Teaching one of my favorite subjects

That is, map reading.  I was talking to my son in NY and asked if he thought the boys (7 and almost 5) would like it if I sent them maps covering the entire route I'm taking to NY, plus a couple of highlighters.  My thought is that I would let them know every day or two of my progress, the route I'm on, where I stayed overnight, etc., and they could follow my journey with their own maps.  The thing is that since I'm not going to be on much of the interstates, I almost have to send them individual state maps so they can find the US and State routes I'm traveling.

Mike seemed to be enthusiastic about it, and said they followed his travels to Afghanistan and back on a world map, and both of them learned at a very young age to assemble the jigsaw puzzle of all the states in the U.S.  So I will go to the AAA office soon and get the maps and into the mail to them.

Map reading was something I tried to teach my own kids and they can all do it, a couple of them being more interested and better at it than the others, but it's a skill worth knowing.  In these days of GPS, smart phone apps, etc., I want my grandchildren to learn that you can figure it out for yourself, and when you get older you have the choice to let a device do the work for you if you wish.  But the basic skills should be there.

I will also send them a Dr. Seuss type book I found at REI called "There's a Map on My Lap!".  Josh (the older one) is reading quite well now and he can read to Justin.

I got gas at Costco this morning for $3.59 a gallon, which is very good for California at this time of the year.  I still worry about the cost of fuel for a trip of 4500 miles, and then of course, back to CA which probably will be a few miles less depending on the side trips I make and what's left in my travel fund.

I made a stop at Target to pick up a couple of needed items.  I had one heavy item (a case of alcoholic beverage) so I took the cart all the way to the car, unloaded it, and then found a cart return spot nearby.  When I was getting into my car a woman stopped, rolled down her window, and thanked me for returning the cart rather than just leaving it in the parking area.  She said she almost never saw anyone returning carts and told me she appreciated it.  What a nice thing to say to someone, and the glow has stayed with me all day.  She must be referring to the Walmart parking lot where carts are left in parking spaces everywhere.  Sometimes it's like that at Costco as well, and I can't figure it out because there are so many return corrals it doesn't take much of an effort.

I want to thank Hobopals for the instructions on how to print gridlines on an Excel spreadsheet.  It worked, I printed the sheets out, and they look great!

I also thank Brenda for her encouragement regarding my finding an older dog.  They just adopted two mature dogs, Maya and Max, and their photos can be seen on their current blog entry.

The thermometer is climbing to the upper 90's for the next 10 days at least.  I can deal with it but sure hope it doesn't exceed 100 again!

Looking at the clock I see it's Miller time.  I need to make sure that the travel from Target to here didn't cause any damage to the quality of the beverage.

Untitled

Here is the portrait done by Ara of her mom and me (40 years ago).  Jeannie is looking pretty good in her prime, but aging sure hasn't done much for me!

I apologize for neglecting to mention in yesterday's blog that there are many solo females who live and travel in Class A motorhomes.  The one who comes to mind is Judy (the Birdlady) whose blog describes her adventures on the wildlife refuges where she gives so much time, energy and knowledge in volunteer work, as well as on the road. 

I'm tired this evening so I will just publish and then think about going to bed early.  Another weekend gone by.

Note:  Evidently blogger requires a title before it will publish a post, or is this just happening to me?  I get a warning that required spaces must not be left blank, and it wouldn't publish without a title. 

Misc.

I would like to welcome Sissy to my blog.  She has just finished the first entries I wrote in August 2008, so I went back to read a couple of them.  I knew what was coming - selling my lovely furniture and getting rid of a lot of my belongings, plus leaving beautiful Swannanoa, NC (east of Asheville).  I just couldn't go back and read about it as I would give anything to have my furniture back.  I would even love to have the house back, except living on the side of a mountain with hundreds of trees (and millions of leaves in the fall) became too much for me to handle.

I would like to insert here a little advice to those women who are considering becoming solo full time RVers, and that is don't get too hung up on any one kind of rig at first, but give serious consideration to them all, and take into consideration the comments and suggestions made by other women.  I should have listened and bought a Class C RV rather than a 5th wheel and truck, although I could still shed a tear when I think about how much I miss that truck!

I know there must be women out there who are very happy with their selection of 5ver, but when I think about it, every solo female RVer I know who chose the 5th wheel/truck combo has either left RVing for good or else switched to something more manageable for them.  Note that it seems to work out beautifully for couples, but that's a whole different situation altogether. 

I'm not sure it would have made all that much difference in the duration of my RVing life, but it might have, and it sure would have made my RVing life much easier.  I got pretty hung up on the idea of how much more living space I could have in a 5th wheel, whereas I didn't spend all that much time inside the 5th wheel.  Much of the time I was workcamping or just lounging in the fresh air outdoors.

