Tag Archives: GPS

2013/12/31 (T) Good Bye 2013

The final day of the Arcadia (Bussin’) Rally featured breakfast, seminars, meetings, tire kicking, preliminary departure preparations, dinner, door prizes, and a New Year’s Eve party with a live band.

Tin Can Tourists.

Tin Can Tourists.

Once again breakfast was coffee, juice, donuts, and bagels.  But we didn’t have to cook it or clean it up, and it was the first social activity of the day, so it hit the spot.  The building was already decorated for New Year’s Eve with sparkly signs and ceiling streamers.  Although celebrations are really about the people, the room decorations added a festive touch.

CCO meeting.

CCO meeting.

After breakfast I went over to photograph Frank Morrison’s GMC PD4014 “Cool Cruiser” and interviewed him about it for a possible BCM featured bus article.  The coach conversion was originally done by an architect in Flint, Michigan and the interior is different because of that.  Frank bought the bus from him.

CCO meeting.

CCO meeting.

The morning seminar was on GPS and mapping technology with Tom Mason.

Paula and Jack Conrad, Bussin’ Rally founders.

Paula and Jack Conrad, Bussin’ Rally founders.

We did not attend the morning seminar because the Converted Coach Owners (CCO), which we belong to, had a meeting at the same time.  There were approximately 15 people in attendance.  CCO is a small, independent group of converted bus owners most of whom are from the lower Great Lakes area, so this was a pretty good turnout for being so far away from home.

Roundtable discussion with Howard Best.

Roundtable discussion with Howard Best.

After the CCO meeting I had the opportunity to talk with Jack Conrad at some length about the rally and get a few pictures of him and Paula.  Jack and Paul started the Bussin’ Rally in December 2000 (the 2001 Rally) and turned it over to Bill and Brenda Phelan after the 11th one in December 2010.  Acadia Rally 2014 (Dec 2013) was Bill and Brenda’s third as organizers and hosts.

New Year’s Eve Dinner.

Bingo!

The afternoon seminar was a roundtable discussion lead by Howard Best.  With respect to owner-converted buses the knowledge and experience that assembles at the Arcadia Rally is probably unmatched by any other such gathering during the year.  Even with 100 buses and 200 people, the Arcadia Rally was very relaxed and these experts were very accessible.  Throughout the rally participants ambled from bus to bus and stopped to chat.  Sometimes they pulled up a chair and sometimes you would find their heads in a bay discussing a technical issue.  It was just that kind of event, and has been since it started in Dec 2000.

The last meal of 2013.

The last meal of 2013.

The afternoon seminar was followed by bingo with Bob Ernst calling the action once again.  Linda, Karen, and Kathy came over to play, and Linda had bingo on the first card!  I think she’s hooked.

This dress was entirely covered with pull tabs from cans.

This dress was entirely covered with pull tabs from cans.

As the day went on we noticed quite a few people making preliminary departure preparations and decided we should do the same.  We had hoped to not have to dump our tanks until we got back to Williston on the 1st, but we were getting low on fresh water which usually means our waste tanks are nearing full.  We dumped our holding tanks, filled the fresh water tank to the 2/3rds mark, stowed the water hose, and put lawn chairs away.  All that remained to do on the outside for tomorrow was stowing a step stool, a couple of mats, disconnecting the electrical shoreline and stowing it; turning on the chassis batteries and engine accessories air switch, and hooking up the car for towing.  The inside usually takes less than an hour to get ready and we typically deal with that about 90 minutes before we plan to pull out.  We don’t like to do this too soon as once the interior is prepped for travel it is more difficult to use for living.

The food servers for the last meal of 2013.

The food servers for the last meal of 2013.

At 5:15 PM we headed over to the activities building with Bill, Karen, Mike, and Kathy for dinner.  A centerpiece had been added to each table and about half of the rally goers had changed into dressier clothes.  Like last night’s meal, there was a serving line to get your food.  Volunteers staffed the various serving stations, and it was a smooth, quick process.  Dinner included spaghetti with marinara sauce (no meat, thank you!), veal parmesan, shrimp, green salad (no cheese, thank you again), and desserts, including fruit cocktail (thank you a third time) with sweetened tea, unsweetened tea, and water to drink.  People also brought their own beverages to suit their tastes.

