot of Mt. Shasta. I made side trips daily, visited parks, and talked to lots of strangers. I put more than 5,000 miles on my car, got two oil changes on the road, and even replaced the rear tires after wearing them out. (Z-rated tires just don’t last very long.) I had a great time — better than most vacations — and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

While I realize that this week’s trip wasn’t for pleasure — the goal was to get my sister, her car, and her belongings from New Jersey to Florida in the minimum amount of time — it certainly did highlight the differences between my usual kind of road trip and motoring down the interstate between points A and B.

And it reminded me why I prefer the blue highways when enjoying the trip is more important than getting to the destination.

I was driving down the California coast, looking for a place to stop for breakfast — preferably with a view of the ocean — when I saw a sign for Paradise Cove. I followed the arrow down a narrow road that wound down to the ocean. There was a right turn into a trailer park, but if I went straight, I’d end up in a parking lot on the ocean. A sign warned that parking was $20, but only $3 if you got your parking ticket validated in the restaurant and stayed for less than 4 hours. Ahead of me was a funky little oceanfront restaurant with a handful of cars parked in front of it. I drove through the gate and parked.

And went inside the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe.

It was a typical seaside restaurant — the kind you can imagine filled with people in bathing suits, eating fried clams, with sand and flip-flops on their feet. (That’s my east coast seaside experience talking.) But that Saturday morning was partly cloudy and unseasonably cool for southern California. The main dining room was empty. I was escorted into a kind of sundeck room with big windows facing the ocean. Although all the window tables were full, the waiter kindly sat me at a huge table nearby, where I could enjoy the view as well as the activity going on around me.

I checked out the menu, eager for a big, hot breakfast. I didn’t plan to eat again until after my flight arrived in Phoenix later that evening. Some items on the menu interested me, but it was the eggs benedict I asked the waiter about.

“Are they good?” There’s nothing worse than bad eggs benedict when you’re expecting decent eggs benedict.

“Very good,” he assured me.

I settled down to wait for my breakfast. There was nothing much going on outside the window. Gulls flying around, a few people walking out on the obligatory but short pier. It was mostly dark and cloudy over the ocean, but the sun was breaking through here and there. I watched my fellow diners get their breakfasts delivered. Everything looked outrageously good.

When my breakfast arrived, it looked good. On the plate were two eggs benedict, a good sized portion of roasted potatoes, and some melon slices. I nibbled a potato. It was cooked to perfection. And then I tasted the eggs benedict.

I’ve had eggs benedict in a lot of places — including a lot of fancy and expensive hotel restaurants. But these eggs benedict were the best I’d ever had in my life. It may have been the fact that the eggs were cooked perfectly — whites cooked, yolks still runny. Or the fact that the english muffins beneath them were fresh and not over-toasted. But it was probably because the hollandaise sauce was light and airy and obviously freshly prepared from scratch — not some thick yellow crap from a mix.

You like eggs benedict? Go on out to the Paradise Cove Cafe in Malibu and get some.

I was just finishing up my breakfast when a man about my age came in with two elderly ladies. They got a table by the window near where I was sitting. I watched them, trying not to look obvious about it, recognizing something about them. It came to me slowly. He was the grandson taking his grandmother and her friend out to breakfast.

They reminded me so much of all the times I’d taken my grandmother out to breakfast. This may have been because the woman had the same New York accent my grandmother had. She also spoke rather loudly, had trouble hearing her grandson, and asked the waiter all kinds of questions. She was concerned about whether she’d have to pay for a refill of her “mocha” — a simple mix of coffee and hot chocolate prepared by the waiter. She praised the waiter extensively about how well he’d prepared that mocha for her. The other woman was quieter but seemed to have the same accent. The grandson was attentive but, on more than one occasion, obviously embarrassed.

I knew exactly how he felt.

Before I left, I got up to say hello to them. I discovered that the women were from the Bronx — the same area as my grandmother. The quiet woman was the grandmother’s sister. She complemented me on the way my blue earrings made my eyes look bluer. I could easily have chatted with them all day.

Afterwards, I went outside and took a walk on the pier. I took a photo looking up the coast (shown here) and another looking down the coast (shown below). Amazing that these two photos were taken only moments apart, isn’t it? But the weather was variable and moving quickly. A huge storm front was moving into southern California that would dump rain on the low elevations and snow on the higher ones.

Paradise Cove and places like it are part of the reason I like to travel alone. When you’re traveling with companions, every stop has to be debated and measured. No one ever wants to say, “Let’s stop here and check it out,” because no one wants to be responsible if the place turns out to be rat hole. As a result, opportunities to visit interesting places are missed. Instead, a trip is a long string of predetermined “must see” places, visited one after another with few spontaneous stops along the way.

There was magic at the Paradise Cove Cafe — at least for me that morning. If I’d been with someone else — someone anxious to eat breakfast before starting the drive or satisfied with a chain restaurant for a meal — I would have missed that magic.

I also would have missed out on photo opportunities. When I’m on the road by myself, I stop more often to look at what’s around me and, if I can, take pictures. On this particular Saturday, all I had with me was my little Nikon CoolPix point-and-shoot, but I put it to good use. The weather was a mixture of thick clouds and blue sky. It was the kind of place and day that calls out to photographers. The photos I’m able to include with this blog entry will help me remember this day. (I even took a stealth photo of the grandson/grandmother/aunt outing with my Treo, although I won’t publish it here.)

Anyway, I walked back to my rental car, fired it up, and paid my $3 parking fee on the way out. It had been well worth the money.

I don’t have much time to write this — and that’s the reason I haven’t been writing more regularly. I like to compose at least 5 blog posts a week, yet this is only my third in just over a week. The last post — a video — doesn’t really count, since I didn’t write anything.

So why the neglect? As I mentioned above: time.

Every once in a while, life throws a perfect storm at us. You know what I mean — it’s a period of time when everything seems to go crazy at once.

In my case, it was the following, which have all occurred since July 29:

• Completion of the annual revision of one of my books (ongoing throughout this period).
• Reposition my helicopter from Quincy, WA to Seattle, WA.
• Reposition my camper from Quincy, WA to Page, AZ.
• Brief 3-day catchup period at home in Wickenburg, AZ.
• Distribute the animals among multiple boarding facilities.
• Trip to Seattle, WA.
• Reposition helicopter from Seattle, WA to Page, AZ.
• Set up housekeeping in my camper in Page, AZ.
• Entertain an overnight guest in a very tiny camper.
• Deal with FAA, airport manager, and local tour operators in Page regarding tour, photo flight, and charter work in Page, AZ (ongoing).
• Provide moral support for my sister, who has been laid off from her banking job.
• Three photo flights from Page to Monument Valley.
• Start of new book with August deadline.
• Three trips to medical facilities in an attempt to diagnose some severe back pain.

It’s this last thing that’s really gummed up the works. I did something to my back while I was home and the pain became unbearable after the commercial flight to Seattle the next day. I was in an urgent care clinic there where I got prescriptions for drugs I couldn’t take because I had to fly. The pain has varied from annoying but bearable to absolutely crippling every day since then, with one day so bad I was in the hospital emergency room. It hurt to sit and since I need to sit to write, I couldn’t work on the new book — let alone write blog entries.

Miraz hit the nail on the head in her Twitter comment to me, when she said, “Pain is so time consuming and draining.” Wow. I’d never really thought of it like that — probably because I’ve never been in such severe pain for so long.

So now I’m behind in just about everything, racing against the clock to finish a book that’s due tomorrow. (It ain’t gonna happen.) The pain is under control — yesterday was the first day that it was tolerable throughout the day — and physical therapy starts on Monday.

Please bear with me. I do have lots to write about. When I get this book off my plate and catch up on my FAA stuff, I’ll be back with some interesting (I hope) new content here.

[When we last left our intrepid traveler, she'd settled down for the night in a campsite alongside a stream in Oregon, where she sipped good coffee and listened to a light rain falling on the roof of her travel trailer. You can read about the first day of her trip here and the second day here.]

I’ll be the first to admit that although I pushed hard and covered a lot of miles on the first day of my journey from Wickenburg, AZ to Quincy, WA, I pretty much slacked off on the second day. I blame that on two things: I was tired from a poor night’s sleep and the rainy weather made driving difficult and tedious. So when I pulled into the campsite in an Oregon State Park, I didn’t really care that I’d only covered about 400 miles that day when I should have been able to make it all the way to Quincy.

But that left my third day with a very easy goal. I was only about 250 miles from Quincy and could easily cover the distance before lunch.

I got back on the road at 7:10 AM. It was still overcast and rainy and the clouds seemed to dip down onto the highway. I drove through a light mist, wondering if it would become real fog. There weren’t many other vehicles on the road, which was a good thing. There was construction at various small bridges, bringing the road down to one lane. If a bridge was on an uphill climb, whoever was behind me was forced to slow to my climbing speed, which was seldom faster than 40 miles per hour. I think the truck was more tired than I was.

After a climb to the Blue Mountain Summit, I started seeing warning signs about an upcoming 6% grade. The signs were kind of funny. The first proclaimed, “First Warning! 6 Mile 6% Grade Ahead!” The second said pretty much the same thing as a “Second Warning.” Huge signs set forth maximum speeds for trucks with 5 or more axles — the really heavy ones were limited to just 18 miles per hour. This was obviously serious business.

Before the hill, there was a turnoff for a scenic view. I could see that the clouds ended just ahead and could imagine a view from the mountain over a broad valley. I knew that if I’d been in my Honda without a 3500-lb trailer behind me and a parrot in a plastic box next to me, I would have pulled off to take in the view. But in my current situation, all I wanted was to get to Quincy and set up camp. So I kept driving.

After a “FInal Warning!” sign, I began the descent. The cloud bank ended abruptly at the top of the hill, revealing a huge area of rolling green hills. In the distance, I could clearly see the bulk of Mount St. Helens rising, snow-capped, out of the ground. A tiny cloud hovered near its summit; it might be steaming again. The view was breathtaking, but I had to concentrate on the task at hand: keeping the truck at or below 50 mph on the steep downhill grade without burning up the brakes. I passed a truck and two runaway truck ramps. About a dozen cars passed me. Then I was at the bottom, continuing northwest toward Pendleton.

