Weird Thought and All of the Noise

August 23, 2010

Today I as at the ear DR getting my hearing checked to see if my Meinere's is under control. Good news it is and I'm better. I was in the waiting room for 45 minutes and quickly got bored. I began to think...what if someone came in to the office, checked in for an appointment and then stole my wallet (which was sitting on my leg) and ran out. Could the desk clerk tell the police the person's name since medical office's have privacy policies? Humm. I'd hope they could tell the police but you never know, maybe it is breaking confidentiality to give out a person's name. Anyway, right after that I fell asleep for a bit, not good since my wallet was still on my lap! I woke up right before I was called back to see the DR.

It is really nice out here tonight, there is little humidity and the air is cool (abt. 70 degrees). I want to turn the air off but there is so much noise outside it keeps me up at night when I have the windows open. I tried to get a short video clip with my camera. Make sure you have the sound up on your computer. I don't know what is in the trees making this noise but "they" are never quiet and the noise gets louder at night. Reminds me of the movie Steel Magnolias, maybe I should get some fire crackers and shoot them into the trees (like in the movie).

Oh, and if watching the video doesn't annoy you try watching it again and imagine hearing that all night! Don't bugs need to sleep too? I guess not in Virginia.

Home

August 18, 2010

This morning had an early start. There aren't many options flying from Portland to Washington Dulles. My flight left just after 8am so I was up at 5:20am. Things went well, check in at the Portland airport was a bit crazy but I snuck on in and got through pretty quick. I was then randomly chosen for extra security screening. It didn't take long and I still had 25 minutes before I needed to board the airplane. I had a layover in Chicago which usually means a delay but today I was lucky, my connecting flight left on time. I made it home around 7:30pm Eastern time. The end to another good trip.

The Drive North

August 17, 2010
This morning we took the truck to Ford in Redding, CA to get a much needed oil change and tire rotation. While it was at Ford we decided to take a short walk and found a local park by the Sacramento River. It was hot out but pretty nice in the shade. During our walk we saw some pretty big spiders and soon realized they were everywhere! It was really crazy and we made sure to stay on the paved path.
After the truck was done at Ford we hit the road and drove North along I-5 to Portland, OR. Along the way I took a quick photo of Mount Shasta which is just over 14,000 feet high.

Just before we got to the Grants Pass area we noticed the sky was pretty hazy. The air was filled with smoke. I looked up wildfires and found an article saying there is a 650 acre wildfire burning near Grants Pass.
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100816/NEWS/8160313

We pulled into Portland just in time for the evening rush hour. It took us 10 minutes to go under 1/2 a mile...we did go on a side street for a bit which helped but we couldn't avoid all of the congestion. We got to the hotel around 6:00pm. Tomorrow will be a cross country flight back to VA.

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

August 16, 2010
Today was a very HOT day! It was about 103 to 105 degrees! We washed our truck in the morning and when we were done we felt like we needed another shower. One, because the truck was so dirty and when you wash it the dirt seems to rub off onto you and second, because it was so hot out we were dripping...and not from the car wash water.After the truck wash we drove to the park which was only about 20 minutes outside of town. http://www.nps.gov/whis/ We started collection only to find that our first route was locked! We had just gotten done meeting with some park staff and went over all of the gate locations and we were assured they were unlocked...nope. The frustrating part was that the gate was at the end of a long windy route so I got the pleasure of driving it 4 times...up, down, up and down again. Each time saying "please don't let a car come". It was a pretty narrow road in spots and a pretty sharp drop off over the side with no guard rail. After that adventure we collected more routes and things went smoothly for about two hours.

