Bryce Canyon National Park

September 30, 2009
Today we spent most of the day working on the truck. This morning the battery was dead because we left the small fridge plugged in. Usually it is OK but when it gets cold outside we can't do it. Last night was pretty cold so this morning we tried to jump it but our booster pac wasn't charged so we just swapped out the battery with our spare. We drove to Bryce, Utah. We turned on the computer systems and realized there was a problem with the auto iris on the pavement cameras. That is not a common issue. We ended up having to take apart a computer. We got that fixed and then I said "next we will have roughness issues" as a joke. Well, about an hour later the roughness computer randomly shuts off. I should have known better. We've learn in the truck to not say anything because as soon as we mention it, it is sure to happen. Today I forgot that "rule" and I learned my lesson again. We spent most of the day fixing various issues and only collected about 18 miles, 2 routes in the park. This is a pretty small park so we still have a good chance of finishing tomorrow if the truck cooperates.

A couple of people asked us about the truck today. One guy was cleaver. When Jeff said "we inventory the roads" the guy said "why do people steal roads or something?". Funny guy ha?

Oh, and just to put it out there I'm at 40 hours for the week already and it is only Wednesday!

Great Basin National Park

September 29, 2009

Today started at 7:30am in Grand Junction, CO and ended at 10:30pm in Beaver, UT. The truck hit a bit of a milestone today and reached 250,000 miles! We drove to Great Basin National Park and stopped by the first visitor center to see if our package of parts had arrived yet. We were told it would be going to the other visitor center so we headed up there and after a few minutes of "where is the package" we finally got it...whew. We installed the new boards and went to work at 2:00pm. The truck was definitely not on it's best behavior which seems very typical especially when we are in a time crunch. We got just about all collection software bugs possible. Around 6:00pm we had 4 campground routes left but the sun was low and was making our images go black so we had to sit and wait for the sun to go down...sounds like fun but not really when you know you have a 2 hour drive to the hotel ahead of you still. We ended up leaving the park around 7:30pm. There was one gas station/restaurant/motel/casino right by the park. We stopped there and filled up and decided to eat quick. We drove on a road for 2 hours only to see 2 cars during that 2 hour drive...middle of nowhere! We rolled into Beaver, checked into the hotel and called it a day. Another 15 hour day today...after working 14 hours yesterday I'll probably hit 40 hours today (in 3 days) gotta love it!

We didn't get to really enjoy the park or see anything other than what we saw from the truck so I took a couple of photos from the truck.

In Route To Great Basin Naitonal Park

September 28, 2009
After what felt like a very, very short week at home I'm back on the road. The day started with a full 9 hours in Denver and ended with driving across I-70. Needless to say we didn't make it the 10.5 hours to our destination but only made it 4.5 hours to Grand Junction, CO. Our troubles started last week. Early last week the truck was at an electrical shop to fix the bad regulator. The guy said we needed a new regulator but it would take 4 to 6 weeks to get one in...yeah right. We made a few phone calls and had one overnighted to them. After we got the truck back on Wednesday we decided to do some testing and soon found out that our rutting sensors were not working. We thought we figured out what part we needed so we took the truck to Ford for an oil change on Thursday. Friday morning I hadn't heard back from Ford so I called them to check on the status and the guy said "I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone to approve the work" I said "what we took it in for an oil change". I can't even remember what they fixed at this point but it had something to do with the tie rod(s)...are there more than one, who knows. Anyway, we went to pick it up at 4pm Friday so we could do some work on our broken smartbar (rutting sensors) and the cashier said "no work has been done on your truck, you can just take it"...really, was she trying to be funny? The manager said their phone lines were down and the parts didn't show up...our typical luck kicking right in. We worked on the truck for 2 hours in the Ford parking lot (a great 12 hour day for me) and at 6pm we had to call it a day without fixing the sensor problem. We left the truck there so it could be fixed on Saturday. We picked the truck up this morning and spent the next 8 hours figuring out why our rutting sensors were still not working. Some how 9 controller boards got fried! Don't ask me. We only had 4 spares to we had to order more and we should have them tomorrow. After that we had to head over to an auto parts store to get a yellow top battery, another $200.00 down the drain. One that we had under our computer rack kept smelling up the truck (yes, they really do smell) and that took us about 1/2 hour to swap out. At 9:00pm we finally pulled into the hotel. If I calculate right that would be a 14 hour day....and it is only Monday!

