All the cool blog names were taken, so my cats, Cooler and Fizler, lent their names. This blog is about our third or fourth mega-trip that Will and I have taken to Vermont every September since the year before Hurricane Katrina.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Go away, Gustav!

Three years ago, when Katrina hit New Orleans, Will and I were preparing to drive north to Vermont. By the time we got to St. Louis, the hurricane had swept through New Orleans, had hooked east and was bringing rain all across the midsection of the country. Will, Zeke and I decided, rather than drive in driving rain, that we would spend two nights in St. Louis and let Katrina get out of the way. That was when we took Zeke on his first visit to doggie day care. We hit the free museums in St. Louis and watched it rain from a hotel room.

Fast forward three years. On the third anniversary of Hurrican Katrina, we're getting ready to travel to Vermont again, this time via Memphis and North Carolina for the Live & Learn Conference. Hurricane Gustav is bearing down on New Orleans, for landfall late Monday (9/1) or Tuesday morning!

We should be well on our way across Arkansas by the time it makes landfall, but I wonder if it is going to catch up with us in Tennessee. Remains of it could affect the conference outside of Asheville, too.

So go away, Gustav! Don't ruin my trip!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

T minus 4 days

Just got through watching Obama's acceptance speech. I can't find anything to dislike about him. I know certain people think I should be for Hillary, but you know she's unelectable when still, 8 years later, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette regularly publishes letters to the editor about how much they still hate the Clintons. Obama's a smart guy. We're the same age (I'll be 47 in January, he turned in August). I didn't like Biden during the primaries--same old same old--but I enjoyed his speech at the convention. I softened up a little over the tragedy in his life. He's not a bad choice, I guess. This is the first time I've ever been excited about a candidate, and it started back in the first part of the year. So let me just say it--Obama for President! That's it for the political talk on this blog!

~~~~~~~~~
So there are a little less than 4 days until we leave. I've spent so much time on stuff for other people I haven't had much time to work on the packing, etc. Holly is coming over tomorrow to bring a bag for Dillon. I hope it's not too big!

I'm thinking of putting another box on top of the cargo box, but I don't know how I would attach it.

~~~~~
Oh no, religion! The guy who just did the closing prayer at the convention did something GREAT, especially for a Christian. He asked everyone in the audience to close the prayer in the way their own traditions close prayer. I guess that means the Catholics were crossing and the Jews weren't saying "in Jesus name" (I don't know how they Jews close prayers other than amen). I'm happy to see a prominent pastor do such a thing. So that's it for religion on this blog! It's a twofer--religion and politics in one post!
~~~~~~~

So how would I attach another cargo box to the top of the big cargo box? I thought about a cargo net, but it would still have to be strapped down. I also thought of taking certain things out of the box (chair, tent) and bungying them to the front of the box, between the box and the tailgate. Then maybe I wouldn't need another box. Unfortunately, all the boxes I've found are either too small or two flimsey to withstand driving rain, especially with straps pinching them.

Thought about putting a box on top of the Element, but that's just too much drag. Not gonna do it. I guess I'll wait and see what the load looks like for sure.

I'm planning on riding my bike every day if just for a mile, the whole time I'm gone. Gonna have to lift some weights, do some MYB, or something, too.

Hitting it hard tomorrow: washing the car, vacuuming, cleaning up the house. G'night!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Weezer tickets

Turns out Weezer is playing in Lowell, MA, about 35 miles from Manchester, NH, on the day we are picking up at NBTSC. So, since we can't get our rollercoaster fix on this trip, we're going to a Weezer concert. Costs about the same as a theme park! Will is very stoked about it.

All better

We had a good weekend, with nothing to do but hang out. We did go to the ballpark and install the water pipe for the sprinkler to the mound. I helped Charles by bailing and sucking water out of the trench. It was muddy work, but it had to be done so the field can be dried out and ready for sod by the end of the week, hopefully.

My legs don't hurt anymore! I did the run this morning at boot camp but only went half way. I ran the whole way, though.