Partly due to the heat and partly due to our slow speeds during collection the inverters in the truck were running low on power. The two truck alternators couldn't keep up with our power needs so the inverters were slowly giving up. They started beeping at 10.5 volts, they should normally be around 12.5 volts during collection with all of the computers on. We had to turn all of the computers off and drive the truck at highway speed for about 30 minutes to cool things down and get the power back up. After that we were collecting again but we weren't sure how long it would last. Luckily we were able to finish collection with the low point being 11.0 volts at the end of the day so we may have had a few more runs if needed. We did have the same "problem" with our last truck, when it is that hot out outside the truck has a harder time producing the power we need and keeping the inside cool. We knew today would be a pretty big test for the new truck. It handled the heat pretty well.
I wasn't able to get many photos of the park. It was just too hot to get out of our hot truck. We thought the truck was roasting until we got stepped outside to walk to the restroom. After we got back into the truck if felt "nice" but only for a few seconds.

And now, the kicker for the night...yes I'm back in my hotel room with the heat on! Yep, you read that right, the heat. The housekeeper cranked the AC while I was out and I enjoyed it for a few minutes but soon I switched it to the heater. Uhhhh....

Lassen Volcanic National Park - Day 2

August 15, 2010
This morning was another nice day. It was pretty hot in Redding so we were happy to be leaving for higher elevations. We collected the long route in Lassen which was about 29 miles long. Once we were done we had some newly reconstructed parking lots to look at and rate for the park. I took a photo of Lake Helen while we were looking at the Lake Helen Picnic Area Loop Parking. This photo is 3 photos stitched together which might give you an idea of the size of the lake.
We made some time to take a quick hike around Manzanita Lake. It was a 1.4 mile loop hike. Near the end of the hike we saw some trees that were down and someone drew a face on one of the trees. It was a pretty interesting sight to come across.

This photo shows the windy road on the South side of the park.

At the end of the day we were collecting a parking lot at the Lassen Peak Trailhead. The sky was turning pretty dark and it started to sprinkle. We left the area and headed down the mountain to get one last parking area before we left. As we were collecting the last parking area we saw and heard several park ranger vehicles zoom by with their sirens on and they were headed up the mountain. About 5 minutes later I heard a helicopter fly over and saw it circle around near the top of the mountain and then it landed up there somewhere. I don't know if the storm turned really bad at the top of the mountain but I hope whatever was going on turned out OK.

Lassen Volcanic National Park - Day 1

August 14, 2010
Today we drove from Klamath Falls, OR. to Lassen Volcanic National Park. The drive to the park was about 3 hours and went well, except for the agriculture inspection guy who wasn't paying attention and didn't realize that his co-worker already waved us through. We collected for a few hours in the park and then decided to take a hike in the southern side of the park. The hike was a 3 mile hike to King Creek Falls and took us just under 2 hours round trip. We walked though a field with lots of yellow flowers and the smell was nice, the kind you want to bottle up for a candle.

Lava Beds National Park

August 13, 2010
Today is Friday the 13th. What could go wrong? Collection went really well and we were done collecting Lave Beds in a couple of hours. We only had one minor problem with a glare in the rear camera coming off of the computer rack. I was able to fix it pretty quickly and we had no further delays. We decided to check out some of the lave tubes, we didn't go in very far since we didn't have a map but we did have 2 flash lights so we were half prepared. We did see a bat but I wasn't able to get a very good photo. I was able to get a quick photo of a little lizard on a rock, it was hot out and I think he was enjoying the sun.
After leaving the park we were about 9 miles from town and the van started coasting down the road. The digital reader on the dash said we had 40 miles left until empty but that wasn't true. There we were on the side of the road with no gas. At least we weren't far from town! I'm blaming it on Friday the 13th.

We saw this car in the Wal-mart parking lot...a Friday the 13th prank maybe?

