No More Travels!

From time to time I mention my black lab, Smoky, and I found a picture of him that I thought I would include in today's entry. This looks like it was taken at Newfound Gap in the Smoky Mountains in summer of 2004. Smoky died in the fall of that year and I've never ceased to miss him.


I changed some of the furniture in my living room, switching a couple of items from one side to another, and I'm not happy with the results. That means I need to switch them back, which is time consuming and I hate to move furniture across the floors. I think I have too many pieces of furniture, whereas I prefer less because it makes the space look so much roomier. I'll deal with it when I get back from my trip.

I don't know what to do with all the photographs I have - bags and boxes of them. Now and then I scan some of them, but no way am I disposing of real pictures that I can hold in my hand. The memories seem so much sharper when viewed from a hand-held photograph as opposed to an inanimate computer screen. I know I'm in the minority here, but I will never change on this issue.

One gripe I have lately is that when you run into people they want to show you pictures on their phone screens. I can't take a decent picture with a digital camera because I can't see the screen, and I certainly can't see a picture on a cell phone. That's the way it is with me, and it must be my eyes because most people close to my age seem to be able to do ok with their phone screens.

After a morning of such heavy rains that I thought for sure my house would flood, the sun is shining and the world looks beautiful. It won't last for long as there is endless rain forecasted for the near future, but I'll enjoy it while it lasts and until the next time we get a brief view of gorgeous sunshine.

I took advantage of the weather and drove to Costco to get gas. It was with trepidation that I pulled into the station, as all along the way I saw prices edging $4.40 a gallon. Costco's was $4.14, and I couldn't believe my mileage - 17.96mpg! I can only hope that it will be even better when I can get gasoline without the ethanol added, as well as figuring the highway mileage. I have no idea why this tankful was so good - I don't drive much, but that wouldn't make much of a difference. It was usually around 18mpg in the east, and it wasn't until I hit the ethanol states that it dropped dramatically.

My long awaited AAA Triptik arrived yesterday. It's ok, but I'm a bit disappointed. The format has changed somewhat - the size and overall look of the pages is different. It used to be long skinny pages, with the route running vertically up and down the page. On the back of each page was a good overview of the area and route. Now they have squeezed more miles in on each page - it looks like to me - and they have also left a lot of things out. One example is that all exits used to be indicated. Some were just indicated by a dot, whereas the larger ones might tell you that gas, food, and lodging were available. That didn't mean that some of the dots weren't exits with gas stations though. Now only the major exits are shown - not even a tiny little dot for the others. What if you have a tire that is losing air and want to get off the highway? Or maybe you need to make a phone call and the shoulder is not a safe place to stop along that section. A glance at the old map would let you know approximately how far you needed to drive. And yes, I know that the GPS has all the information a person would ever need, but I can take a quick glance at a triptik easier and safer than I could fool with the GPS.

I looked through all my old maps and found several triptiks for cross country travel that I've saved over the years. I'm taking them along for good measure - they all cover slightly different routes, and I usually end up modifying the route I plan on taking anyway. I'd better take one for the southwest just in case every other part of the country is under snow, but I sure hope I don't have to drop down that far.

One day soon I need to take my portable vacuum cleaner outside and clean the inside of my car. The canvas covers I bought last year to keep the seats clean from the dog have worked pretty well, although they need a good shaking out and vacuuming. I don't think I have an outlet on the outside, so I'll have to run an extension cord from the house. For all the hassle it's going to be, I think that's why I haven't yet done it. I did launder the big fleece throw I fold on top of the canvas.

I think I will go stand in front of the door and just drink in the beautiful day, while it lasts. There are definitely more rain clouds in the distance.

LATER:
I just want to add a note here and hope I catch the readers who have blogs of their own. I decided to check my blogger comments to see if there were spam comments to be deleted. Out of 5 comments, only two were actually spam, and the other 3 were from trusted bloggers. I couldn't read anything at all in any of their comments that would come near to being possible spam. I get each comment that is made in a separate email, so I can usually tell if there is spam. I also read the comments in the email version, and rarely look at the blog for them. So I didn't miss them but anyone who reads the blog would not have seen them. I don't know why blogger chose to throw them into spam, but beware if you write a blog that all comments might not appear.