I manufactured window dressings for the Element on Sunday. It works pretty well, the Reflectix. I can roll them all up, put a bungee around them, and put them up in the cargo net on the ceiling. That cargo net is staying up there forever, that's for sure. Handy as a pocket. Or is it a pocket?

I finally got the Centurion back from Community Bicyclist. It is set up so sweeeeeet, but I wish the interruptor levers were a little farther apart. I think he was leaving room for my handlebar bag, but I'm not sure. I don't think they can be changed without new cable/housing. I will have to get used to the barcons, but I don't think it will take long. The real test will be in Asheville next week. I need to put my shoes on and give it a real work out. I rode it to boot camp this morning, but didn't bother to put my shoes on. Just pushed the Frogs without being attached. That's dangerous for my knees, but I took it easy.

Thinking about changing out the pedals and making it my "porch bike", the one that I just hop on and ride to the post office or whereever I need to go. Since I'm only home a week before I leave for a month, I think I'll put that off--but I'll still keep it on the porch, because I like looking at it so much!

Oh, and it fits on the rig I made for the inside of the Element! Fits perfectly, as if I used it instead of the 1000 to make the rig. It makes the rig darn heavy, though!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Still sore

At 4;17, I woke up, one hour before the alarm was to go off. I turned over and moved my legs to the edge of the bed and OW! More pain in my calves, like it never left. There was no way I could do boot camp this morning; it would be hard just getting there. I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep.

Last night at the Natural game I put my feet up on the seat in front of me, with my knees bent, and at the end of the night I thought my legs felt a little better by the time we left.

This morning, no dice. Not better. Barely walking.

I did get to catch up on Mad Men this morning.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

OUCH!!!

Yesterday at boot camp, we went to climb the JBU stairs. 100 stairs. When you get to the top, there's a huge granite sign that says California. No wonder they're so hard to climb! They take you all the way to California!

Anyway, we went up at our own pace, and down, and as many reps as we could. Noel said the women could probably do 4 and the men 5. I did 3. I could have done four, after a little rest. After all, we were watching Mark try to break the gym record by climbing them 21 times! He did it.

Today, I'm very glad I did not do the 4th set! My legs were all noodly after 3. They were extremely tired all day, as if I had run a marathon. Now, I've never run a marathon, but I've been on my feet all day before. I went to actual boot camp, too. My legs have been tired, but never THIS tired.

I went straight home and did lots of walking around the yard, to keep my legs from stiffening up. I took about 5 wheelbarrow loads of weeks out to the brush pile--that's about 75 yards of walking each way. I did that for about an hour and a half, and walked around Wal-Mart later in the day, but did very little else because of the fatigue. I moaned and groaned all day, every time I moved. I was just tired.

I thought, hmmm, tomorrow I'll hop on a bike and do a few easy miles to loosen up.

This morning, though, I'm SORE. It's my calves. From just below the lower part of the curve, to the bottom of my ankle, they're sore. To the touch, even. I used the rolling pin on my legs last night, thinking it would help. It did. My hams and quads are fine, but still tired. The calves, though, OUCH. I laid in bed an extra two hours because I didn't want to go down the stairs!

So Will asked me to take him to 3DPT (the source of all my pain) to work out this morning. When I walked in, Noel laughingly said, "Oh, Karen Tucker's calves are hurting!!" He KNEW. I don't know if it was his well trained eye watching my gait, or his experience with the JBU stairs. I told him I'd come in to give him a piece of my mind. He said that his were hurting, too. When he starts getting back into it, there is a transition period. He wonders why he ever quits climbing the stairs.

Ibprofen isn't helping. I used Noel's rolling pin, too. It hurts just to touch them. I sure hope they're better by boot camp in the morning! If not, no side-straddle hops for me!

Monday, August 18, 2008

No window tinting

I looked it up. Since I randomly chose PA in the earlier post, I checked PA's laws. They're more strict than Arkansas. Arkansas has pretty strict laws, too, but the stores are all selling window tint darker than the law allows. I realize there are plenty of different uses for it--we used it in a Halloween thing a few years ago.

