Author Archives: admin

Trust

I spent the first half of yesterday working on a five minute project. I’ve been looking at a panel on the RV that covers the rear wheels, near a cargo drawer, that was out of alignment. The panel stuck in a couple of inches. I’m not sure when I first noticed that the panel wasn’t properly aligned, but I’ve been practicing doing nothing, and someone told me that we’d done enough nothing for the week. They continued that if we did too much more nothing, there wouldn’t be enough nothing to do, next week, so I decided to do something. My friend Al said “One of the problems  is that you never really know when you’re finished doing nothing.”. Smart man. Continue reading

Hurricanes that Disappear

When you travel, weather is always a concern, but sometimes the results of weathermen are amazing. The location I’m visiting is Shenandoah National Park, and we planned to stay through a weekend. I obtained reservations for Wednesday and Thursday nights at Loft Mountain Campground, the more southern large campground in the park, and I had a spot at Big Meadows for Friday evening, but I needed one in Big Meadow for Saturday and Sunday nights. I checked the reservations for the park online for Big Meadows, and there were no reservable spots. It looked like all of the Washington DC metro area was heading to the mountains before the Labor Day weekend. Continue reading

The Owens Valley and Insight

I’m in the Owens Valley. Famous or infamous by Manzanar, the WWII Japanese Internment Camp, or the greet Los Angeles water robbery that created caustic conditions in the valley and effectively eliminated agriculture. I’ve been to the Valley three or four times, and I wanted to figure out why I keep on coming back. The place is beautiful, but … Continue reading

Campfires

I sat by the fire tonight, reflecting. I’ve always looked at a fire as the release of the summer’s sun, contained in the wood from all those years go. I’ve sat by many fires over most of my life. I spent my summers on the East End of Long Island, on a piece of property my grandfather purchased about 1947. My Father’s best man, Bob Hartwell bought a piece of property on the North Shore of the Lower Fork of the East End, in a place called Noyac. He built a house carved out of the oak forest mantling the hills of the South Fork. He cleared the land, and as a result, he and his children, my unofficial cousins, became masters of woodcraft. Camp fires were a common occurrence, both out of necessity and pleasure. Continue reading

Camp Day at the Salton Sea

I’ve developed a bad habit of making a schedule and rushing to keep on schedule. This January, for the trip I’m on, I drove from NJ to Arizona, a distance if just over 2,800 miles in four and a half days. Last Fall, I drove from NJ to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, just over 1,000 miles, in about two days. I knew I was developing bad habits in thin thinking I could get quickly from one place to another. I also knew that with all the traveling I did last year, the best times were those where I fooled around with the RV and did close to nothing for a while. Continue reading