You may have heard of Pendleton, OR — it’s where Pendleton blankets are made. A piece of trivia for you: Pendleton blankets were much prized by the Navajos, who commonly wore blankets as part of their clothing, in the late 1800s. The Fred Harvey Company convinced the Navajo people, who are known for their excellent weaving, to begin weaving rugs instead of blankets — so they could trade the rugs for Pendleton blankets. These beautiful, soft wool blankets can be found in just about any trading post in the west.

I’d been in Pendleton once before, during my 2005 road trip, eager to take the factory tour. Unfortunately, the factory was closed that week for vacation. (My luck.) I was not going to try again that day.

But I did need gas and I wanted to top off the propane tanks. I’d be using propane to cook in the camper and I didn’t want to run out, since I couldn’t lift the tanks to put them in the truck. I watched the highway signs and pulled off at an exit with a Shell station that had both gas and propane. I was the only vehicle at the pumps and both attendants came out to service me. (Oregon, like New Jersey, is full service fueling only.) One guy pumped the gas while the other actually cleaned my windshield. Then I repositioned my rig and one guy added 6 gallons of propane to my tanks. I was surprised; I thought it would have taken more.

Then I was back on the road again, continuing northwest on I-84. Past Hermiston, I got on I-82 northbound. I crossed the Columbia River for the first time just downstream from the McNary Dam. The water approaching the bridge seemed to boil with currents and columns of mist rose from the downstream side of the dam. The Columbia was at flood stage because of snowmelt in the mountains.

Now I was in Washington state.

The area around me had become more and more agricultural after descending from Blue Mountain. It was a mix of farm field and orchards — including what I’m pretty sure were cherry trees. Most of the Columbia River Valley is cultivated. While Idaho may be famous for potatoes, I passed a sign somewhere in Washington that proclaimed that local county produced more potatoes than anywhere else in the country. Take that, Idaho.

I made the mistake of taking directions from my GPS to get through the Richmond area. The GPS, which is set up for off-road travel, didn’t give accurate and timely directions, so I missed a turn. I wound up detouring through Benton City to catch State Route 225 north to State Route 240. This farm road (225) was narrow and wound through hills. Pretty, but not the kind of road I wanted to be dragging my rig through.

I took State Route 240 to State Route 24 to State Route 243. Along the way, I crossed the Columbia again, passed the community of Desert Aire (which features a private runway), and the farm community of Mattawa, which is also known for its cherry orchards. Route 243 followed the Columbia River and I could easily see the flooding — just the tops of the tall green trees that had been on the shore poked out through the water. Then I got onto I-90 eastbound. Twelve miles to George, where I exited for northbound State Route 281. Just five miles left.

I pulled into the parking lot for the Quincy Golf Course at 11:45 AM.

The site I’d asked them to hold for me was occupied. I didn’t really care. I was tired and just wanted to get the camper parked, disconnected from the truck, and set up. I spent the next two hours doing just that.

Now, the next morning, I’m about 80% settled in. The camper is completely set up, with both beds extended. I put both mattresses on the back bed where I’ll sleep and set up Alex’s cage on the front bed. I’ve got a full hookup here, so I’m all plugged in. This will become important when it gets hot and I need the camper’s air conditioning. It also makes it possible to use the microwave, which our off-the-grid camping makes useless. It’s weird having unlimited access to water — I’m so accustomed to conserving it, especially when I’m away from home. It was a real treat to take a good, long shower. I also put out the awning, which will give me shelter from both sun and rain.

The campground’s five hookup spots are now full. I’m very glad that I got here when I did.

Were you one of the three thousand or so cars that passed me today? I was driving the 1994 Ford F150 pickup with the bird cage stand in the bed, towing a 21-foot travel trailer from Wickenburg, AZ to West Wendover, NV.

The truck can pull the trailer, but barely. I’m lucky if I can get the speed up to 65 mph. Where the speed limit is 75 mph, everyone whizzes past me. Heck, they whiz past me just about everywhere, since I can’t keep the speed above 50 if I’m going uphill.

And there were lots of hills on this trip.

We — Alex the Bird and I — departed Wickenburg at 7:05 AM. The route, which was determined by Google Maps and adjusted to avoid Hoover Dam traffic, took us up U.S. 93 to I-40. We took the Interstate through Kingman, AZ and exited at Beale Street. Normally, we’d continue north on 93, but since I didn’t feel like dealing with a TSA search of the camper prior to crossing Hoover Dam, we hopped on State Route 68 to Bullhead City, crossed the Colorado River at Laughlin, and continued west on State Route 163. Then north on U.S. 95 to I-515 through Las Vegas. Then I-15 north to U.S. 93 north to S.R. 318 to U.S. 6 to U.S. 50 (briefly in Ely, NV) to U.S. 93 to U.S. 93A to West Wendover, NV.

Whew!

We were in the truck for 12 hours. I made one bathroom stop and two fuel stops, one of which included McDonalds. This was the first time I’d eaten at a McDonalds in at least three years. I hate myself for loving those fries.

I’ve never before been so aware of hills. The truck does okay on level ground and it even does pretty well going downhill. But get it on a slight incline going up and it’s an absolute dog. I mean, at times, I couldn’t even keep 50 MPH. When it dipped below 45 MPH, I had to turn the flashers on, like an underpowered, overloaded big rig climbing a hill.

Did I mention that quite a few of those passed me, too?

It’s funny, because everyone warned me to “take it slow” and “watch out for speed traps.” Hell, I’m more likely to get ticketed for driving too slow than for speeding.

Of course, there were exceptions. The ride down 68 to Bullhead City had a 6% downgrade for about 12 miles. I think that’s the only time I’ve ever been on a stretch of road with two runaway truck ramps. To save the breaks, I popped the truck into 2nd gear a few times to slow down. Worked like a charm. I had to repeat this exercise after a grueling climb up the other side of the Colorado River Valley on 163 when there was another section of road with a 6% grade.

I stopped for fuel at Searchlight, NV. Poor Alex seemed shell-shocked. I changed out his food and his water and closed him back in his box. (Alex travels in a lucite box with air holes, a perch, toys, and bowls for food and water. It’s really important to keep his box out of the sun when traveling.) I went into the camper to use the toilet and noticed that the fridge wasn’t running right. Later it seemed to be okay.

Then on to Las Vegas. I got a phone call from one of my cherry drying connections just as I neared the network of freeways there. When I hung up, I realized I was on I-515. I was supposed to be on I-15. But since the two highways merged north of the strip, I stuck with it. I had to pull over to make a phone call and I had to pull over again to check the bike rack after a passing car signaled me that it was loose. (It wasn’t that loose.)

Eventually, north of Vegas, I took the exit for 93 north. That started another trip through another featureless desert valley. Or maybe there were two of them. It’s easy to lose track in terrain like that. The mountains on either side were nice looking examples of uplifted sedimentary rock. But 93 miles of road with only 2 gas stations. And that’s where I nearly made a very big mistake.

The truck has two gas tanks. They each hold about 16 gallons of fuel. I usually stick with one tank until I get to E, then switch to the other. I’d switched to the second tank and had 3/4 tank left. So when I passed that second gas station, it never occurred to me to buy fuel.

I drove another 100 miles before I reached the next gas station. By that time, I’d completely drained the second tank — the engine was sputtering when I flicked the switch to change tanks. I was back on the first tank, seeing how far into the red I could get on its gauge when I reached the gas station. I would have been completely out of gas within five miles.

The pumps were so old that they couldn’t handle the math for fuel prices over a dollar. You know the kind of pumps. The digits aren’t created with LEDs or LCDs — they’re on a wheel and roll over as the numbers change. The owners of the place had taped the per gallon price ($4.28) written on a piece of cardboard over the place where the purchase total usually appears. I got out and spoke to the two women in the shack adjacent to the pumps. “I sure hope those pumps work,” I said. They assured me that they did.

I got two bars on my cell phone and used the opportunity to call Mike and check in. Good thing I did. An hour later, I had no cell signal at all. And I wouldn’t have one for more than two hours.

If you’ve never driven through the emptiness of Nevada, you probably have little idea of what it’s like. I’ve driven in every state of this country except Minnesota and there’s no state that has more nothing than Nevada. Sure, the rugged, rocky, barren mountains are pretty — for the first hour or so. The valleys between them are often nothing more than vast plains of nothingness. Think salt flats or dry lake beds or mile after mile of scrubby vegetation clinging to existence on scant rainfall and harsh winters.

I’d hoped to write something interesting about the drive, but there’s nothing memorable about it other than miles of straight, empty blacktop cutting through the desert. If I’d broken down, I’d have to hope one of the dozen or so cars who passed each hour would be kind enough to stop. At least I was dragging along a little house with me if I had to spend the night out there.

Things changed when I neared Ely. I’d climbed into high desert, over 6,000 feet. The truck seemed to be wheezing for breath in the thin air; I was lucky to get 40 miles per hour when we climbed through the pass just south of town. I decided to call it quits for the day. It was 5 PM and I was getting tired.

But Ely — no offense to the people who live there — didn’t have much to offer. Sure, there was an historic downtown that looked kind of interesting. But I needed to park an RV and I needed to spend the night in it with Alex the Bird. (How many hotels do you think take parrots?) There was a casino on the east side of town with a sign promising $15 RV sites. But the parking lot was dirt and the whole place looked sad and neglected. I kept driving.

An hour later, I reached a crossroads. I was supposed to turn left on route 93 to head north toward Wells. But Wells, which was 78 miles away, was a speck on the map on I-80 and I didn’t know what I’d find there. If I kept straight on 93A, I’d reached West Wendover in 59 miles. The map promised a bigger town. What I saw inmy mind was a Nevada gambling town on the border of Nevada and Utah, right on I-80. I imagined casinos with big parking lots for trucks and RVs. It wouldn’t take me too far off course. So I continued on 93A.