Bill and Karen.

Bill and Karen.

As the band started bringing in their equipment I figured it was going to be a long, loud night, so after dinner I went back to the coach to work in quiet surroundings.  In my absence the door prizes were given out starting at 7 PM.  After the door prizes were distributed a group of volunteers put the New Year’s Eve party decorations on the tables.  These consisted of plastic lei, party hats, tiaras, and noise makers.

Kathy and Mike.

Kathy and Mike.

The New Year’s Eve party got started around 8 PM with country rock band Desert Moon.  We sat with our dinner group at a table in the middle of the room with good access to the main doors.  The room acoustics were very “live” and the volume was dangerously high so Bill and I came and went throughout the evening, finding camaraderie with like-minded individuals who gathered outside the building to talk buses in the cool evening air.  The median age of the rally participants was probably between 65 and 70, and many people left long before midnight and of those who remained many were also in and out of the building.  There were often more people dancing while the band was on break than when they were playing as the volume of the pre-recorded music was lower.  But enough of us stuck it out until midnight to bring in the New Year when Bill and Brenda lowered a sparkling ball from the ceiling while we counted down from 10.  At the stroke of midnight (EST) we all said our “Happy New Year’s,” and then many of us went back to our coaches and went to bed.

Desert Moon.

Desert Moon.

Our children are grown and have not spent New Year’s Eve with us in quite some time, having lives and friends of their own with whom to celebrate the coming of the New Year.  Our tradition for more than 10 years now has been to spend a quiet evening at home enjoying some traditional foods, watching the celebrations from around the world on TV, and finally having a champagne toast at midnight.  We no longer have those foods since we changed the way we eat and we have been busy enough at the rally that it never occurred to us to buy a bottle of “bubbly.”  We did open a bottle of Black Star Arcturos Late Harvest Riesling, which served the occasion just fine, but what we really enjoyed was ringing out the old year and bringing in the new one with old and new friends who share our interest in the converted coach and the lifestyle it makes possible.

 

2013_08_09-12 (F, S, N, M) Odds And Ends

There is a certain routine to being back at the house, and when we are here it feels like we should get back into that routine.  Otherwise, it becomes too easy to sleep in, start slow, and not get around to even thinking about doing things until the afternoon, by which time it is too late to start anything.

Friday we were still unloading a few things from the bus, finishing up laundry (me), weeding the flower beds (Linda), catching up on accounting tasks (Linda), catching up on operating system updates (me), and other such necessities of daily living.  I placed calls to various service providers and filled out an online trouble report to try and get our AT&T phone line back in service.  Based on the missed calls on our answering machine, it appears that the phone line quite working around June 25th.  What I found interesting was that our High Speed Internet (HSI/DSL) worked fine and never went out.

With necessary chores attended to I turned my attention to writing first drafts of articles for Bus Conversions Magazine (BCM).  I had started an article a while back on the exterior makeover so finished a first draft of that and sent it off to Michele Henry of Phoenix Paint for review.  I had six other projects I had worked on the last 11 months that I also thought would make good articles.  Over the course of the weekend I completed first drafts of all six and sent all seven article drafts off to the Publisher (Gary Hall) and Editor (Wendy Crosby) of BCM, sans pictures.

Until today (Monday) the weather has been delightful since we returned, with blue skies, a few puffy white clouds, highs in the low-to-mid 70’s and lows in the upper 50’s.  Friday evening we decided to get out of the house for a while so we drove to downtown Brighton and went for a walk along the Mill Pond.  This is a large pond formed by a small dam in the heart of downtown, and it has a boardwalk that runs along the east side for about 1/2 mile.  Besides people there were ducks and geese, including babies, and a swan.  We also saw bluebirds and two muskrats.  Downtown Brighton is a happening place on a Friday night.  There were lots of people at the many restaurants, but equally many out walking.

Part of our routine is Saturday morning ham radio breakfast, usually with the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC) of which we are members, but occasionally with the Novi Radio Club.  Having been gone for a while we went to the SLAARC breakfast.  It was good to see our ham radio friends and catch up on what everyone has been doing.  Folks were interested in our travels, of course, and we enjoyed sharing a little bit about that.