Back to other more mundane things, I forgot to mention that I had looked online and found excellent instructions for changing the toner cartridge on my printer, and I did it without a hitch!  Reality doesn't match the pictures on the inside of the printer when it comes to the green lever.  Also thanks to Nancy who suggested viewing a YouTube video about it.  I believe that was one of the things I did when I looked online for instructions, but the printed word I settled on, which also had a couple of sketches of what I should be looking at and doing, made it an easy operation.  

I think I am making a lot of work for myself in the planning of my trip.  I decided that I will try to take hundreds of photos along the way (year, right!), so it stands to reason that I need to document the time and place of each picture.  How many times have I looked over a beautiful scene, somewhere in Utah no doubt, with gorgeous red cliffs, hoodoos, mesas, and the like, and tried to figure out "Now where did I take this?"  So I created an Excel spreadsheet to keep a record.  When it came to printing it I couldn't get the lines to print - the ones that separate the cells/rows/columns.  I have the microsoft package for a Mac, but usually save the word and excel files in the format for the 97-2004 version--.doc rather than docx, and .xls rather than .xlsx.  But the software version I use has changed greatly since I used the older versions, and for the life of me I couldn't get the grid to print.  So I sat here for sometime with a ruler and pencil, measuring and drawing the lines myself, and have one whole page finished, which looks great by the way.  Why don't I just go out and buy one of those bound journal books and use it to record the info?  I did get my chart to print in landscape so I could widen the columns.  I guess I need these little self-imposed challenges to keep my mind from deteriorating too far.

The binder is coming along nicely and I have it packed with info about where I'm going, campgrounds, directions.  These are things I enjoy looking over in the late afternoon or early evening after settling into my camp or motel room.  I wouldn't always be able to access my computer so organizing it and keeping it there doesn't make sense to me, and I can just forget even reading the small print on an iPhone, if in fact I even wanted one.  Finding coverage is another problem I won't have with my lovingly created binders.  

I woke up this morning actually cold from an overnight low of 58 and all my windows open!  It was a lovely feeling. 

I enlisted Donald to help me with the expense log, which I took from an old triptik.  I asked him to enlarge it to give me more room to enter the info, and then to scan and print 10 copies of it.  They look very good and so professional.  I didn't have the nerve to ask him to create a photo log from scratch!

Finally!

With only a high of 91 expected today, and the morning temperature at just about 70 I decided to get a few things accomplished.  I tucked my t-shirt into my shorts, checked that I was modestly zipped and buttoned as befits an old granny, and set off for Home Depot.  I need to buy several bags of small rock to cover some bare patches in my yard.  What I need is to have a large load delivered, but then I'd have to buy a wheelbarrow, shovel, and rake to deal with it!  Plus have all the mess on my driveway and park my car over in the laundry room lot.

Home depot had a few bags each of red and black lava rock and that was it, so I drove to Lowe's.  The bagged rock is way in the very back of the outdoor garden center, where of course there is no one to help you.  There were two sizes of rock that I could use, but the way they were stacked I couldn't even lift one bag off the pile to see if I could manage carrying it.  Why they stack them overhead I'll never know.  Being frustrated I decided to walk through the indoor part of the garden store to look at rakes and such.  Went back to the rock supply and decided to just leave without it.  

Both Home Depot and Lowe's have employees who seem to walk the store to ask "Did you find everything you were looking for, Ma'am?", but they only appear when I'm on my way to the door.  If you ask me, self service is highly over-rated, and the self checkout lanes are the worst part of it.  Soon there won't be anyone offering service for anything, and a machine will take your money.  There is a real old-fashioned hardware store over in Fair Oaks, the kind where you can buy three nails if you like rather than have to purchase a package of 100, but I'm sure they don't carry rock.

Yesterday was just about unbearable at 108, so when Joe called me and wondered if I'd like to come over for hamburgers cooked on the grill, I decided to go.  I came home before dark and heard the noise of the fireworks being set off all around.  What really caught my eye was a planet or probably at least two close together in the sky - I couldn't really tell much looking through binoculars, but I believe it was Venus and maybe something else.  I hope a reader can enlighten me as to what's up.  This mobile home park is extremely difficult to determine directions because of the diagonal pattern of the streets, and the fact that the lots run diagonally off the streets.  I think Venus? was in the west.  I have a backpacking compass somewhere but can't remember where I put it.

I'm still enjoying the Patrick McManus book, and still laugh out loud at all his stories.  Now should I read for a while or should I go back out looking for rock?

Ah, air conditioning!

By 5pm yesterday the house was so hot I could barely stand it.  I think it was too hot for the swamp cooler to have any effect, and it was just blowing hot air.  I saw that the thermostat on the wall registered 99 degrees in the living room and decided I was going to go out for a while, so I drove over to Straw Hat Pizza and got myself an individual pizza and a pitcher of beer.  

When I arrived I saw that a band was tuning up and my heart sank - I thought I wouldn't be able to stay long if they played the Beatles tunes that every band seems to be stuck on. 