I rolled into West Wendover around 7 PM. It was exactly as I’d imagined it. Bigger, in fact. I homed in on the casino with the brightest lights and biggest parking lot. I pulled into a spot at the far end of the parking lot and used Google Maps in my Treo to look up the casino’s phone number. Minutes later, I had the security department’s permission to park there rather than in the truck parking lot across the street. This shot was taken with my Treo a while later, after dinner in the casino’s steakhouse.

I’d been on the road for 12 hours with six short stops. I’d covered more than 650 miles. I was halfway to Quincy.

It’s official. I’m going to Washington State for the cherry drying season.

(You can learn more about the kind of work I’ll be doing in “Drying Cherries with the Big Fan.” The photo here shows what helicopters try to prevent: split cherries, in this case, with brown rot. Would you want to eat this? Yuck.)

This is the third year I’ve tried to get into this kind of work — the second year that I’ve tried hard — and I’m finally in.

This has pretty much set the basis for my schedule for the entire month of May.

100 Hours

As those of you who are pilots know, every aircraft is required to have an annual inspection. N630ML’s annual inspection is due in June. But aircraft used for commercial (for-hire) purposes must also have an inspection every 100 hours of flight time. This 100-hour inspection is almost the same as an annual inspection. In fact, an annual inspection meets the requirements of a 100-hour inspection. Since I fly just over 200 hours each year, I normally get one annual inspection and one 100-hour inspection.

As I type this, N630ML has about 15 hours left before its 100-hour inspection is due. It’ll take us about 12-13 hours to fly to Seattle, which is where I’ll get my annual inspection done. That leaves very few hours to spare. Even though I’m allowed to go over the 100 hours by as many as 10 hours if I’m moving the aircraft to a facility to get this job done, I’d rather keep the aircraft 100% legal for commercial flight, right up to the time I drop it off.

So I’ve been turning down flights. I can’t tell you how many I’ve turned down. Tours to the Grand Canyon, tours of the Phoenix area, pipeline survey flights, air-taxi flights. The list goes on and on. Where were these people in January, when I was twiddling my thumbs and flight conditions were perfect?

You might say, well why not fly those hours and get the maintenance done here in Arizona?

It isn’t that simple. The maintenance takes up to a week to complete. Because my former helicopter mechanic went belly-up in February, I have to build a relationship with a new shop that’s willing to “make room” for me on its schedule when the time comes. Otherwise, it has to be scheduled far in advance. I don’t know when I’ll need it.

My partner on the cherry drying work, Erik, suggested his mechanic. Two months ago that seemed like a perfect solution. I’d just keep flying until I had about 15 hours left before maintenance was required, then put it in the hangar until I was ready to take it to Washington. I never dreamed I’d reach the 15 hours left mark so quickly. Great for my business and bank account, but I wish I had 10 more hours to burn off with other people picking up the tab.

Erik’s mechanic is based at Boeing Field in Seattle. He works on Robinsons all the time and has a lot of experience with the one thing no local mechanic wanted to tackle: painting my blades. Arizona’s dusty environment, coupled with my frequent off-airport landings, strips the paint off my main rotor blades at an alarming rate. We had them “touched up” once, but I want it done right. This guy can do it.

So I scheduled the maintenance for May 19. That means I had to have the aircraft in Seattle by then.

The Ferry Flight

I’m really looking forward to the ferry flight from Wickenburg to Seattle, WA. We’re planning a coastal route that’ll take us up the coast of California and Oregon before coming inland to Portland, OR. We’ll do that over two days, starting on Saturday, May 17.

I say “we” because I won’t be flying alone. Louis, a CFI (certified flight instructor), will be joining me, sharing the costs to make the flight more affordable. Louis has close to 300 hours of flight time but wants more. He also wants the experience of a long cross-country flight. This one, which will include deserts, mountains, valleys, and coastal lands, will give him plenty of experience. He’ll be sitting in the left seat, as a CFI normally would. I hate flying from the left seat.

He’ll be doing most of the flying while I take photos. I plan to have my door off for part of the trip. We can stick it in the back seat where it’s out of the way. I’ll do mostly still photos with my Nikon D80. I should be well positioned to put the sun behind the camera for most of the flight.

I’ll also have the POV.1 hooked up, possibly to the helicopter’s nose. The control panel for the camera had to be replaced because of a power-related problem, so I haven’t had a chance to check that position yet. I’ll probably do it on Friday, before Louis and I pack up the helicopter. I’ll try to get some interesting video during the flight. I’m sure I’ll capture each takeoff and landing and, hopefully, get some good footage along the coast.

In addition to taking photos, I plan to spend some time practicing my navigation skills. I think I depend too much on my GPS to get me from point to point. So I’m going to practice following a route on a map. I figured I’d pick a place out in the desert between Wickenburg and Palmdale, CA, set the GPS to give us the heading, and let Louis fly it. Then I’d cover the GPS’s map with a Post-It note and follow our path through the otherwise featureless desert on a sectional chart. Louis’s task will be to stay on course without checking the GPS. My tasks will be to know where we are at all times and have him adjust his course if he needs to. I think it’ll be a good exercise for both of us — and it might just make that part of the flight a little less boring. (Having flown it about a half-dozen times, I can’t begin to describe how boring it is. You can read about my first experience flying through that area in “Wickenburg, AZ to Placerville, CA – Day 1,” one of my very first blog entries.)

Although Louis is in charge of flight planning, I came up with two possible routes. One is the coastal route he said he wanted to try. The other goes right up California’s Central Valley. That’s the route I know best — I’ve taken it as far as Placerville (in my old R22, N7139L) and Georgetown (in N630ML), in the foothills of the Sierras. I created two possible routes just in case weather moves in. I don’t want to get delayed. I need to be in Portland by the evening of May 18.

Portland?

Yes, you read right. I have to make a stop in Portland on the way to Seattle. That’s where I’m meeting up with Dave, a cherry dryer turned ENG (electronic news gathering) pilot. Dave says drying cherries is the most dangerous work he’s ever done in a helicopter. He trained Erik and has agreed to train me.

Let’s face it: when you’re drying cherries, you’re operating in the deadman’s curve of the height velocity diagram. You’re flying at about 5 knots about 15 to 20 feet off the ground. If you have an engine failure, you’re not drying cherries anymore. You’re chopping them. (Perhaps we can call that “doing a George Washington without an axe”?)

Because you’re going slowly, you’re flying below ETL (effective translational lift) which means you’re on the front side of the power curve. You’d basically doing an out-of-ground effect hover the entire time you’re operating — which can be the full 2-1/2 to 3 hours between refuelings, if the field is large enough. (They say an R44 can dry 40 acres in an hour; I’ll see if that’s true this summer.) Not only is that incredibly boring and tedious, but I’m sure it’s fatiguing.

Now add a little wind — maybe the quartering tailwind that can cause LTE (loss of tail rotor effectiveness). While Robinson helicopters have very authoritative tail rotors, a few gusts from behind will certainly give the helicopter a case of what I call “the wigglies.” Remember, a helicopter wants to point into the wind, like a weather vane. Blow a little gust up its butt and you’ll be dancing on the pedals to keep it pointed the right way.

While it’s common to release the collective while cruising in straight and level flight — the old set-it-and-forget-it approach to cross-country flying — a cherry drying pilot operating in anything but dead calm air will be lucky if he gets enough time with his hand off the collective to scratch his nose or reach for a bottle of water. So there’s a good chance he’ll be holding that collective tightly, making constant pitch adjustments. I’ve discovered that when I do any kind of intense flying — like chasing race cars — I hold the collective with what CFIs call a “death grip.” (That’s me: either let go completely or get finger impressions in the throttle grip.) The trouble with that is that Robinson helicopters have a very effective throttle governor that automatically adjusts the throttle based on power requirements to keep the RPM in the green. It works like a charm — really! Unless, of course, you’re holding the damn throttle grip so tightly that it can’t turn on its own. Then you might just prevent it from getting enough power to keep the RPMs up. That low rotor RPM horn should be enough to wake up any pilot, but I’d rather not hear it at all. I know I’m going to need to relax that grip.

I also have to wear a flight helmet and a Nomex flight suit. I bought the helmet last week. When I get the flight suit, I’ll put both on and model them for readers. I expect to look like a big, fat, white-capped khaki pickle. But what’s worse is that I have to wear these things in June and July, when temperatures could get into the 90s and it’ll definitely be humid. (Remember, it just rained, right?)

On the positive side, an R44 Raven II with just one person on board isn’t likely to have any density altitude-related power issues, especially under 2,000 feet MSL (mean sea level) elevation. So it’s not like I have to worry much about having enough power to fight a little breeze in a turn or climb over the occasional power line. (Did I forget to mention that the fields are sometimes bordered by power lines or have power lines running across them?)

So what you wind up with is flying that is potentially dangerous and more than a little challenging while being completely and utterly boring. By boring, I mean not fun. Chasing race cars is dangerous and challenging and fun. Drying cherries is likely to be dangerous and challenging and boring.

Drying cherries does pay better, though. And it’s something new and different for me. I’m always interested in trying something new and different, trying things that’ll hone my flying skills and make me a better pilot.

Seattle, Wenatchee, Quincy, Wenatchee, Seattle, Oakland, Mountain View, Oakland, Phoenix, Wickenburg

That’s my planned return route. All business.

When I get to Seattle’s Boeing Field, I’ll drop off the helicopter with my new mechanic and say goodbye to Louis. I’ll spend the night somewhere relatively close to Seattle-Tacoma Airport (SEA).

Then, in the morning, I’ll hop on a 45-minute flight to Wenatchee. I’ll rent a car and start exploring the area around Quincy, WA, where I’ll be based. I’m looking for a campground where I can get a full hookup and WiFi. There are at least two options that I know of — maybe I’ll find others. Or maybe the private airport where the helicopters will be based will give me electricity and water for the trailer. But I do need WiFi — I’ll be writing two books while I’m there, waiting for the cherries to get wet.