So, I signed up on the Element Owner's Club, a place I learned about soon after I got my Element. Like the New Beetle forum I was a part of when I had a Beetle, it's chock-full of excellent information! AND, in a nice touch of serendipity, it is populated with hundreds of cyclists and campers! Even a guy who LIVES in his E. I guess it's natural that campers and cyclists would gravitate to the Element as the vehicle of choice.

Now to go and mine archives for information about covering the windows for privacy.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Is it paranoia or...?

Ever since Charles' truck was burgled in Detroit, I've been a little wary of leaving my car anywhere with stuff inside it.

Just last weekend in Little Rock, we stopped at McDonald's to use the bathroom. Will stayed in the car, trying to sleep. I left the car unlocked because I thought he might decide to get out and the alarm might go off if he opened the door from the inside if it was locked. So just as we were coming out, we saw these two men get in the car next to us and drive away. Will said that one of the men peered into the driver's window of the Element, and then reached his hand towards the door handle. Will thinks the guy saw his foot, or saw Charles coming out and that's why he didn't open the door. Will was pretty shook up. My wallet was lying there between the seats, but you couldn't see it from the window.

I know for one thing, I'm never not locking the door again.

Still, on this trip, I'll have a couple of bikes in the back, two laptops, cell phones, cameras, a guitar, maybe a ukulele, a pretty expensive skateboard, and lots of other stuff typical of what we take on a month long trip. Arkansas tags far away from home. I won't be parking in downtown Detroit like Charles did, but who knows where I'll be for sure?

I've been thinking of some way to cover the windows of the Element, just in the back, when I'm not in it. Even when I am in it, possibly sleeping while I'm camping by myself, it would be nice to cover the windows to change clothes, etc.

I thought of using the 3M picture hanging strips and some fabric and just drape it up back there. I tried it today, and the strips don't stay on the fabric well enough. The strips can soften up in temps over 105, too. It gets hot inside the car. Also, it seems like drapes would draw attention to the car that it wouldn't otherwise get.

Then I thought of just putting velcro dots on the windows themselves, and cutting up a vinyl tablecloth or some such to match the glass. I looked at vinyl tablecloths in Wal-Mart and they were so hideously ugly, I couldn't bear to buy one. I even looked at the Thanksgiving ones (THANKSGIVING! In AUGUST!)

I thought of window tinting--really dark. I looked at it at AutoZone and it wouldn't be too expensive. I just don't know how I'm going to like it. I don't know if it's legal. And I'll still have to come up with something for the front. It might also call attention to the car--or from cops, even worse! I can't be driving through PA and be stopped for too dark windows all the time! I'm going to look it up, though.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Hafta bring a guitar, too.


But how to keep it safe and out of the way while we're traveling? Unlike Charles, I rarely think of looking up. This time, though...I remembered the cargo net I used on my bike trailer. It might just stretch...yes, it does! It stretches from the baby seat anchors above the rear hatch, to the handles above the back doors! Will the guitar slide in? Yes, it does!

Why We're Not Riding Roller Coasters

On this trip, we only have weekdays to play around. That one Saturday between Camp and Conference is the day we go see the Yankees play in Yankee Stadium (the trip that I hope will cause Will to someday say, "Sonny, when I was your age...").

After Labor Day, everything even remotely summer season closes up during the week. That means Busch Gardens Europe in Williamsburg, VA is only open Friday-Sunday. We'll be far away by then. But I'm thinking that we might could go to Coney Island on Sunday after the Yankees game. I don't know what they have at Coney Island in the way of roller coasters, but I should check.

Oh, I just checked, and Coney Island would be such a let down from Cedar Point. Or even the Tontitown Grape Festival. And twice as expensive! Never mind.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Itinerary

Previous posts have listed lots of sites for Philadelphia. We're not doing much in Phlly this time around. I do want to try to get over there and see the Liberty Bell, but if we don't, maybe we can catch it on the way home.