The band turned out to be sort of dixieland/swing, and the music was fantastic.  The entire place was packed and everyone, including little kids, were jiggling to the music.  I had taken a book along with me so that I could sit and read while sipping my beer, but the book was saved for the one intermission the band took.  All in all it was an enjoyable evening, good food, good music, and good cold beer.  Don't ask me how I finished a whole pitcher myself, but I was there for quite a while and just sipped it.

Now for the book I'm reading, it's a collection of short articles written for Field & Stream by Patrick McManus.  I haven't laughed so hard in a long time, and this guy is so funny.  Field & Stream was never a magazine I read, unless I had a long wait in a doctor's office and that was the only available reading material.  The book is called "A Fine and Pleasant Misery", and is written about McManus' camping experiences as a young boy, starting out in the backyard.  I remember the first time I slept in a tent in the backyard because two of my little brothers wanted to try it, but they wanted protection and I was it.  They lasted until midnight at least, and I slept out the entire night.  It was the beginning of a life-long love of camping in a tent.

I don't know if Patrick McManus still writes for Field & Stream.   The selections in the book appeared in Field & Stream from approximately 1968 to 1978.  I'll have to pick up a copy of the latest F&S when I next see one just to find out what it's like now.

Just looked McManus up online and see that he has written several mysteries and many articles about the outdoor sporting life, and even has his own web site.  I have tired of reading books that leave you either sad or angry, or both, and it's good to find a book that just makes me laugh.

Another hot one.

Two more days until we go back to temps in the mid to upper 90's, and that sounds good to me.  This weather makes me crabby!

Which brings up my post yesterday.  Many people have strong, unreasonable fears, and I am entitled to mine.  I have no fear of "going under the knife", but not when that knife is sent down my throat through a small tube.  I'm sorry I brought it up and will try to avoid any mention of it in the future.

I have two pictures to post.  The first one is the symbol of the black lab that is going to find me before the end of the year, I hope.

And this one is my granddaughter in the Tetons.  I really hope I can get there soon, and that I enjoy it this much.

I started walking again, and did a mile around the mobile park yesterday after the heat of the day.  I know I need to get back to it for health and well being, but it's so damn boring walking by myself.  I'm certainly going to try.
 

Quick shopping spree

I ventured out this morning before the heat became unbearable, and first stop was the Asian Market.  That thing has nearly tripled in size since I was last there - they took one whole side of the strip mall behind Kohl's and combined all the stores into one huge marketplace, with even a food court.  I found the butane tanks when I was ready to leave in frustration - 4 cans for 4.99; not knowing how long they will last, I bought 8.  After my trip with Jeannie in a couple of weeks I should get an idea.  It beats buying a case of 12 for $39 + $15 hazardous transport fees.

I stopped at the library and picked up a couple of travel books, including handbooks on the Four Corners, Zion and Bryce Canyon; then on to the Dollar store.  I bought 6 items for $6 - quite unlike the dollar general stores that I've seen in the east where nothing is only a dollar.  I saw a little display of resin figurines - angels, cats, etc., and found me a black lab among all the cats.  I thought he needed rescuing, and maybe he'll bring me good luck in finding my next forever friend.  He is about 4-1/2" tall and is sitting smartly in that good dog pose - a lab hoping for a handout!

I bought a deck of cards for $1 as I've been wanting to get one for my trips but don't want to spend $5+ for a deck.  These cards have a logo for Margaritaville Casino on the fronts, and the deck was sealed with a tape that said "This deck was actually in play at the Margaritaville Casino in Las Vegas".  I tried my hand at shuffling the deck and haven't lost my touch!  My laptop doesn't have any games like solitaire or Mahjong on it, nor can I find any free downloadable ones, and when camping or sitting in a motel room I often wish I had a deck with me.  So now I do.

When I returned home a box with the printer toner was sitting on the porch.  I opened the printer but unfortunately they only have pictures of how to get the old cartridge out - no words.  Now I know that often a picture is worth a thousand words, but not in all cases and not to everyone.  Nothing looks like the picture as far as I can tell.  This makes me so damn mad so I just set everything aside until I cool off.

I appreciate all the suggestions regarding my camping plans and mods to my vehicle.  I loved the idea of the solar panel on the roof until I saw the prices.  I hate to come right out and say it, but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to do the kind of traveling I've been doing.  I'd hate to sink money into something I possibly wouldn't even get several uses out of.  So I'm trying to go on the cheap!

The scheduler called me from UCD Med Center this morning and we set Nov 8 as the date for my procedure, which will ruin my birthday month.  I have really gotten cold feet about it and even though they assure me that this time the appointment will include the anesthesiologist to give me a total blackout, I get sick just thinking about what it entails.  I don't think it would bother me if they just operated in a regular way, rather than going down my throat!  I don't fear the gallbladder surgery if I live long enough to ever get it the way they move at a snail's pace, but the ERCP is going to send me off the deep end.  She promised to have the surgeon call and talk to me, but I'm losing faith in what any of them say.  Fortunately I can forget the whole thing for a few months.

Now to sit back and read some travel books.