I’ll spend the night somewhere around there — Quincy or Wenatchee — after getting a real good feel for the place. Then I’ll drop off the rental at the airport and hop on a flight back to Seattle, with a connecting flight to Oakland, CA.

I’ll spend the night at a nice hotel in Jack London Square, courtesy of one of my publishers. In the morning, I’ll have breakfast with an editor and make the drive with her to Mountain View, for a meeting with a software developer.

When that’s over, we’ll speed back to Oakland so I can catch a 2 PM flight to Phoenix.

There, I’ll pick up my car, which Mike will have left earlier that day when he came to the airport for his flight to New York. I’ll be home before sunset.

The Long Drive

I’ll be home just a few days and all of it will be spent preparing my pull trailer and truck for the long drive to Washington State.

To save money and give me a bit more flexibility, I decided to stay in the trailer where I could prepare my own meals and have plenty of room to work rather than stay in a cheap motel. The going rate for campsites appears to be $30 to $40 per night, which isn’t exactly cheap, but I’ll have my own home away from home. And I can bring Alex the Bird for the summer, too.

The truck needs its new 82-gallon fuel transfer tank, pump, and static reel installed. I also need to pack it with the things I’ll need for the trip: Alex’s big cage, a 6-foot ladder, and various helicopter-related equipment, like the new hail-protection blade covers I bought.

The trailer needs to be filled with all the computer equipment I’ll need to write those two books and do any other writing I may want or need to do. I also need to pack it with the usual collection of items a person needs on a three-month stay away from home.

Then, right after Memorial Day, I start the long drive. Just me and Alex the Bird, driving about 1400 miles on the most direct route I can. I figure it’ll take about 3 days. I need to be in Quincy by that Friday to hitch a ride with Erik’s friend back to Seattle so I can pick up my helicopter and get it to its base for June and July.

That’s Job #1

Come June 1st, I’m on contract in my mobile summer home, waiting for the rain.

But that’s only my first summer job. I have another one starting in August. More about that in another post.

After spending yesterday being lazy and eating too much, I was determined to make the most of today. So I made rough plans to go for a hike at Red Mountain and then visit my favorite Thai restaurant in Flagstaff. I’d bring Jack the Dog and my good camera. I’d take my time and have a good time.

And that’s exactly what I did.

On the Road

I had a nice leisurely breakfast and spent a few hours reading something I’d written a long time ago. Reading my old fiction is always a bit depressing. I put so much of my time into it and now I realize how much rewriting it would do before I could ever consider publishing it. Both the content and writing style are immature. I wonder how many other writers look back at their old, unpublished work and feel the same way.

By 9:30 AM, I was ready to hit the road. I packed an orange and a bottle of water in a canvas bag, grabbed my camera bag and jacket, and loaded it all into the truck. I put Jack in back — I refuse to get dog hair all over the cloth seats in the cab — and closed the cap on him. Then I headed out.

I stopped to visit Matt and Elizabeth on my way out. They live full-time on the other side of the mesa. In fact, they’re the only people who live full-time on the mesa at all. They were in the middle of cleaning out one of their sheds, getting it ready to turn into a greenhouse. We chatted for a while as Jack wandered around their yard. I remembered that I didn’t have a leash for Jack and asked Matt for a piece of rope. I left with a 6-foot piece of nylon rope that I fashioned into a leash. Although there wouldn’t be many people where I planned to hike, there’s always one in the crowd ready to complain if your dog is off-leash.

We descended down the mesa and through the flatlands below. At route 64, I turned right, heading toward the Grand Canyon. There weren’t many people on the road, which kind of surprised me. It was, after all, Saturday morning. What better time to visit the big ditch?

Planes of Fame

At Valle, a small town at the intersection of routes 64 and 180, I made a brief stop at the Planes of Fame Air Museum. This remarkable aviation museum, which is based at Valle Airport, has an amazing collection of planes and aviation memorabilia. It’s impossible to miss, since General MacArthur’s Constellation is parked right out front. Oddly enough, it gets few visitors, despite the fact that thousands of people drive past each day on their way to or from the Canyon. I highly recommend it; it’s worth the stop for anyone interested in aviation — especially military aviation. And it the name of the place sounds familiar, it’s because it’s associated with the larger Planes of Fame museum in Chino, CA.

I was stopping in to hand over some brochures for Flying M Air. The museum’s lobby walls are lined with brochure racks for things to see and do all over Arizona and I like to keep my brochures there. At the same time, I usually pick up a batch of the museum’s brochures and put them in the racks at Wickenburg Airport. (It’s the least I can do!)

I had a nice chat with the two women there. They still had some of the brochures I’d mailed to them about six months ago. I asked them to put the brochures away until September 1. I told them I was closing down for the summer and there was no sense getting phone calls when I wasn’t ready to fly. They were completely understanding.

Walking Inside a Mountain

On leaving Planes of Fame, I headed southeast on route 180 toward Flagstaff. I’d planned to hike at Red Mountain, the remains of an ancient volcano that had collapsed in on itself thousands of years ago.

We’d discovered Red Mountain years ago, in 2003. While at Flagstaff’s excellent visitor center, we’d stumbled upon a free publication called 99 Things to Do in Northern Arizona. Number 26 was “Walk Inside a Mountain”:

Located 32 miles north of Flagstaff on U.S. 180, Red Mountain is one of the most intriguing sites in the Flagstaff area. The mountain is a volcanic cinder cone that rises 1,000 feet above the surrounding landscape. It is part of the San Francisco Volcanic Fields, a belt of volcanoes stretching through Flagstaff and on to the canyon of the Little Colorado River.

The northeast flank of the volcano is deeply sculpted, with a natural amphitheater in the center….The 2.5 mile round-trip hike is well worth it because you actually get to see what a cinder hill looks like on the inside.

This was enough to pique our interest, so we tracked down the trailhead and paid it a visit with Jack the Dog and a picnic lunch. I remembered it as an interesting yet easy hike — a good destination for another hike with Jack.

Today, I skipped the lunch and just brought along my Nikon D80 with two extra lenses in the fanny-pack style camera bag I bought for such hikes. I let Jack out of the truck and hung his makeshift leash around my neck. Another couple started the hike right after we did, but I let them pass us when I stopped to take a rest.

The trail to Red Mountain is an easy gravel pathway, partially eroded but plenty wide in most spots. It winds through typically high desert vegetation: grasses and pinon and juniper pines. Plenty of sun and shade. The path climbs gradually almost its entire length, offering occasionally glimpses of the cinder cone at its end, as well as the San Francisco Peaks and Mount Kendricks, beyond it, to the east.

The trail follows a dry stream bed into a canyon between two steep slopes of dark gray volcanic gravel. These slopes have been here a long time, as evidenced by the huge ponderosa pines growing out of them. They also give the trail a sort of claustrophobic feeling, especially with all the shade from tall trees all around.

The trail ends abruptly at a six-foot tall stone dam completely filled in with silt. A slightly tilted ladder with handrails leans against it. As Jack and I arrived, a group of 5 people were just making their way down. We waited.

One of the people asked, “How are you going to get the dog up there?”

“Oh, he’ll climb it,” I assured them.

“He’ll climb the ladder?”

“Sure.”

By this time, they’d all come down. They stood a few feet away, giving us an audience. I climbed up the ladder and Jack followed me, placing each foot carefully on a step as he climbed.

“It’s a circus dog!” someone called out.

Beyond the dam, we were inside the mountain. It was very different from what lay outside. Inside were mostly red rock formations very similar in appearance to the “hoodoos” at Bryce Canyon National Park hundreds of miles to the north. There were trees and hills and black rock. The force of erosion was quite evident. Jack and I explored the west side of the mountain’s insides and found ourselves winding through a series of narrow slot canyons. Of course, I had my crazy fisheye lens with me. I took a few shots with it, including this shot with Jack the dog. You can’t imagine how much red dust I got on the seat of my pants sliding off this observation point.

Here’s another weird shot with that fisheye lens. For this photo, I lay my flannel shirt, which I’d shed during the hike, on the dusty ground under a small pinon pine tree, facing up. Using the self timer, I snapped the shutter, then moved away quickly so as not to be in the photo. I love taking weird photos like this.

We explored inside the mountain for about 30 minutes. We were the only ones there. I’d forgotten to bring water with me and I knew Jack was thirsty. On the north-facing rocks, there was snow and I led the way to the base of a particularly snowy area, hoping that the snow was melting before it evaporated into the dry desert air. We found a small puddle and Jack had a good drink.

I took a few more shots, experimenting with various lenses and exposures and focal lengths. What I saw through the lens didn’t do the actual scene justice. It was beautiful and surreal.

We headed back to the dam and ladder. A pair of hikers stopped to pet Jack. When we got to the ladder, he carefully made his way back down. I wished I’d gone first and had taken a movie of it with my phone. I don’t think too many people would believe it, especially if they saw the ladder.

One of my favorite photos of Jack the Dog was taken the first time we visited Red Mountain. In it, he’s running towards us on the trail, with the San Francisco Peaks in the background. I decided to reconstruct the photo. When I got to the right spot, I called Jack back to me and snapped this photo. It wasn’t as pretty a day, but I think it’s a better photo.

We reached the truck, where Jack and I had a drink of water. Then I closed him up in the back of the truck and headed out of the parking lot. It was about 1 PM.

I should mention here that I have a photo of Red Mountain taken from the air. You can see it in the post titled “The Winslow Loop.”

The Drive to Flag

I continued southeast on route 180 toward Flagstaff. There was one spot I wanted to visit along the way — the very picturesque Chapel of the Dove. But when I neared it, I saw that its tiny parking lot was full of cars. I figured they must be doing some kind of memorial service and I didn’t want to intrude. So I kept driving. I’ll stop there another day when there’s no one around.

I did stop alongside the road to take this photo for Miraz. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the same spot a photo on one of her recent blog posts was taken. I’m off the ‘net right now, so I can’t check.

Along the way, Route 180 climbs to just over 8,000 feet above sea level. My redneck truck sure didn’t like the elevation. It drove terribly. Even cruise control couldn’t keep up the speed. I’m very glad my trip this summer won’t keep me in the mountains.