Here's the general itinerary. I hope I don't have any stalkers.

September 2-8: We'll be at the last and final Live and Learn Unschooling Conference, at the Blue Ridge Assembly, in Black Mountain, NC. I hope to get in at least one and maybe two bike rides during our stay.
  • 9/2 Driving 800+ miles, carpooling with Jessica
  • 9/3 -9/7 Conference heaven
  • 9/8 Travel day
September 9-12: We'll be free birds, but the intent is to get over the ocean and stay there a few days. On previous trips, we've moved our sleep spot too often for comfort. So we hope to get somewhere and stay there. I'm looking at Henlopen State Park in Delaware. It's within driving distance of Philadelphia, and not too far away from Black Mountain, NC.

Things we want to do while in DE:
  • Swim
  • Ride bikes
  • See Delaware (we've never been there, outside of metro D.C.)
  • Sleep
  • Comb the beaches
  • Learn stuff
  • Relax
  • Drive to Philly to see the Liberty Bell (maybe we'll do this on a rainy day)
September 13: Yankees day! We have tickets to see the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, before they tear it down. We're planning to leave DE on the 12th, and get nearby Greenwich, CT. My friend Margaret is going to let us park at her house, and take us to the train so we can go into New York City. Will wants to see Ground Zero, so I imagine we'll do that, then get on the train to go the Bronx in time for the game at 1:00. We'll be staying at Margaret's that night, and should be out of the big city by dark!

September 14: Travel day. We'll hang out with Margaret and her kids for a while, and then hit the road north. We have to be in Manchester, NH to pick up Dillon by the afternoon of the 15th, so we will be able to get settled in in Manchester by that evening. I would like to see Boston on the way, too. Need to pick something specific to see. Maybe Will would like to see Fenway?

[There are only a handful of states that Will hasn't been to, yet. One of them is Rhode Island, so maybe we'll direct our route from Greenwich to Providence and then up to Manchester. The great thing about the northeast is everything's relatively close together.]

September 15: Relax and refresh day, and pick up Dillon at the airport.

September 16: Drive up to Farm & Wilderness Camp in Vermont in the late afternoon, and drop off the kids for Not Back to School Camp.

September 16-23: I'll be kicking around Vermont by myself. Nancy is going to be in Vermont at the same time, so I'm hoping Heather will find a way to get up there, too. Still, after I drop off the boys I'm going to go straight up to Burke Mountain and spend the night, and hit the trails the next day.
  • 9/16: Camp drop-off
  • 9/17: Burke Mountain
  • 9/18: Move down to the southern part of Vermont
  • 9/19: Ride my bike
  • 9/20: Ride my bike
  • 9/21: Shop
  • 9/22: Ride my bike
  • 9/23: Pick up the boys at camp (EARLY), take Dillon to the airport.
September 24-25: The long slog home. We are scheduled to ride in the Big Dam Bridge tour (50 miles) in Little Rock on the 27th, so we can't tarry. But we will have to spend the night somewhere. Can only do a few hundred miles on the 23rd after we drop off Dillon, so we could go to the Liberty Bell then. We'll be going straight to Little Rock, for sure.

Lots of fun, miles, and GAS MONEY.

Planning and scheming

UPDATE: Check out the slideshow on the right that shows the bike rack!

I've decided to bring two bikes with me on this trip, and neither of them are Will's.

Heather gave me a copy of Vermonter magazine which had an article listing 10 family rides in Vermont. Lots of them look interesting so I want to ride one or two. Last year in Maine, I accidentally did a 30 mile ride on my mountain bike, in the middle of nowhere, with only a small ice cream shop to tide me over until I got back into familiar territory.

I've learned my lesson, so this year I'm taking the Centurion Elite GT, which is a sweet lugged steel touring bike circa 1983. The guy I bought it from, who happens to be a bike geek like me in Little Rock, says they're pretty rare, and production only lasted a couple of years. What I've read on sheldonbrown.com and in the Classic & Vintage forum seems to bear this out. I do know it's a sweet bike and it fits me perfectly, since I added the new tall Technomic stem. (You can see the 1984 catalog for this bike here. My bike is the opposite color scheme than the bike pictured, a nice champagne color all over, with brownish maroon outlining the lugs and on the head tube.)

