More From San Francisco...

February 6, 2010
Today our task was to make sure our older truck was working. You never know what to expect with that truck and true to form it ended up being a long day. We fixed several little things and one major thing. The major thing was that one of the GPS antenna's on the top of the truck went bad. I'm pretty sure that is the original antenna so I can understand why it finally gave out but honestly we only need to use that truck for one more week! It is going to put up a fight until the very end! Luckily we had a spare antenna. Mounting the spare antenna on the truck proved to take a bit longer than we had hoped. Whoever came up with English and metric sizes for screws and threading of parts didn't realize what a big headache they were creating. Anyway, after getting things working again we did a distance calibration. After we were done with the old truck we went and got the new truck and did a distance calibration on that truck. After turning on all of the systems in the new truck I realized the rear camera was black...we couldn't see the image. I have no idea why it is acting up. I jumped in the back of the truck to look at the camera and noticed water on the top of the computer rack and water drops on the rear camera....uhhh. Apparently there is a problem with the seal around the back doors and water is getting in the truck, right on a brand new camera! I'm speechless...we aren't supposed to have ANY problems with the new truck! The good thing it is all under warranty but with rain in the forecast a water leak is not a good thing. Luckily we have trash bags in the truck and wrapped the camera in a trash bag, although I'm not sure if the camera is broken or not because we never got it to work so we could actually see an image. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I took a couple of photos while we were in the parking lot working on the older truck. We were down by the water at a place called Crissy Field. It is a really pretty area and there is no better place to work on a truck!

San Francisco

February 5, 2010
We rolled into San Francisco this evening about 6:30pm Pacific time. It was a long day...for me anyway. It was a rough morning so Jeff pulled through taking the morning driving shift. The afternoon was better and we made it over Donner Pass w/o needing chains! There was a warning message that said "unsettled weather, carry chains"...I guess that is one way to put it. It did rain and snow while we made our way over the pass but we've definitely driven through worse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Pass

We were greeted in San Francisco by rush hour traffic. For those of you who might not understand what the really means I posted a photo :) . Just to be safe add an extra 1/2 hour (minimum) onto your commute time. I also took a quick photo of the bay bridge.

The evening ended with dinner at Joe's Crab Shack on the warf. It is was nice out, in the 50s and no rain. It is good to be back in San Francisco. When I first started this job Golden Gate National Recreation Area was my first park...uhhh the memories.

On The Move...

February 4, 2010
Today we hit the road in the new truck and headed West. We are on our way to San Francisco, Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Last night is snowed in northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming. I was a bit nervous that the summit/mountain pass between Cheyenne and Laramie would be closed or snow covered but it wasn't that bad. We made it across the pass with only one short stretch that had bad blowing snow.

Here are a few things I thought of today... You know you are in Wyoming when...you walk into a gas station and they are selling flannel and fleece shirts right at the front door. This is for all of those poor travelers who thought they could tolerate the Wyoming weather but then realize "why suffer" :). You know you are in Utah when...you cross the border and the first thing you see is a billboard for Temple Square...ha!

More Interesting Things...

January 30, 2010

This past week was a crazy week for me for a few reasons. Work was pretty good but the middle of the week was a real hurdle...I'm glad it is over. Good thing my dad flew out for the week to help me keep my sanity. I won't go into detail but I'll just say never take for granted good digestive health! Anyway, below is a photo of the 3 of us at work on Friday...it sums up the week pretty well :). We are getting ready to take out the yellow beast for one last trip. It pretty much works but not without it's typical attitude. Jeff and I might be playing a few games of rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to be in the new white truck and who gets to be in the old yellow truck :).

I was working on Zion road logs (documenting intersections etc...) and came across this interesting image. The three smaller images I posted are from our forward facing cameras. Yep, it is pretty dark (we were in a tunnel) but if you squint hard enough you might get a small glimpse of the car in front of us! The funny part is the pavement image at this same spot. I guess someone thought they had better warn people that the end of the tunnel was coming up and paint the word "SLOW" on the pavement. The person who did it must have forgotten to paint the message with glow in the dark paint!

Office Work

January 21, 2010

I realized today that I haven't posted anything on my blog for a few days. I've been a bit under the weather but am now on the road to recovery and a new posting is way over due.

I was at work today looking at video and documenting intersections etc... and I came across some funny images. In the parks you never know what you are going to see and people seem to do some interesting things. These two photos show that no matter where people are some aren't afraid to show what they have. In both photos people have their things laying out on the ground for all to see...not sure what they were up to...reorganizing, drying out, who knows... :).

This image of old buildings was taken from one of our routes in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It is an area that used to be the "Appalachian Club" vacation community near the old town of Elkmont. This club first began as a "gentleman's hunting club". The community is now no longer due to the National Park obtaining the land and all residents were required to leave. The last lease ended in 2001. The NPS plan is to demolish all buildings but there are ongoing debates. This is a great historic community and I found a couple of websites that has some other good photos of the old town. http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/tn/elkmont.html

http://www.blountweb.com/littleriverrailroad/elkmont.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~tnhiker/lifeafter50onemansperspective/id43.html