Thai Food and Errands

Boy, I sure wish I could remember the name of the Thai restaurant we’ve been eating at in Flagstaff when we’re there. It’s right downtown, across the street from Babbitt’s, with a connecting door to the Hotel Monte Vista. It has the best Pad Thai Noodles I’ve ever had and a really great “combination” soup with a clear broth, rice noodles, chicken, tofu, pork (?), and veggies.

That’s where I went for lunch. I parked the truck in front of the tattoo parlor on Route 66, tied one end of the makeshift leash to Jack’s collar, and walked the two blocks. I tied Jack to a signpost outside the door and went in. After washing my hands three times to get the dirt off them, I settled down for a nice lunch. I only finished half of what they put in front of me, so I took the rest to go. (I’m finishing up the soup now. Yum.)

Afterward, we walked over to the Flagstaff Visitor’s Center to drop off a bunch of Flying M Air brochures. The Visitor’s Center shares space with Amtrack in the original train station right downtown.

Back in the truck, we headed over to the HomeCo Ace Hardware on Butler Road. This is a great hardware store that I’ll take over Home Depot any day. (Having spent much of a summer in the Flagstaff Home Depot, I can assure you that I’m sick of it.) It’s a good-sized place with everything you need and enough floor staff to help you find whatever it is you’re looking for. The True Value Hardware Store in Williams is also very good, although not nearly as big.

Although I was tempted to hit the Barnes and Nobel Bookstore on Route 66, I talked myself out of it. Instead, we hopped right on I-40 and headed west.

I did make one more stop before returning to the mesa: Dairy Queen in downtown Williams. They make the best hot fudge sundae. Even a small one!

Why It Was a Great Day

Now this day may seem pretty ordinary to you. A bunch of errands, a hike, and lunch out. Big deal.

But I enjoyed the whole day immensely — perhaps more than I should have. And knowing that I enjoyed it so much made me enjoy it even more.

Perhaps one of the things that made it so enjoyable was my choice of listening material for the long drives. (I did, after all, drive well over 100 miles today.) I had my iPod plugged in via cassette tape adapter thingie and was listening to podcasts. I was alone, so I didn’t have to worry about missing what was being said because of conversation. The podcasts I listened to — Point of Inquiry — gave me something to really think about. I like getting thoughtful input.

Another thing that contributed to the good day might have been my complete lack of schedule. I had a list of things I wanted to do and plenty of time to do them all. I didn’t need to be someplace — or back at the mesa — at a specific time. So there was no stress, no rush. Very relaxing.

Now I’m back on the mesa, relaxing in our camping shed. Outside, the wind is absolutely howling — they forecast winds 25 to 35 mph with gust up to 50 mph. My windsock is stuck straight out as if starched. Occasionally, the building shakes. But its cosy and safe in here with music on the radio and sunlight coming in through the windows.

And I have leftover pad Thai noodles for dinner.

4:45 PM Update: Turns out, the $6 adapter was not the right adapter. I had to order a part from AKG. I could have skipped the drive. But then I wouldn’t have the sunburn to complain about.

Ever have one of those moments you wish you could remember for the rest of your life? I’m not talking about simple recall here. I’m talking about remembering with the detail you need to relive the experience in your mind.

I had one of those moments [again] on my way home from Phoenix last night. I’d driven down in the afternoon to pick up my husband, Mike, who had driven his Honda down that morning to pass it on it its new owners. I took my Honda S2000, which is a convertible, and because the weather was so perfect yesterday, I had the top down. After dealing with traffic on the afternoon drive through Phoenix, I finally connected with Mike on Chandler Avenue (or it is Boulevard?) in Ahwatukee. From there, we headed back into Phoenix, to one of our favorite restaurants: Tarbell’s on 32nd Street (I think) and Camelback. After a wonderful meal full of interesting flavors and textures, presented with perfect service, we climbed back into the Honda and headed northwest for home.

Tarbell’s is probably about 60 miles from Wickenburg. We took Camelback west to the 51, followed that north to the 101, and took that west to the 17. Then north to Carefree Highway and west to Grand Avenue and northwest to Wickenburg. I had my iPod plugged in, playing just below distortion volume on my Honda’s very disappointing stereo system. (The 2003 model year did not include speakers behind the headrests; what were they thinking?) I’m used to the less than satisfactory sound quality competing with road and wind noise, so I enjoyed the classic rock — mostly 70s and 80s — that I made Mike listen to. (The rule is, the driver chooses the music.)

The drive north on the 51 at night is always interesting. On most nights, you can see the landing lights of the jets on their way in from the north to Sky Harbor Airport just southeast of Phoenix’s downtown area. Last time I took this route home, I’d spotted at least eight aircraft, lined up into the distance. But last night, there were never more than four.

We stopped for gas at Carefree Highway — last gas for about 30 miles. My Honda gets between 25 and 30 miles per gallon, depending on how I drive. Because I don’t drive it very often, I tend to drive in a way that gets me lower mileage. (Hey, girls just wanna have fun, right?) But on a long highway drive, if I keep my speed down near the speed limit, I can go far more than 300 miles on a 13-gallon tank of gas.

Then came the part of the trip I’d like to store in my brain for periodic detailed recall: the drive west on Carefree Highway. It was about 7:30 PM, and even though it was a Friday night and Carefree Highway is a favored route for the Phoenix to Las Vegas crowd, there weren’t many people on the road. Once I passed the new Game and Fish Building (with its deplorable new traffic light) and rounded the bend at Lake Pleasant Road, I brought the car up to speed, set the cruise control, and drove while classic rock blared out into the night.

It was dark out there — it usually is at night — and a slim crescent moon hung in the sky, bright side down. I say “bright side” because the sky was so dark, you could clearly see the entire moon, even though most of it wasn’t illuminated. The crescent hung there in front of us, surrounded by stars, sinking ever lower into the sky. Above us, the sky was black as — well, black as night, to use an appropriate cliche. There were more stars than a city dweller could imagine; so many, in fact, that it was difficult to pick out the standard patterns of the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, and the Pleiades among them. And being that the sky was perfectly cloudless, those stars stretched in every direction.

What I should have done was pull over to a safe spot off the road, killed the headlights, and spent some time just looking up. Because frankly, when you’re driving 65+ miles per hour on a two-lane road in the middle of the desert at night, you really can’t steal too many glances at what’s directly above you. What’s in front of you is far more important to monitor.

Yes, it was cold — probably in the low 50s. Although the top was down, Mike had his window up and the heat was on. And yes, I hate the cold. But the cold was part of the entire experience: dark night, fun car, open roof, loud music, crescent moon, countless stars, cold wind.

The moon dipped behind a hill as we got onto Grand Avenue and drove the last ten miles to Wickenburg. In town, the carnival at the Community Center offered a bright contrast to the otherwise dark night. Town was surprisingly empty at 8 PM on Wickenburg’s big Friday night of the year.

I drove home, coming down from the kind of high you can only get from having real fun.

We drove up to our camping shed at Howard Mesa this morning. Just me, Mike, Alex the Bird, and Jack the dog. We left the horses home. It’s getting mighty cold up north these days and I really didn’t think it was fair to the horses to make them stand outside with no shelter when nighttime temperatures were dipping into the teens. The problem of shelter becomes even more serious when there’s a chance of snow for Tuesday.

The ride was long and uneventful. We made two stops: the Ace hardware store in Chino Valley for a gasket and some pipe insulation and the Safeway in Chino Valley for lattes and discounted fuel for Mike’s truck.

Mt. Humphreys and the San Francisco Peaks had a nice thick cap of snow. The air was crystal clear and we could see the mountains when we were still in Prescott — at least 50 miles away. It looked amazing.

When we got on I-40 west of Williams, there was snow on the ground. Well, on the north side of hills, trees, and other shade-producing structures. Any area exposed to the sun was free of snow. But there was a considerable amount in the shady area. We started speculating on whether there would be snow on the ground at our place.

I took some video along the way, with the usual idea of making a little DVD to send the family. You know: how we spent Christmas off the grid. I have quite a library of video tapes I’ll probably never show to anyone.

When we got to Howard Mesa, there was some snow on the ground and on the road. It was about noon and the sun was bright and warm. The outside temperature was about 40°F. The snow was melting into the dirt below it, making the road slick wherever the gravel-like cinders had been crushed or worn away. The truck had one brief skidding incident before Mike slowed down.

Up on top of the mesa at our place, it was as deserted as usual. I got out to unlock the gate, coating the bottoms of my shoes with gooey mud and gravel. Mike parked up by the shed so we wouldn’t have to walk far with all the stuff we’d brought up. (For some reason, we brought a ton of stuff with us — I think the Christmas presents took up most of the space.) Then we went inside the shed to survey the situation.

For years, we suffered with mice, both in our camper and later, in the camping shed. It took us the best part of two years to find all the holes they were using to get into the walls and close them up. I’m still amazed when we come in after being away for a month or two and there aren’t any mouse droppings. There were none today, either.

But there was ice. We have a 5-gallon water jug we keep on a plastic holder with a spout. The water bottle was frozen almost solid. We had to carry it outside into the sun to get the defrost cycle going. The dish soap was frozen and so was the 409 cleaner.

Mike had some small problems getting the heater going, but it was soon filling the place with warm air. I started up the gas fridge and moved everything from the cooler into it. It was already cold in there, which would save some energy anyway. Then I started up the oven and threw in a frozen pie. When it’s cold up here, we bake a lot.

The big problem seemed to be the water pump. At first, it wouldn’t work at all. Mike pulled away the wall so he could check it out and the warm air from the room slipped into the small space. He was in the process of testing it with some electric testing equipment when it suddenly went on. Unfortunately, all the pipes in the area seemed to be frozen so the water wouldn’t flow. We’d brought our gas bottle heater and Mike set it up to throw heat on the whole area. After a while, the pump started working better and soon we had water in the sinks and shower. The plastic hosing to the toilet is frozen, though, so it’ll be a while before the water gets in there. We’ve got a bucket full of water for manual flushing.

