Month: June 2014

Crystal Mt. – Tuesday July 29, 2014

Lazy day today, did some things with pictures on the laptop and ordered a DISH satellite tv system.

Pictures: during our trip to Sunrise I took some great pictures of Tanya and Mike. I wanted to got them on a flash drive for TA. Tonight I’ll upload them to Microsoft’s OneDrive, then TA can download the full size picture. I put them on a flash drive so I don’t have to start up the laptop to send them. ( I think I’ll come up with a name for my laptop, the motorhome GPS is Martha ).
DISH TV: ordered satellite antenna, stand, 28 inch VIZIO HD TV, and motorhome grade mounting bracket. I will be removing the 27 inch tube TV we currently have in the motorhome and putting in the HD TV. This and the monthly access is Jean’s 40th wedding anniversary present ( I love you).
I also ordered a Dewalt caulking gun to use when I redo the duel pane windows. I need to do at least the the two front side windows before we head south at the end of August. The instructions that came with seal kit said a powered caulking gun is really necessary for a good sealant bead. I decided to buy this caulking gun because I need to do all the motorhome windows. All the windows have some degree of moisture in them.

After dinner Hank and I walked up to the ski lodge to enjoy nice evening in the mountains. At the lodge we (actually Hank first) got to see the local elk herd. There was at least 45 and could have been 50 or 55. They were spread out over the hill side and can be hard to see and count.

We will be heading home this (Wednesday ) afternoon. We have been here a week and water is getting low. It has been another great week, this retirement thing is actually REALLY good.

Here are some more Mt. Rainier pictures:
16, 17,18.
( I cannot get to my WordPress media folder from my iPad, I will publish this text and add the pictures using my phone).
The dust in the lower center is from a rock fall. After I heard the fall it took me a couple of minutes to see where it came from.

Fort Flagler – Saturday June 7, 2014

Hank and I are spending the weekend at Flagler.  Nine months ago I made reservations for all the weekends in June.  I’ve had to cancel the next two weekends and Jean has to work tonight so Hank and I came out to enjoy the great weather.

Hank rode shotgun for a while:

Retirement count:  25 calendar days 18 work days, Jean had 12 work days.

One of my retirement goals to do a lot of hiking.  GPS technology has advanced to the point where I could buy a unit which will transmit my location to a satellite every 10 minutes and post the position on a website anyone can access.  This is posted in real time.

Some of the cool things: as I said transmits location every 10 minutes, stores location inside the unit every 15 seconds (this is uploaded over web later), will sent and receive 160 character texts, can create stock text for quit transmit, confirms a text was received by satellite, has SOS button, operates for 100 hours, can set the location transmit at up to 4 hours, the unit can be pinged to give it’s location, pairs with smart phone for topo maps, and other cool things.

This is a screen print I took from Ipad.  The drive over here on Friday, the way points are every 10 minutes so this will also show where the traffic was the heaviest.
Couple of walks around the park.

The long line going to the bottom of the picture is from the drive in Friday.  It looks like it will be a cool tool we can use to show where we are whether we have internet or not.  This just needs a clear look at the sky.  Oh, by the way it is Delorme inReach Explorer.

It is also summer time.

Strawberry daiquiri time, had two.  I bought some frozen strawberries and put them into serving size zip lock sandwich bags, had three in the freezer (thinks for the GREAT idea, Jean).  Hank and I are both tired, we were up and at it early this morning, did a walk around the park before PBS’s Car Guys and Wait Wait.  Tanya gave me a FitBit at Christmas and today was the first day over 20,000 steps, 21,356 right now.

That’s it for today, no more motor home trip before retirement.