A couple of people stories for today...
While we were working on the truck some FHWA guy came over to look at the truck and chat a bit. There was little conversation because we were pretty busy but he said something like we had an "easy" job getting to see the country. I looked at him and said "uh, not really". Easy...what part of my job is easy? Is it the long 12 to 14 hour days or fixing the truck every day???

When we walked into dinner a guy said "well, that is a different van, is it a sleeper van?" I left most of the explaining up to Jeff so I could go into get something to eat :). I'll take the next one :)

The Long Drive Home

September 17, 2009
Today we survived the long 11 hour drive from Tulsa to Denver. Nothing real exciting happened except one of the batteries started to overheat again so the sulphur smell was "real nice". We turned on our computer systems to help drain some juice and it worked. I think we will have to replace the battery under the computer rack, it is probably about time anyway. Since July 14 I've only been home for 12 days. That is not normal for this job and I'm glad to be back at home so I can exercise and eat better...even if it is just for one week.

Meeting in Tulsa

September 16, 2009
Today we had another productive day. After lunch we took the truck out to try and do some test runs. While in the parking lot I noticed that the voltages on the computer batteries were low and they were not being charged. We looked at the regulator and it didn't appear to be working. We plugged in our spare and the thing started smoking!!!! I couldn't believe it. I have never seen a regulator smoke in 5 years on the job. So to sum up the last month we have had an 2 alternators replaced, an isolator fry/smoke and need to be replaced, an inverter go bad and now a regulator. That just about sums it up for all power issues we could have in the truck and it all happened in the past month! The only thing left would be to buy 4 new batteries for the truck. I am pretty sure there is a black cloud hanging over my head. We ended up being able to collect but it was not with ease. It is always something.

After the meeting I called a specialty shop in Denver that we have taken our truck to in the past for alternator repair and electrical work. I called and said "I have a regulator that is going bad and it needs to be replaced when do you think you can get it in?" Like always people need to hear the problem more than once and he said "what is wrong again" so I tried to change it up a little and said I have a regulator that is going bad and there might be a short in it because when we hooked it up it started smoking" and he said "well if there is a short in it then you need to get it fixed." REALLY...why did he think I was calling???? I said "I know, that is why I am calling. When do you think you can look at it?" Uhhhh I don' t get it but maybe it is because I'm a girl...I wonder if he would have said such a dumb thing to a guy.

After the quick phone call we went to downtown Tulsa for dinner...we basically found nothing! It was a really sad place. The streets were empty with only a few people around the arts center for the show Mamma Mia. We found a little bar to eat at that had a special $3.00 burgers and the place was packed. It turned out to be pretty good because the meat was ground and not a frozen patty.

Tomorrow is the long haul driving through Kansas to get to Denver...that is one of the most boring drives ever. I hope the truck doesn't break down.

Meeting in Tulsa

September 15, 2009
Today was a really full day but a good day. The meeting went really well and I love looking at all of the trucks. I'm excited to get one that will do the same job as our current truck but has less "stuff"...less computers, less wires, less heat, (less of a headache) etc. At the end of the day I was pretty out of it/tired. I fell asleep at 5:30 and slept for 3 hours so now my sleeping schedule is really messed up. Some day my life might get back to normal but what is "normal" anyway.

Meeting in Tulsa

September 14, 2009
I made it to Tulsa, OK this evening around 4:00pm (Central Time). I'm having a hard time knowing what time it is and what town I'm in. I have been in 3 different time zones in the past 24 hours but am glad to say I made it to my appointment and my flight on time. I saw a billboard in the airport that said Cherokee Casino. I have no idea if it was for Cherokee, NC but I was confused and remembered I was in Oklahoma. As we were leaving the restaurant I saw a sign that said Oklahoma and had to think if that was really where I was then I remembered...oh yeah...Tulsa, Oklahoma. Anyway, you get the idea. I hope tonight is not one of those frantic nights where I wake up and have no idea where I am. I think I'm getting used to only getting 5 hours of sleep a night...not good. My DR told me this morning that I should go see an endocrinologist, sweet...why not. I love being messed up. Who said traveling all of the time and working 60 to 80 hours each week was healthy???