Crater Lake National Park

August 12, 2010
This morning we left Bend, OR and headed South. Along the way I saw the biggest "Do Not Enter" sign I've ever seen. Not only is there one huge sign but there are also two normal sized "Do Not Enter" signs...just in case you missed one! Crazy.We made it to Crater Lake around 11:00am and finished collection around 5:00pm. Collecting in the new truck is amazing, we don't know what to do with ourselves not having to fix things all of the time. Collection goes pretty smooth. This park has some very narrow roads that shouldn't really be two lanes. We passed a big camper along one of these roads and it definitely got my blood pressure up for a couple of seconds. Our truck's wheels were driving on the middle yellow line and the outer white line, maybe clearing it by an inch and then when the camper came he was taking up more than his lane...yikes. It was very tight to say the least but we managed to squeeze by each other. We decided to eat dinner at the Crater Lake Lodge. We have eaten there before, we were at this park about 2 years ago and liked the food so we thought we'd go there again. It was a great dinner. I had pork with cranberry sauce (not the kind out of the can) and polenta...it was really good and flavorful.

Fort Vancouver and John Day Fossil Beds

August 11, 2010

This morning we spent an hour at the FHWA Western office getting my laptop fixed! After that morning adventure we collected Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. It only had two routes so we were done pretty quick. It is a nice, small park. http://www.nps.gov/fova/We then made our way 4 1/2 hours across Oregon to John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Doesn't sound like a bad drive but most of it was pretty desolate and there wasn't much to look at. To try and make the drive "interesting" Oregon DOT put up signs saying "Journey Through Time". I guess they have to try something. We did see several wind farms and I got a quick photo.

John Day Fossil Beds is also a smaller park with only two paved roads for us to collect. We were done in about 1 hour, the routes were about 15 miles apart. We stopped into the visitor center and they have a fossil lab with 3 workers cleaning off fossils they have found in the area. It was pretty interesting. http://www.nps.gov/joda/



We had one minor casualty today. This is the first time I've seen this during my 6 years on the job. A bird flew in front of the truck and got stuck. We didn't notice until we parked the truck for dinner. A sad, sad day.

Lewis and Clark National Park

August 10, 2010
This morning we collected data along a Washington DOT control site to compare our data with data from the WA DOT truck. The data from our truck match closely with the data from the WA DOT trucks, which is what we hoped for. After 2 hours of control site runs we headed South to Fort Clatsop / Lewis and Clark National Park. We drove in and out of rain the whole way which tests our nerves. It is disappointing when the roads are wet and you have to wait for the rain to stop or the roads to dry. We didn't know if we would be able to collect but about 15 minutes before we arrived at the park the sky cleared up and the rain stopped. The roads were dry. We were very lucky! After collecting in the park we spotted this raccoon (above) on the side of the road. I wasn't fast enough to get my camera out but our truck cameras cought him...cute!

After we finished collecting we headed to Astoria, OR where the movie "Goonies" was filmed. We headed over to the "Goonies house" to get a quick photo. It is a private home but still neat to see from the outside. It makes me want to watch the movie again. I took a couple photos of the town, taken from the Goonies house driveway. After a couple of photos we hit the road again for an hour and 1/2 drive to Vancouver, WA where we are spending the night.

Back on the Road...

August 9, 2010

Today I left Washington Dulles at 12:30pm and 5 hours later I arrived in Seattle, WA. It was a long cross country flight but there were no delays and all went well. On the flight they played two movies. Oceans, which is a Disney nature film and it put me to sleep in about 15 minutes. They then played Shrek The Final Chapter. That movie was OK but didn't really keep my interest so I only watched a few parts, mostly the ending. After landing we drove down to Olympia, WA for the night. It was a bit chilly in the mid 60s but a very nice break from the heat and humidity of the east coast. At the hotel there were several tall evergreen trees with a pretty strong smell, I loved it. I wish I could have bottled it up.

Day 7 - Time to Go

July 30, 2010
Today was our last day. We didn't leave until 8:30pm so we still had the whole day to spend on the island. We went to the hotel buffet breakfast and then checked out. We took a walk on the beach before heading South to Kona. We took a ride on the Atlantis submarine. We saw a lot of fish and two ship wrecks. There wasn't much color under the water and it was hard to get a good fish photo but it was a fun ride. After the submarine we went to a local park to let my niece play before getting some dinner. After dinner we returned the rental car and went to the airport for the long over night flight home.