I'm also planning on hitting the mountain trails in the area of Vermont they call the Northern Kingdom--specifically Mount Burke. It's a ski area, but when there's no snow, there are developed trails for mountain bikes.

I figure if Will and I want to ride together, maybe in Delaware when we're camping on the ocean, he can suit up on of these bikes. Both of them have some room in the seatpost to go up. Bikes aren't allowed on the grounds of the first place we're going (Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC), and he'll be at camp the last part of the trip.

The Centurion is getting a work over at Sam's bike shop, and he's moving the downtube shifters to the bar ends, like this. He's also removing the "suicide levers", which are the brake levers that cross in front of the flat part of the bars, and that were standard on every 10 speed I ever rode in the '70s. They work fine on the Elite, but some of those from the '70s did not, so I can see why they lost favor. Still, I'd like to have brakes up there, so I don't have to jump to the hoods to brake if I don't wanna (some habits are hard to break). So he's putting interruptor levers on for me, too.

Since there are going to be two bikes, and they do the most to make the inside of the Element crowded, I had to come up with a solution to hauling them. They can't go on the outside, because of risk of theft, and I don't want them hanging out there in the rain. (When I took my mountain bike in for its 90-day post-purchase check up, the mechanic found a tablespoon of water in the bottom bracket--he accused me of leaving it out in the rain! NO WAY! But it did ride on the back of the Beetle in a rain storm. Who knew so much water could get in that way?)
So the bikes have to be inside.

I have this fantasy that we will keep everything organized in the car and Will will remember to put his colored pencils and his PSP games back in the backpack and zip it up every time; that everything we take will fit in neat little packages; everything I need will be accessible from the comfort of the driver's seat and Will's shoes will always be right near his feet. But it's just a fantasy! So, more better ways of securing the bikes is in order.

It'd be nice if I could just take both rear seats out, attach one bike to each side, fully assembled, and put all the gear in between. But last year I did that and ended up having a passenger, with nowhere to sit. Will sat in a lawn chair in the back for a ride from Albany to Plymouth, VT, and I don't want to do that again. That means they go side by side one one side, and one seat stays down, like a regular day.

The last apparatus I fabricated just held two bikes by the forks (wheels off) on a 1' x 1.5' piece of plywood. It slid all over the back of the car, despite the rubbery feet I put on the bottom. The forks would turn and make everything crooked. A new solution was needed. The rear wheels would have to be tied down.

Lots of ideas floated around. To make the package smaller, I could remove the pedals. To keep bike grease off the seats and protect the derailleurs, I could either cover up the drive trains, or position the bikes side by side with the drive trains to the inside. Looking through the shop for an ideas and an appropriate piece of wood, I found a longish 12" wide board leftover from the bathroom renovation. Seemed long enough to hold a bike, so I took it to the bike garage.

Half an hour later, with my Trek 4300 mountain bike and my Trek 1000 standing in for the Elite, I was marking up the board for installation of fork mounts. I managed to get the two bikes lined up pretty well, with no seats touching each other, no bars touching wheels, and no cranks in contact with each other. No pedals can be left on, either!

The next step was to figure out how to attach the rear wheels to the board. Finally found some nylon webbing straps at Wal-Mart, 6 feet long. I thought I would only need enough to go around each rim through the spokes (about 8 inches), but after looking at it, the 6 footers could go all the way up over the top of the tire. That seemed like a good solution, so we drilled holes through the webbing, through the board, and attached washers under the screws to keep the webbing from fraying and pulling out.

The bikes aren't solid on the board--but solid enough. The board and bikes move as a unit and that's what I wanted. Now to keep it from sliding around--we found some kind of rubber treads that you put on utility trailers or something. We cut them to fit and put them all up and down the bottom of the board. I'll be trying it out tomorrow to see how it works.