Who Knows Where I am....

September 13, 2009

Today we finished Great Smoky Mountains. We are glad to be out of the east, heading west. We are also glad to get away from loud motorcycles! Today while we were driving on a long windy road a spider decided to hitch a ride on the front of our truck. That was not a smart idea because I think it ended up overheating and it didn't live for long or maybe it really just jumped off the truck...who knows.

After a pretty full day of collection I got on a plane in Knoxville, TN at 6:20pm and flew to Denver via Dallas. I finally got home at 2:00am EST and am now doing laundry and sending in my time sheet etc... by the way it was a 79.50 hour work week this week. Something about that just isn't right! I'm heading out again tomorrow after noon to go to Tulsa...my flight is around 1:00 in the afternoon, that is why I'm doing laundry at 2am cuz I have to hit the road again. I came home quick because I have to go to the DR. It is hard to schedule things when you have a job like this so making DR appointments is not easy and can lead to long days like this. Oh, when I was leaving the parking lot at the airport I looked in the sky and saw what I first thought was one single firework but after a second I realized there was no way that is what it was it must have been a shooting star or comet. I am definitely not an astronomer but whatever it was it was bright, white and green. Luckily whatever it was burned up in the atmosphere before it landed on my car...Just kidding but that would be my luck :).

Great Smoky Mountains

September 12, 2009
In the morning we went to GPS a parking area, something we sometimes do if the crew before us forgets one. After we were done our new inverter had arrived so we installed it into the truck. When it is hot and humit out working on the truck is 100x worse! We had a couple of small issues but we worked through it and were collecting by 12:30! Overall it was a good day...WOW I don't think I've said that in awhile, but I do think my idea of a good day is slowly changing. I posted a couple of photos of the inverter. It is on the very bottom of the rack behind the net....just so you get an idea of what we were working on.

We should finish this park tomorrow morning and then I fly home to Denver (arriving around 10:30pm) for one very short night and then back on a plane Monday to go to Tulsa, OK. We are having a meeting about our new truck next week. I can't wait!!!! We won't have the truck for a couple of months but it is good to know things are moving along.

Oh, we did see another bear cub today but they are so fast we still couldn't get a good photo.

Great Smoky Mountains

September 11, 2009

We were doomed from the start. It seems that when the truck acts up it is typically on a Friday when it is near impossible to get parts quickly or it happens when we are moving from one hotel to another and have all of our stuff in the truck. Today was Friday and we were moving hotels so that alone means something will go wrong. Today was our "lucky" day to have the 1500W inverter die on us. That means that half of the computer systems have no power so they won't turn on. It is a pretty big, expensive part and there is only one company that makes them. It was quite the day filled with several phone calls, credit card issues and making sure we were getting the right inverter (or one that will work) because the one we have now is a dinosaur and is no longer made. We think everything is fine and we will be getting one in the mail tomorrow, Sat. morning delivery but we are having problems with the tracking number so only time will tell.

We did take a quick 10 minute hike to Mingo Falls. We also found time to play a quick round of mini golf before dinner...I would have had a hole in one but it bounced back out (no fair) ! At the mini golf place was a "wheel of death"...sort of feels like we were on that wheel all day. Tomorrow can only get better, right?

Great Smoky Mountains

September 10, 2009
This morning we drove up to the north end of the park looking for dry roads. We were confident that in a couple of hours we would be able to collect. The only problem was that in a couple of hours it started to rain again! We decided that we want the license plate on our new truck to say "H8RAIN" for hate rain. We then drove to the east side of the park and found some dry roads. We got a total of 11 routes done. It is better than nothing but still not great (or very productive). We stopped in a parking lot quick to use the restroom (which turned out to be locked) and we saw a mom bear with two cubs. They were pretty cute. I got a photo of the mom bear but couldn't one of the cubs. There was another car in the parking lot and they were hogging the spot right in front of the bears and wouldn't move even though they they probably got several good photos. We went to dinner and the rain started again. Who knows what tomorrow will bring but I'm thinking it will be more wet roads :( .