Back home I decided to run a computer network cable from our AT&T Gateway to my office in the basement so I could connect the computers down there to a hub and and connect it back to the Gateway.  I’ve been trying to accomplish this connectivity with WiFi, but have had limited success.  I ran a small experiment first to make sure it would work, plugging my laptop into the hub and the hub into the Gateway with all of the components in close physical proximity to the Gateway.  It worked, so I proceeded with the larger project.

I had to enlarge a hole from the basement up into the wall cavity behind Linda’s desk, and managed to nick the Cat5 cable that carries the DSL/phone signal to the Gateway.  Naturally the AT&T repair truck showed up a short time later.  That did not turn out to be problem, however, as the technician very quickly determined that the problem was somewhere upstream in their system.  He had our signals restored at the outside junction box long before I was ready to reconnect to them.

I managed to get the Cat6 network cable run through the suspended ceiling in the basement and into the office.  I put the hub in the center of the room and ran the longest cables I had from various devices across the floor and over things.  I would include a picture, but it isn’t a pretty sight.  😉  The hardwired connection isn’t necessarily faster than the wireless one, but it stays connected, which is more important than speed.

While I was at it I decided to run a new, higher quality Cat6 cable from the AT&T junction box (outside) to the AT&T Gateway (inside).  After poking around in the attics above the garage and the house, I decided that this was not a project that had to be done at this time.  As I have worked on projects in the basement I have been removing old telephone wires as we use a cordless phone system and the wiring is obsolete.  I was going to to continue that work, but decided for now to just fix the cable I had damaged and get our phone/DSL connections back on line.

Another part of our routine is the Sunday morning Howell Farmers Market.  The nice weather continued and we enjoyed strolling through the market and talking to the vendors.  We bought some corn and peppers and herbs.  We bought some more coffee beans from Irene’s Beans of Milford, and also from Teeko’s of Howell.  Teeko’s is not far from our house and they keep their beans green until you buy them.  They then roast them to your taste while you wait.  They have a very wide selection of beans, including 100% Kona and Jamaica Blue Mountain.  These are premium coffee beans and are not generally available even at upscale food markets.

On Sunday Linda split her time between weeding, her computer, and just relaxing, which usually involves reading.  Of course she also took time to make meals, which were good, as usual.  I continued working on articles drafts and started updating our GPS units.  I had the docking/update software for both units installed on an older laptop that is not very fast, even with a hardwired network connection.  I replaced the hard disk drive in that laptop some time ago with a solid state drive as I plan to use that computer to run the Silverleaf VMSpc software for monitoring the bus engine while I drive.  I figured the SSD would be more tolerant of bumps and vibrations.  It probably is, but I did not figure on how incredibly slow it would be.

It took quite a while, but I got the Garmin nüvi 465T updated.  This is a nice little GPS unit designed for truckers (the T model) with a 4″ diagonal screen.  Because it is designed for truckers, we can create profiles for different vehicles/combinations, including length, width, height, and weight.  That is very handy when driving a large vehicle.  We use it in the toad, and as a backup for the bus.  I need to move the docking software to my newer laptop if I can figure out how to do it.  Part of the problem is that I also have map subscriptions installed on the old laptop and have to move those as well.

Sunday night was our monthly SLAARC meeting in South Lyon.  Linda opted not to go, but as the Vice-President of the club for this year, I really needed to make an appearance.  Besides, the program was on how to use an oscilloscope.  The presenter was (Dr.) Steve Smith, N8AR, a member of our club and retired electrical/communications engineer who worked on the space program at one point in his career.  Steve has done a number of presentations for our club.  They are always good, and they always draw a crowd, and this was no exception.

This morning (Monday the 12th) we woke to find it very overcast with a high probability of showers for most of the day.  That meant we would not be doing much outside work today.  Our Honda Element (towed vehicle) was overdue for it’s 75,000 mile service, so we took it to Brighton Honda right after breakfast.  While I was getting it written up Linda picked up my favorite Amy’s frozen pizza for dinner as she had plans for dinner and movie with Diane; their belated annual birthday night out.

I planned to continue working on my articles for BCM, selecting, adding, and annotating photos to illustrate them.  But first I decided to install the docking software for our Rand-McNally RVND7710 GPS.  That was easy; the software resides in the non-volatile memory of the unit, which connects to the computer via a USB cable.  I checked for updates; there were some, so I installed them.