As I type this, Mike is wrapping the 4-foot hose from our water tank to the shed with heat trace tape. We’re hoping it keeps the hose and valves from freezing overnight so we’ll have running water all night long and — more important — in the morning when we get up.

I went out for a while and took some photos. It’s so perfectly clear and beautiful outside, with just enough snow to remind you that it’s winter. There’s just a slight breeze blowing; if it picks up it’ll get very cold outside.

Tonight we’re meeting some friends for a big dinner at El Tovar in Grand Canyon National Park. Last year, we had a party of six in the private dining room on Christmas Eve. This year, it’s a party of ten in the same room a day earlier.

The moon is full tonight and I’m bringing my tripod along. I’m hoping the wind stays calm so we can stop at Mather Point for some moonlight photos of the canyon.

More later…

Yesterday wasn’t an especially good day as far as productivity is concerned.

Shooting Trouble

I started the day with a computer problem. Simply said, I was locked out of all my blogs. It was impossible for me to download entries into ecto (which is how I first discovered the problem) and impossible to make any changes to my blogs.

The error message I got said my IP address was blacklisted.

I spent the next 3 hours troubleshooting the problem, with calls and e-mails to my Internet connection ISP, my Web host ISP, the maker of ecto, and one of the blacklist maintenance company. The cause of the problem turned out to be a change in the server used by one of my plugins, Bad Behavior. When I upgraded all my blogs to Bad Behavior 2.0.11, the problem went away. I wrote about it in Maria’s Guides, since I suspect there were many Bad Behavior users in the same situation yesterday morning.

But that was 3 hours wasted.

Costco Visit

Next, I was scheduled to attend a 2-hour seminar given by SCORE’s Phoenix Chapter. The seminar was in the Phoenix area, so I had to make a 40-mile drive to get there. I jumped in the shower, washed up, got dressed, and even put some makeup on. Then Ihopped in my little Honda and took off down Grand Avenue, stopping only long enough to pick up some “breakfast” at Filibertos — a pollo asado buritto. It was 10:30 AM.

I needed to hit Costco, near Bell Road and the Loop 101. I’m putting together care packages for U.S. troops deployed in the Gulf area and have 8 more packages to put together to meet my self-imposed quota of 10. Since the kinds of things these men and women were looking for were snacks and toiletries best bought in bulk, I figured Costco would be a good place to shop and perhaps save a few bucks.

When I got to Costco, I realized that I not only didn’t have my Costco membership card, but I also didn’t have my driver’s license for ID. I didn’t want to drive back the next day, so I tried to get some kind of temporary pass so I could shop. I was able to do so, but with the line I had to wait on at the membership desk and the amount of time they took to look up my husband’s business account, I was soon out of time for shopping. I needed to get to the seminar.

Girlfriends Helping Girlfriends

The SCORE event was held at the very nice Glendale Aquatic and Recreation Center. I guess having a facility like this is one of the perks of living in a place where more than 50% of the population is under the age of 65. It was a big meeting facility attached to an indoor pool. I assume that there were other facilities in there for recreation, but I didn’t wander around. I checked in and went right inside.

For some reason, I thought my seat at one of the two dozen round tables was in the back corner of the room. It turned out to be in the front corner. I soon got into a conversation with another female business owner, Marcy, who sells electrical components for commercial construction.

I should mention here that the topic of this free seminar was “Women Helping Women.” Four “successful” business women would each give a 10-minute presentation. Afterward, they’d sit together on a panel where one of the women acted as a moderator to ask them questions. We were supposed to be able to ask them questions, too, but that never happened.

I won’t go into detail on the speakers. I will say that the first one, a “self-made woman,” was primarily a motivational speaker with a big booming voice and a “you can do it” attitude and message. I agree with that entirely, although she was a little too self-promotional for my taste. The next few simply couldn’t compete, with their relatively tiny voices, flat stories, and failed attempts at humor. They should have ended with the big woman. It would have done more to keep us awake than the Hershey’s kisses they put in front of us. (My sugar buzz hit just after the last speaker.)

They talked about networking and helping your “girlfriends.” This is an attitude I just can’t tolerate — pointedly making a distinction between men and women in the workplace and going out of your way to help one gender over the other. I’m of the school that says if you can’t make it in a field, get out and make room for someone else. (This could be a result of working in the highly competitive New York job market, where I had my first career.) I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman. If you can do it, do it. If you can’t, don’t expect help just because you pee sitting down. In fact, I think the attitude of women insinuating that they’re different and need help is part of what keeps them from achieving what they could achieve. They’re holding themselves back with gender-related excuses.

Which may make you wonder what I was doing there. Frankly, as the third speaker started on her “help your girlfriends” spiel, I was wondering that myself.

Time crawled. By the time they were finished, I was ready to go. While the other women “networked,” I bolted.

Back to Costco

This was probably the only productive part of my day. I spent nearly an hour in Costco, gathering up snacks, toiletries, and a few personal clothing items to send the troops. I also bought a case of my current favorite wine, a king-sized bottle of Ketel One, some Pine Sol, flannel sheets for our camper, and two pairs of men’s lounge pants, for me to wear to work in my home office.

I won’t say how much I spent. I will say that I spent too much.

These things filled my car’s trunk. I had to put the case of wine on the front passenger seat.

The Wasted Meeting

By then, it was 4 PM and I still had one stop to make: at the helicopter flight school where I’m planning to get my instrument rating. I called to make sure they were still open and expecting me. They were and they were. I told my contact I’d be there within 30 minutes and hit the road.

I made it in 20 minutes. I went into an office filled almost to overflowing with men in tan flight suits. I found the one I was looking for and he brought me into the new Chief Pilot’s office.

I saw “new” because the organization had undergone a major shakeup less than two weeks before. The man I’d negotiated pricing, etc. with was gone. His replacement was a small, young man who was evidently enjoying his position of power. He produced the rate document that had been drawn up by his predecessor for me. He said that with the other guy gone, I’d have to meet with his boss to verify the rates. His boss worked at Mesa, where I get my helicopter maintained. He’d sent me to Glendale for training, since it was closer to where I lived. But he was in Las Vegas right now, so we couldn’t call him. We’d have the meeting on the next day.

He didn’t seem to give a shit that I’d driven down from Wickenburg — a distance of about 50 miles — for the meeting and that I might have to drive down again for another meeting the next day. I held my temper. It wasn’t easy. I don’t like having my time wasted, especially at the end of a long, frustrating day with a long drive ahead of me.

They wouldn’t even put me in the system or get me on the schedule. The meeting was a complete waste of time.

And I know what’s coming. They’re going to try to go back on the rates we tentatively agreed upon. I suspect that they’ll raise them by about $20 to $50 per hour. Since I need 30 hours, this will make my instrument rating even more costly than the $8K I’d budgeted for it.

I’m already thinking about looking for another flight school. The only problem is, all the flight schools in Arizona — including this one — use the “program” approach: pay one price and get all your ratings and the pseudo promise of a job. I was lucky to find this place so “close” to home. That means I might need to go out of state — which would be more costly — at my busiest flying time of the year if I want the rating by spring. So I’m in a pickle.

But what bothered me most is attending a meeting for no reason other than to tell me that I’d have to attend another meeting. Hell, isn’t that what a telephone is for? Why the hell do people think I wear that damn thing on my belt?

The Drive Home

It took an hour to get home from there. I went west on Glendale Road, then drove around Luke Air Force Base. I got to see some F-16s landing right over my head. (I had the top down.) Then I took route 303 back up to Grand Avenue.

Along the way, I took a phone call from a guy in Montana. A friend of his had flown with me on a tour and told him I might be a good contact for information about R-44 helicopters. I answered his questions. He wants the helicopter to commute back and forth to work, which is about 60 air miles each way. I told him to think of me if he needed a ferry pilot to bring the aircraft from the factory to Montana. That’s a flight I’d love to make.

The drive was nearly traffic-free once I got on Route 303. Between podcasts on my iPod and the telephone conversation, I was kept entertained. So it really wasn’t so bad. I suppose I should get used to it if I’m going to get flight training at Glendale.

It was nearly dark when I got home at about 6 PM. Mike was already home, feeding the horses. As I made dinner, I kept thinking about how much precious time had been wasted that day.

Those of you who read this blog regularly might think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. I haven’t. I’m still here.

Last week, I was very busy working on The-Book-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, which, as usual, has an extremely tight deadline. This year, it’s even tighter given that I need to get back to work on my Leopard book to make that extremely tight deadline. So I haven’t been putting much time into the blog — except, of course, for my reporting of that rare event: a flood that turned my desert home into waterfront property for a few hours. (Read “When They Say Flash Flood Warning…” to get the details.)

This weekend, we drove up to our place at Howard Mesa, just to escape the monotony of home. There, we were treated two two thunderstorms in the same day and nice, cool weather. Since we only planned to be there overnight, we left Alex the Bird at home to fend for himself in a cage full of food, water, and toys.

Sitting on our hilltop, we were treated to a beautiful sunset, just before the second storm rolled in.

I played a bit with my new camera and managed to get some outstanding lightning shots by placing my camera on a snack table with its lens propped up, setting it to shutter speed priority, and setting the shutter speed to 30 seconds. I pushed the shutter release by hand and waited. 15 of the 20 shots I took included lightning. I think this one is the best.

I got to finish reading a book I’d started on Friday evening, The Lighthouse, by PD James. More about that in another post (I hope).

On our way home, we had a bit of an off-pavement adventure, driving out to Sycamore Point, which overlooks Sycamore Canyon, west of Sedona. The road is usually passable by any vehicle, but it was pretty muddy yesterday and a storm passed though while we where there. There was a great view of the canyon, which is a wilderness area and off-limits to motor vehicles. The light wasn’t favorable for photography, but I took a few shots anyway.

I realized that the spot was very close to a cliff dwelling I’d spotted from the air the last time I flew a direct course from Howard Mesa to Scottsdale and have become determined to track it down and see it again from the air.

