Heading East

June 8, 2010

Today was a long 10 hour day in the car. It was mostly uneventful, which is always good. I got up at 5:30am central time / 4:30am MTN time! Even with the early wake-up we still didn't hit the road until 7:00am. It was cloudy most of the day with a few random rain showers in NE, IA and MN. We almost had a run in with 2 deer that were running across the interstate and made it to the median but luckily once they were in the median they decided to run parallel with the car rather than run across the road. A near miss! We saw several wind turbine blades being hauled on the interstate. There are a lot of wind farms in IA! I also saw a pretty big convoy of military fuel trucks. It was neat to see. I couldn't snap a photo because I was driving when we passed the convoy. We made it "home" to Rochester around 5:00pm . I'm taking a break from driving tomorrow to visit family for the day but Thursday and Friday will be big driving days again. I hope to be in VA by Friday night.

Moving Day

June 7, 2010

The day has finally arrived! Lots of phone calls and planning have finally paid off and things are falling into place. Most things are falling into place at the last minute but I'm learning that that is just how things work. The moving truck showed up at 8:30am and they looked at my stuff and said "oh, this should go pretty quick." Four hours later they finally finished. I had a feeling it would take them a bit longer than a couple of hours. I have lots of stuff! I had to do some quick errands while the movers were at my house with my dad and when I got back one of the movers said "what do you have rocks in some of those boxes." I just looked at him and started laughing. I said "sorry, but yes they are really rocks." I've moved them many times myself so I know his pain but he is getting paid to move them and I did tell him "thank you for moving my rocks." What can I say...I'm a rockhound at heart. I just can't part with them...they do look pretty on my shelves. The movers left around 1:00 in the afternoon. My dad and I did some last minute cleaning and packing of my car and we were on the road around 3:00pm. We drove to North Platte, NE where some friends were kind enough to take us in for the night. Thanks a bunch to Jim and Irma!

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

May 27, 2010

Today we were able to finish collection in Great Sand Dunes. We hope this will be the last park with our old truck! I took one last photo of the vehicle in a park to remember the occasion :). I don't think anyone will really miss that truck. This morning it was showing really low voltage with no computer systems on, which typically means an alternator is on the way out. Luckily the truck held on so we could finish this park. The new truck treated us pretty well today.

We had some time in the afternoon to take a quick walk down to the river and walk across it so we could walk on the sand dunes a bit. It was windy and the sand hurt when it hit you (face and legs), ouch! I was not expecting that. I think I will see lingering sand for awhile. My shoes were filled with it.

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

May 26, 2010
Today we drove from Raton, NM to Alamosa, CO and started collection at Great Sand Dunes. We had some problems with the new truck in the morning again and then had problems with the old truck in the afternoon. We had about 4 hours of good collection though so I'll take it. It was much warmer here than I thought it would be. Around 3:00pm it was 85 degrees in the old truck and one of the computers started beeping, which means "turn me off now or I'll turn myself off soon"! I tried all my old tricks to cool the truck off but nothing worked. It made our collection day end at 3:30pm. We took a short loop hike by the visitor center and I was able to get some photos. This is a pretty park.

Capulin Volcano National Park

May 25, 2010

This morning was a long drive across the pan handle of Oklahoma. It was mostly wide open range with nothing exciting to look at. Near the boarder of New Mexico we drove through an area that looked like a tornado had passed through not long ago. Many field sprinklers were mangled and broken. A farm shed had the siding and part of the roof taken off and the metal mangled around the fence that was across the road. It was pretty crazy.

About 20 minutes from the park I turned on the computer systems in the new truck to get things ready. Thus begun a long afternoon of troubleshooting. We had more issues than I was hoping. All had a quick fix but some of the problems still linger. Because of the delay we were in a bit of a time crunch at the park so we didn't get a chance to walk around and enjoy the park. They close the gate at 4pm. We were able to stay a bit longer but only to get our work done, so there was no time to hike. I did get a couple of photos. There were some storm clouds in the distance which was neat to see. It was a productive day because we were able to finish the park but a discouraging day because we had some problems with our new truck.