I then decided to purchase the Lifetime Map updates, which I had not done previously.  I accomplished that easily enough but had a little trouble getting the docking software to accept the Activation Key.  Closing the software, powering the GPS down, turning it back on, and re-launching the docking software got it to work, but that wasn’t part of the instructions.  Great; time to download and install updated maps, which I did.  It took eight (8) hours!  I know our Internet connection is not very fast, and  I have no idea how much data got downloaded, but 8 hours?!  Unfortunately that tied up my laptop for most of the day, so whatever else I had hoped to accomplish got delayed.  But that was OK; it rained all day, and a slower pace with a subdued tone somehow seemed appropriate.

 

2013_07_08 (Mon) A Day To Get Ready

The historic Sheridan Inn.

The historic Sheridan Inn.

Our nominal HFH work schedule is Tuesday through Saturday, so we had today available to do whatever we wanted/needed to do.  The Sheridan visitor center is close by so we went there early to get information and a walking tour map of downtown.  Sheridan has more than 50 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, many from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.

Buffalo Bill Cody hung out here and interviewed acts for his Wild West show on the porch.

Buffalo Bill Cody hung out here and interviewed acts for his Wild West show on the porch.

Just coincidently, the Sheridan WYO Rodeo is taking place this week (it’s a big deal), so there is a lot of signage and commerce related to that.  Accommodations are hard come by, and a bit pricier, in the area because of the rodeo.  Fortunately our spots at Peter D’s were pre-arranged far in advance and at a slight discount.  We were asked to contribute $20/day towards the $32 cost of our site, and the local HFH affiliate picked up the difference.

Our walking tour done, we found the local Albertson’s grocery store using the Point Of Interest feature on our Garmin 465T GPS.  (This is the GPS we use in the car.  We can use it as a handheld unit, but we rarely do.  We have a DeLorme handheld GPS that we use for hiking and geocaching.  We use a Rand-McNally RV GPS in the motorhome.)

The Mint Bar.  "Meet me at the Mint" is what the locals say.  Lots of bars in town, not too many wine stores/

The Mint Bar. “Meet me at the Mint” is what the locals say. Lots of bars in town, not too many wine stores.

Besides a few grocery items, we were looking for some wine.  The Albertson’s in Gillette had a separate, attached store, but the one in Sheridan did not sell beer, wine, or liquor.  In this county you can only buy alcoholic beverages at a “liquor store.”  There was a small one a few doors down from Albertson’s, so we went there.

Back at the rig I continued working on my blog posts until it was time to go to the 4:30 PM social at Steven Gullette’s trailer.  A glass of wine and finger snacks with our new(est) friends; RVing is a good life.

For dinner, Linda made a flatbread pizza with caramelized onions, peppers, olives, kale, mushrooms, garlic, and a touch of balsamic vinegar.  There were severe storms in the area that we were tracking using several weather apps on our smartphones, but none that appeared to be a concern for us.  Before she got the pizza in the oven, the wind came up very suddenly and flipped up the front arm on our large driver-side awning.  We scrambled outside to retrieve the ladder and poles needed to stow the awnings, and were assisted by Marvin and Leo from the motorhome just to our west.  Linda hung on to the patio awning strap (barely) while we got the driver-side awning straightened out and stowed.  We then ganged up on the patio awning and got it stowed.  I then stowed the two small awnings.  The wind in Wyoming is constant and can get very strong very suddenly.  Hot, bright sunshine notwithstanding, we may just leave our awnings up for the duration of our visit.

The potential crisis averted, Linda finished assembling the pizza and baked it using the convection bake feature of the microwave oven.  She bought a flexible silicone baking disk at Escapade and has been using it to great success.  The pizza was fabulous; another example of how she is developing the ability to improvise dishes based on ingredients (G-BOMBS) that are the staples of our way of eating (WFPB).  (Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, and Seeds.  We also let G stand for Grains.)

It was still light after dinner, so we went for a ride to locate the two build sites and see a bit more of Sheridan.  We found the county fairgrounds where the Sheridan Wyo Rodeo will take place and saw a magnificent sunset from there. We also found Kendrick Park, which has a wild animal section with Bison and Elk, but couldn’t find the entrance.  The Kendrick family was prominent in the founding and development of Sheridan, and a number of buildings in town bear the “K” which was their mark.