We met our friend Tristan for dinner. He’s between jobs, between homes, and between girlfriends right now but not having a bad time. His helicopter will be back from its annual inspection on Friday and we’re hoping he lets Mike fly with him for a few hours at a good rate so Mike can get his R44 sign-off soon. He’s looking for a job as a pilot, but isn’t really in tune with the job market so I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to get the kind of job he wants.

At home, Alex was waiting for us and happy to see us.

There’s more, of course, but I need to get done with The-Book-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, so I have to get back to work. A more pressing problem is that I threw out my back this morning — for the first time ever! — while shoveling horse poop and I’m in incredible pain just sitting in my chair. Let’s hope I can get work done.

Since I got my Nikon D80 digital SLR a few months ago, I’ve rekindled my interest in photography. (For most people, it would be the other way around: rekindle interest, then dump huge sums of money on equipment they don’t need. But I have a tendency to go about things bass ackwards.) I’ve been wanting to do a few day trips to interesting places to see what images I can come home with.

And of course, with daily temperatures in the 100s (that’s the 40s for the rest of the world), any outdoor activity would have to be done in higher elevations, where it’s cooler.

So when I suggested a trip up to the Bradshaw Mountains by Jeep and Mike agreed it was a good idea, we didn’t dawdle. Within an hour, I had topo maps for all of Arizona back on my Garmin GPSmap 60c (Alaska had been on it from our recent vacation), ice and food in a cooler, and my camera and a change of clothes in a canvas bag. We were good to go.

The West Slopes of the Bradshaw Mountains

The Bradshaws are a small mountain range south of the town of Prescott, AZ. They start at Granite Mountain, just west of the town and stretch southeast toward Phoenix, ending just north of Lake Pleasant. Most mountains are in the 5000 to 7000 foot range, with plenty of deep valleys and canyons between them.

The Hassayampa River, which flows through Wickenburg — well, mostly underground, at least — has it source up in those mountains and it cuts a deep canyon not far from where Route 89 winds north from Yarnell to Prescott. I fly over the canyon routinely on my way to Prescott or Sedona from Wickenburg, so I know it well.

On the west side of the Bradshaws, the manzanita-covered slopes fall down toward the dry riverbed and nearby Weaver Mountains. That valley is high desert, with sparse vegetation and few shade trees. Up on top of the Bradshaws is the area most folks refer to as “the pines.” It’s where you can find tall pine trees and, in the winter, snow. The whole area is dotted with abandoned mine sites, connected by a network of unmaintained dirt roads and trails.

It was these mining roads that we wanted to explore.

The Drive

Mike, Jack the Dog, and I set off from Wickenburg at about 10 AM. It was hot — in the 90s — and partly cloudy. The usual monsoon season late morning weather. We headed northwest on Route 93, then north on route 89. We passed through Congress, AZ and climbed the west side of the Weaver Mountains to Yarnell. We made a brief stop for baked goods at Yarnell’s excellent Cornerstone Bakery, then continued on to Peeples Valley, where we stopped for gas. (I like having at least a half tank when we go off-road.)

Just past Peeple’s Valley, we stopped for a while to photograph a herd of semi-wild horses. The horses are owned by the Maughan Ranch folks, who turn them out into a 40- to 80 acre pasture. While out there, the mares and the stallions get together. Eleven months later, there are foals. The foals have never been handled by people and are about as close to wild horses as you can get in a fenced-in area. There were about 40 horses out there when we stopped and at least a dozen of them were babies, not much more than 6 months old.

I wanted to photograph horses in a natural setting, with desert mountains in the distance. But being the time of day it was — nap-time for a horse — they just stood around half asleep on their feet. The babies were curious about us and one, whose mother actually came up to the fence to say hello and get an ear rub, came close enough to touch. But, in general, it wasn’t the scene I was thinking about for photos. The 20 or so shots I took with various lenses were very disappointing. These shots, however, can give you a pretty good idea of the scene.

Off Pavement Windmills

We climbed back in the Jeep and continue on 89, heading toward Prescott. We passed through the three houses that comprise Kirkland Junction and through the town of Wilhoit. About a quarter mile past the Nowhere Inn bar, we made a right turn onto our first dirt road.

At this point, we were not following a regular map. Although the Prescott National Forest map has all the fire road numbers and is more up-to-date than any other map I know, we were using the topo map I’d fed into my GPS that morning. I had the GPS on and plugged into the Jeep’s cigarette lighter so I didn’t have to worry about running down batteries. I’d cleared a track log and was letting the GPS track exactly where we went. If you have a GPS and can load .GPX files into it, you can download the track log here. You can then retrace our steps with your GPS. But if you must have road numbers, I can pull them off the All Topo Maps software I use to look at my route on a map. According to the software, we turned off on road 72. I admit that I don’t recall seeing a sign.

We’d been on this road from Wilhoit before, so it was familiar. It was a sandy dirt road that wound down a hill to the Hassayampa River, a gentle drop of about 1000 feet in elevation. Along the way were two windmills and the turnoff to a relatively new shooting facility.

I like to photograph windmills. There’s something about windmills that I really like. It could be their devotion to duty, far away from civilization. It could be the way they squeal and creak in the wind, especially when a breeze blows just enough to get them moving. It could be that they’re remnants of the past that continue to serve in this modern day and age. Or it could simply be their utilitarian design: no frills functionality.

So we stopped at each windmill for a few shots.

The first windmill, the Orofino Windmill, was a non-functioning relic. Its blades were badly damaged, the bar from the windmill to the pump was half gone, and its vane was damaged by shotgun fire. It stood nearly motionless, like an aging sentinel for the empty cattle pens and dry water tanks around it. Beyond it, the monsoon season clouds blossomed and drifted in the otherwise blue sky. Just before we left, a breeze blew the vane, rewarding me with a satisfying squeal as the windmill’s head shifted 10° to the left.

The next windmill, which was on the right, was in better condition and still functioning. It has no name on my map, but lies at the intersection of our dirt road with a much less-used road. There was a young black cow standing at the concrete water tank when we pulled up, but as soon as we opened the Jeep’s doors, it fled and we didn’t see it again. The windmill spun lazily in the breeze, not making a sound. It was obviously well greased and well cared-for.

Across the River and Up the Wash

A short time later, we dropped into the Hassayampa River basin. The riverbed was completely dry. The area where the road meets the riverbed is filled with huge piles of gravel. According to my map, they’re dredge tailings, probably from an old mine a short distance upstream. There are quite a few of them — obviously enough to put them on a map.

The road turns downstream here — upstream is a narrow, twisting canyon where no road can go. We followed it for a short distance, although our track diverges from the supposed road. Another road that crossed the riverbed branched off to the left and we followed it. Soon, we were in the narrow streambed of Buzzard Roost Wash, climbing up the side of a mountain. My map identifies it as road 9712E, although again, I don’t recall seeing a sign where we turned onto it.

We’d been on this road in the past, too. It’s an extremely narrow road — keep your Hummer at home. On much of the road, the vegetation crowded in on us. Branches scratched at the side of the Jeep, giving it plenty more “Arizona pinstriping.” (I had decided, not long after I’d bought the Jeep brand new in 1999, that I wasn’t going to fret about keeping the paint job nice. Good decision.) Because the road was mostly in a stream bed, the erosion was considerable. In a few places, the road was very narrow — better suited for ATVs than Jeeps. But we managed, even in the very tight spots, to keep the Jeep on its wheels.

We made a short stop at what my GPS told me was Buzzard Spring. We got out to look for the spring and, at one point, my GPS told me we were within 16 feet of it. But there wasn’t any water to be found and no large cottonwood trees, which usually betray the presence of year-round water in the Arizona desert. So we got back in the Jeep and kept driving.

We were probably on that road for at least 45 minutes, always climbing. There wasn’t anything interesting along the way, although there were one or two spots where we could get a view back toward the river. After a particularly narrow spot, we emerged at the top of the ridge where the road we were on intersected with another dirt road, labeled 667 on my map. We turned left, then stopped to consult the GPS map. The photo you see here is looking back toward the road we’d come up on (on the right) and the road we were now on (to the left).

The vegetation all around us was mostly holly and manzanita. The manzanita have dark red bark and small leaves. It’s a hard wood and is commonly used for perches in parrot bird cages because even hookbills have a hard time chewing through it. Although the bark is normally very smooth, I did find a bunch of trees with peeled, curling bark. There were also some pines, although I didn’t pay attention to what kind. Probably juniper — they were short like the rest of the bushes.

Following Ridges

We continued northeast along the ridge, making a few exploratory turnoffs but always returning to the “main” road. Up head, we faced another intersection with a choice of three roads. One (road 9708C) was marked as a “trail,” led off to the right, and descended back down into Slate Creek. This was not the direction we wanted to go. Another (road 9405Y) was also marked as a “trail,” descended back down to Buzzard Roost Wash (farther upstream from where we’d been) and then climbed up to another ridge and into the mountains. The continuation of road 667 was marked as an “unpaved road” and continued along the ridge were were on up into the mountains. While either of the ridge roads went where we wanted to go — they actually intersected 5 or more miles up the road — we thought “unpaved road” sounded better than “trail” and decided to stay on 667.

This turned out to be the wrong decision. Although the road started out easy enough, it soon reached a place where it climbed steeply up a hill. Years of erosion and Jeep/ATV traffic had loosened the rock on the road. So we were faced with a 45° upslope filled with gaping holes, huge rocks, and loose gravel. This was the kind of road that they would put on Jeep commercials if people actually drove their Jeeps places like this. But I don’t think the marketing companies want to scare away potential Jeep owners with roads like this.

I didn’t want to try it so I climbed out and Mike took my place at the wheel. He threw it into 4WD Low and attempted the climb. Four times. He churned up gravel with all tires and, on several instances, had at least one wheel a foot or more off the surface of the road. It was not pretty. Not wanting to damage the Jeep beyond the usual scratches and dents, we gave up. He backed up down the hill, found a place to make a U-turn, and we headed back to the intersection.

My only regret is that I didn’t take any photos.