Great Smoky Mountains

September 9, 2009

I am officially tired. We have done a lot of driving the past few days and have worked 35 hours in 3 days. This is looking to be another long week. I hate waking up tired.

We had a delay in the morning again due to rain. We were able to collect one 6 mile route and then the down pour started. One of our computers also decided to randomly turn off and not turn back on so we had to change the power supply. Changing the power supply isn't that bad but it happens to be the top computer in our rack so getting it up and down from the rack isn't much fun. We were soon on our way again to try to find a dry area of the park. We were lucky and were able to collect until about 5pm when it really started to down pour. It is weird being in a canyon and hearing really loud thunder, you can't see the sky. Any odd noise in my mind is coming from the truck so for a second I thought we got a flat tire or something...wouldn't that just complete our day nicely :). Since our collection day was over due to rain we decided to take a break from work and go to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museums in Gatlinburg. It was interesting. The huge tire in their entry goes on a huge mining truck (see photo)!!!! The tire is 12 feet tall, is 6,500 lbs and costs $25,000. Those are the trucks I'd love to drive some day, they are so BIG! The lady I took a photo of is outside a mini golf place and she moves from side to side, I thought it was pretty funny. That would be a fun place to play mini golf.

Great Smoky Mountains

September 8, 2009
This morning we had to drive up to the FHWA office in Sevierville, TN to get the Great Smoky's gate key. It was about an 1 & 1/2 drive. After that we were on a mission to find routes that were dry. It took some looking and some driving but we found some. It ended up being a pretty good day (14 hour work day) and we collected 22 routes / 60 miles. We did a route called Cades Cove Loop Road that took us an hour to get 10 miles and we ended up having to stop 17 times due to traffic. Each time we stop our pavement images go black but I'm sure the park service is aware of the congestion on that road so the pavement is what it is. We also were not able to go fast enough to get roughness data but the road was in such bad shape the whole road is going to get a rating of poor anyway. We did see some bears along that loop. I tried to get a few photos but it was difficult and I was not about to get out of the car and walk by the bear like other tourists just to get a good photo. Why do people think that is safe??? There are a bunch of old cabins and farms along that road and I took a quick photo of one. This one is the Carter Shields cabin. Here is info from the website link below..."George Washington "Carter" Shields (1844-1924) bought this land and cabin from John Sparks in 1910. The cabin dates to 1830-40s. Shields lived in the cove until 1921."

http://www.smokyvacations.com/cades-cove.html

Great Smoky Mountains

September 7, 2009
It rained this morning. We were able to find 11 dry routes, or routes that were dry enough to collect with a few damp spots. It rained again around 4pm. We drove around the whole park and got stuck in a huge traffic jam...everyone was leaving to head home after Labor Day weekend. The traffic today was much, much worse than anything we experienced in the DC area! The only story I have for today other than the rain is that we decided to go to the casino buffet for dinner (our choices are very limited around here). When we walked in Jeff got by with no problem and I got carded. I looked at the security guy and said "really" and he said "yeah" and then I laughed. I showed him my id and he said "there is no way" and I said "yeah, that is why I laughed, but thank you." He said "well, you have a nice time." I might look young but I don't think I'd pass for being 21.

Great Smoky Mountains

September 6, 2009
Today it rained in the morning and then scattered showers all afternoon until about 3pm. The road stayed wet enough that we couldn't collect today. I worked in my hotel room for about 6 hours and then we went to check out the park. Our first stop was an old Grist Mill. It was "built in 1886, this historic grist mill uses a water-powered turbine instead of a water wheel to power all of the machinery in the building." Our second stop was at Clingmans Dome. The hike was straight up and it was another reminder that I have exercise asthma and should really have an inhaler. We made it to the top pretty quickly while others were "dropping like flies". The engineer who designed the trail decided that switch backs were not going to be utilized...who knows why. Once we got to the top the view was great and I took a few photos before our hike down. We then tried to find the trail for Mingo Falls but we were given bad directions by the NPS guy at the visitor's center. We'll save that for another rain day. We decided to walk around the local park and we found a grove of bamboo trees that seemed out of place but was neat to walk through.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

September 5, 2009

Today is a day to celebrate! We finally finished Blue Ridge Parkway!!! I am glad to be done and can say with confidence that I have no desire to go back anytime soon...I've seen it all (most routes I've seen more than once). Right near the end of the parkway we saw a fire truck zoom out of the maintenance area. It turned out that some guy's truck was on fire but luckily he was in a pullout and not blocking traffic. This is the 3rd car I've seen up in flames during the 5 years on the job. We also saw some elk today. That was an unexpected surprise.