Trails Can Be Roads

We turned onto the road marked as a “trail” on the GPS map. Mike was a little nervous about this. I reminded him that the GPS data was based on topo maps that were 20 or more years old. In that time, trails could become roads and roads could become trails. This turned out to be the right way of looking at it. The road was in pretty good shape — better than the one we’d climbed from the river — and after dipping down into a wash, climbed onto a ridge with lots of scenic views and more than a few turns to old mine sites.

Although the road we were on curved to the left where it would dead-end just past the remains of the Jersey Lily mine, we turned right onto road 97B, which continued climbing up into the mountains. We made a brief stop at the site of the Big Chief Mine. The access road had long been overgrown with bushes and weeds, but we made our way forward on foot for a few hundred feet. Off to the right, on the side of a hill, we spotted the remains of an old wooden shack. The path to reach it was overgrown and we didn’t dare attempt it in shorts.

In general, the mine remains were pretty disappointing. We saw plenty of shafts — most of which were probably at least partially filled in to discourage exploration — but not much in the way of ruins other than the shack. But it wasn’t as if we were actively looking for the mines, either. We’d been on the mountain roads for several hours and weather was moving in. Even as we got back into the Jeep at the Big Chief Mine, thunder was rumbling close overhead — we were at almost 6,000 feet elevation — and raindrops were starting to fall. Mike wanted to get back on roads we could trust before the one we were on got too wet. Dirt roads in the desert sometimes get “snotty” when they’re wet; driving on them can be treacherous.

Lunch Break

Finally, when it seemed as if we’d reach more well-traveled roads soon, Mike agreed to stop for lunch. It was 1:30 PM. Although it was still raining, we found a spot under a juniper tree where we settled down on the ground and opened the cooler. We don’t picnic with sandwiches, like a lot of people do. We picnic with deli department treats. That day, it was fresh mozzarella “medallions,” thinly sliced prosciutto, marinated whole artichoke hearts, green olives with garlic, and dry salami. Yum. While we ate, we watched the weather all around us. I took this photo of the area to the north; you can see the rain coming down in the vicinity of downtown Prescott, just beyond the hills.

We continued on our way, now driving down the side of the mountain’s arm, descending into a canyon filled with tall pines. We passed where the road we’d wanted to take intersected with ours and continued dropping down toward the Hassayampa River. We spotted the roof of a house, then passed by a chain link fence that protected the home from intruders. Civilization. Not very friendly.

We stopped for a moment at Scotty Spring where a cement tank was filled with water. I got out to rinse my hands from lunch. We spotted a camera fixed to a tree. Mike says they use them to monitor wildlife at the water source. We waved.

We attempted to drive down road 9403P, which went all the way down to the river. Sometimes there’s water in the river there and I was anxious to see if there were any wading holes. But our way was blocked by two fallen pine trees. Although we probably could have moved them with the towstrap I keep in the Jeep and the Jeep itself, it didn’t seem worth the effort. So we doubled back again to 97B and followed it to where it crossed the river. The crossing was completely dry. I reminded Mike that the last time we’d crossed there, we’d been on horseback and my horse had been afraid to walk in the water.

The End of the Adventure

From there, we followed the road through the community of Ponderosa Park, finally ending up on pavement back on Route 89. We’d been on back roads for about 5 hours, exploring the high desert. The map shown here (click it for a larger view) shows the terrain we covered.) We were tired. I turned left and headed back to Wickenburg.

I didn’t get the pictures I wanted. I was looking for more dramatic scenes, more dramatic landscapes. The 64 photos on my camera’s card were disappointing.

But that doesn’t mean I won’t try a trip like this again.

A few days ago, I reported “The Trouble with Treos.” In short, I’d bought a Treo 700p so I could access the Internet from my off-the-grid camping shed on Howard Mesa. Although I’d been told that the Treo would “tether” with my Macintosh for an Internet connection, I later learned that feature wasn’t supported by Palm (maker of the Treo) and Verizon (my wireless provider).

Today, while running an errand in the Phoenix area, I stopped by the Verizon Wireless store where I bought the phone (Happy Valley, north of Phoenix) and spoke to the woman who sold it to me. I believe her when she says she thought it would work. But I also don’t know why she didn’t tell me about the Motorola Q phone, which definitely would work. Could it be because it cost $150 less?

Could I Love My Phone?

Now, after spending the past week sending photos to my TumbleLog and text messages to Twitter while on a business/vacation trip to California, I’m rather attached to the darn phone. Just the other afternoon, while Mike was driving from the LA area to Santa Barbara, I was stuck in the back seat of the convertible he’d rented. With no chance of participating in the conversation between Mike and his cousin due to wind noise, I amused myself by exchanging a series of photos with my brother in New Jersey who was lounging by his friend’s pool with his friend’s family, his wife, and his dog. I sent him photos I’d taken earlier in the day, as well as a few scenes from the Mustang’s cramped back seat as we made our way up the coast.

That’s something I couldn’t do with my old phone.

I know that other people have been doing stuff like that for years, but I was never into the cell phone thing. Now it’s almost an addiction. And I just don’t want to give up my new phone, even though it doesn’t do everything I want.

But I’m a logical, reasoning person — at least at times — and it makes no sense to be emotionally attracted to a smart phone that doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. So what was I to do?

Make it do what I needed it to.

Doing the “Impossible” — Poorly

So I got on the Web and I tracked down a software package called USB Modem. Available in Mac OS, Windows, and Linux flavors, this package includes software for the Treo as well as drivers for my Mac. I installed a few things, configured a few things, plugged in my tether, and connected to the Internet. In other words, I was able to do what Verizon had belatedly told me I couldn’t do: connect to the Internet using the USB tether cable.

But the connection seemed painfully slow. I fired up the Speakeasy Speed Test and tested it out. Sure enough, I had download speeds of only 120Kbps and upload speeds of only 20Kbps. Sheesh! This is broadband?

To be fair, I ran the same test on the Bluetooth DUN connection. I got 135 down and 85 up. Not much better.

Then I ran it on my house connection just for comparison. 524 down and 516 up.

(All these tests were done with the same computer.)

At Least I Have a Reason to Keep the Phone

The only good that comes out of this is that now I have a reason to keep the phone. True, it’ll cost me another $25 to buy the software to do the tethered connection — I was using a demo version to make sure it would work before I coughed up any more hard earned money — but at least it does work.

It just doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped. Or as well as the salesperson at the Verizon Wireless store said it would. Very disappointing.

I still have three weeks to decide.

Anyone out there use a Q phone with a Mac? Please do use the Comments link or form to share your experiences, good and bad.

On Sunday, May 20, Mike and I climbed aboard Zero-Mike-Lima for a flight to the Los Angeles area. (It was a relatively uneventful flight and, if I find time, I will bore you with the details in another blog post.) We landed at Torrance Airport, where we had business to do, and took a cab to LAX, where we rented a car for the week. Zero-Mike-Lima is sitting at the ramp in Torrance, right in front of the Robinson Helicopter factory, waiting for our flight back to Wickenburg on Sunday.

We came out here primarily to take the Robinson Factory Safety Course, a 3-1/2 day course designed to educate helicopter pilots about how accidents occur — and how they can be prevented. This was my third time at the course and Mike’s first. I’ll probably be writing more about it in another blog post because I really think it’s worth covering in some detail.

We’ve been on the go almost since arriving in the area. In fact, other than sleep at night, the only rest we had was right after checking into our hotel in Torrance on Sunday.

On Sunday night, we went down to the Redondo Beach pier for a seafood dinner.

Monday, we were in class from 8 AM to 4 PM. Then we zipped into Los Angeles for a walk around the Farmer’s Market and Grove shopping center.

Tuesday, class from 8 AM to 4 PM. Then, after a quick walk around a mall to pick up a few things, we headed back into Los Angeles for dinner and some shows at The Magic Castle with my friend (and fellow author) Deb Shadowitz. We got in to our hotel at 1 AM.

Wednesday, class from 8 AM to 4 PM. Then we hopped in the car and headed south along the coast, ending up in San Clemente for a visit with our friend (and fellow helicopter pilot) Jim Wurth.

Thursday, class from 8 AM to 11 AM. Then, after a quick trip to the Verizon Wireless store for some bad news, we headed back to the Robinson factory for lunch and to wait for Mike’s flight. (Mine was on Tuesday, during class.) Then it was back in the car for a drive up the coast, with a quick stop in Venice, to our new hotel in Malibu.

As you can see, we’ve been pretty much on the go since Sunday morning. Actually, it’s been since Saturday morning, when we gave helicopter rides at Yarnell Daze.

So I haven’t had any time to write in my blog.

It’s Friday morning and, as usual, I was up at about 5:30 AM. Our hotel is weird. It was probably an old hotel that was recently gutted and renovated. Our room has nice (fake) hardwood floors, clean white walls, and a king-sized bed. But not much else. Really. There’s no dresser, no chairs (other than on the little balcony), no table, no sofa. There are two night tables and one lamp. No clock. The TV is a 17 or 19 inch flat screen, mounted on the wall. There’s a 3 cubic foot refrigerator and a wire clothes rack on wheels as a closet. The place is trying to be “trendy minimalistic,” and although the effect is pleasant, it isn’t comfortable. We have views of the ocean from our windows, but no access to the beach. And the two lanes (in each direction) of the Pacific Coast Highway run right past the place. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles drive by throughout the day and night.

There’s Internet access via an unsecured network named “default,” but to get connected, you have to stand in a certain place in the room with your computer on the windowsill. I’ll probably use that to publish this entry.

This is the part of the trip I’ve been looking forward to: the part where Mike promised we’d just “take it easy.” We both expected this place to be on the ocean with access to the beach, so we’re very disappointed (to say the least). We’ll probably find another place later today. In my mind, “take it easy” means to relax in a comfortable place, read, write, or just chat. It doesn’t mean hopping in the car and driving all over the place. I know he’s not going to want to hang out here. I probably won’t either. So I’m not sure when I’ll find time to write again.

Stay tuned. More to come.

[composed in a hotel room in Malibu, CA with ecto]