We were able to start Great Smoky Mountains around 3:30pm and we collected 11 routes. Right before we walked to dinner it started to rain :(. The radar doesn't look that great so I'm not sure how things will turn out tomorrow. The only good thing is that there are a ton of people here and lots of people driving on the roads will help them dry faster. All of the hotels in town are booked and I'm very, very lucky to have made reservations a few days ago and actually found one that offered the government rate. It will be interesting to see what this place looks like on Tuesday after the big holiday weekend is over. Hopefully it will calm down some because getting across town took us about 15 minutes and this town is really, really small. We are staying across the street from Harrah's casino. We walked through it looking for restaurants and the place is defiantly not like Vegas but I'm sure those who gamble still have just as much fun. We did find a restaurant but it was typical casino food and not that fulfilling.

Blue Ridge Parkway

September 4, 2009

Today was an OK day. We collected about 75 miles and we only had one computer problem. We got lucky and were able to collect the routes we needed to before it started to rain! We only have about 55 miles left to collect in Blue Ridge and if the scattered storms don't soak the southern end we will be on track for finishing this park tomorrow!!!

Blue Ridge Parkway

September 3, 2009

We spent the morning at the Ford shop having an another alternator replaced. This time I had a spare so we just needed the labor to do it. After that the truck worked but things still didn't run the way they used to. The problem with this truck is that so many things go wrong all of the time that it is very hard to know what "normal" is. Maybe the way things are running now is "normal"...who knows. We are going to run this truck until it smokes or dies and hopefully it won't happen in a place we don't have cell coverage. We didn't start collection until 2pm and we had some computer issues to deal with so we didn't get much done but we did collect 54 miles...I'll take it.

Blue Ridge Parkway

September 2, 2009

Today was a good and bad day. We were able to collect 131 miles but it was painful. It was a crazy day that started at 8:00am and at 11:00pm I'm finally done working and writing my blog entry for the day.

The bad parts of today were:

We had several problems with the truck today. We had to restart all of the systems at least 4 times, which is a minimum of a 10 minute process. Our forward facing cameras were dropping images, not synchronizing properly, we had crossfall chainage errors and missing chainage messages/errors. We might have another alternator going bad but we left that for tomorrow to further investigate.

The good parts of today were:

We made it 100 miles further down the parkway and the roads were dry!

While we were pulled over swapping a computer part I took a quick photo, it is attached.

Blue Ridge Parkway

September 1, 2009
We got the truck back today around noon. We turned everything on and the alternators were not charging the batteries! After some investigating on our own we decided to swap regulators (again) and it worked. We drove to our first route and I got out to open the gate and walked back to the truck and realized that someone at one of the repair shops hit something with our sensor bar on the front of the truck. Luckily they did not hit it hard but they did not fess up to it when we picked up the truck and I didn't notice it until after we left. If this truck were not on it's last leg there would have been a lengthy discussion about the situation but since this truck is on it's way out I figured it wasn't worth trying to get them to admit to their fault. They will have to live with it on their conscience anyway. We were able to collect a couple of small routes around Asheville that were wet last week. It is good to finally have those crossed off of our list. We drove south and 2 routes are still wet so they will have to wait a few more days. During the few routes we did collect we had a communication issue with our sensor bar on the front of the truck. The easy "check the network cable fix" did nothing for us. I ended up taking apart one of the computers while Jeff took out a timer chip on a board in the sensor bar, neither is a fun job. After that we did some test runs and it appears to be working but when we finished putting things back together it was about 4:30pm and there was no time to make the long drive to other routes. On the way back I stopped along the parkway where you can see the Biltmore house. It is a huge house you can tour (I have not had time to go there). A photo does not do it justice especially when you are so far away but I posted a couple of photos anyway.

http://www.biltmore.com/visit/house/default.asp