Roughing It

A few posts back (Virginia City) I mentioned that Mark Twain lived there a couple years and that he wrote the book, Roughing It, while he was there.  Although I'd read lots of Twain's stuff, books, essays, short stories, etc, that book I had yet to read.  So off to the local library I went, found a copy, am now halfway through it - and I'm delighted!

It's truly a time capsule of the old west, the era of the cross-country stagecoach, pony express and mining boom towns.  As with any book, my interest is greatly enhanced when I've been to most if not all of the places described therein.  To see those places through the eyes of someone who was there 150 years ago is pure pleasure, given my love of American history.  Of course, the humor, wit, turn of phrase, irreverence, and gross exaggerations inherent in Twain's style add to the enjoyment.  It's rare that I laugh out loud while reading, but Mr T has me doing it repeatedly.

Were you aware the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was banned?  Yup, it was.  Twain's satirical writings about Christianity were also banned up one side and censored down the other.  Letters From the Earth, The Diaries of Adam and Eve and Methuselah: If you've not read them, you should - unless you happen to be a devout Christian with no sense of humor whatsoever.  They're hilarious.

The list of banned and censored American writers includes many of the greats so Mark was in good company.  Here are a few names you may recognize: Sinclair, Melville, London, Salinger, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Stowe, Bradbury, Heinlein, Hawthorne, Crane, Williams.  There are many more.  The very concept of banning and censoring books infuriates me.  It's Orwell's Big Brother in action.  Don't get me started!

Oops, looks like I already started.  Okay, let's return to the main feature.  If you've not read Twain beyond Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer I encourage you do so.  Try it, you'll like it.  Or not.

Given his awesome vocabulary and his way with words, it's hard to believe that Mark's formal education ended when he was about 12 years old.  His father died, so Mark had to find work to help support his large family.  

Valor in the Pacific

WW II Valor in the Pacific National Monument has 3 separate sites.  Nearly 2 million people a year visit the USS Arizona Memorial (Pearl Harbor) in Hawaii.  The other 2 sites - Tule Lake, CA and Kiska Island, AK - are virtually unknown and rarely visited.

We stopped briefly in Tule Lake this summer, not much to see there yet, a work in progress.  Before WW II, Tule Lake had a large Civilian Conservation Corp camp.  When the war started, it was rapidly expanded and converted to a Japanese-American internment camp that held 20,000 people, the largest of 10 internment camps that held a total of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry.

The picture below, taken when all the barracks were still present, could have been taken of Dachau or Auschwitz.  Many of these buildings were moved and converted into homes after the war; we saw several as we drove through town.

The internees were given 3 days notice before they were moved, were forced to abandon their homes, businesses and belongings, were allowed to take only 1 suitcase to the internment camps, where they were destined to stay for 2.5 years.

These camps were a flagrant act of bigotry and a violation of civil rights.  In my view, the Tule Lake site shouldn't be included with the other 2 sites and should be named more appropriately.  Of valor there was naught.  Of shame there was abundance.

Gabion Mailbox 2

The resident architect drops in the first rock.  Trish came up with the idea.  I did the design/build.  We collaborated on the rocks.  Shortly after this picture was taken she said I could go do something else, a subtle hint that she wasn't much impressed with me randomly tossing rocks into the basket.  So ..... I left and did something else.

We hauled the rocks in buckets so we could hand pick the best shapes and sizes.  It took 15 buckets.  We placed some concrete blocks and debris from the old mailbox in the core where it couldn't be seen, decreasing the number of buckets needed.  It will weigh close to a ton when it's finished.  Is that enough to deflect the attacks of mail carrier vehicles?  Only time will tell.

Brace wires are added at 1' intervals to keep the sides from bulging out.

The first outgoing mail is placed in the box.  It's a Netflix DVD, the only mail that matters much nowadays.  Utility bills, investment reports and similar items are now paperless, all done online.

All done, looking good!

It was a fun project, total cost about $325, including gabion, mailbox, numbers and rocks.  We ordered the gabion parts from an outfit in CA; using a local welding outfit would have cost 5 times as much.  Should you be interested in a gabion project, here's the link to the provider: http://www.gabion1.com/

Gabion Mailbox 1

It's pronounced GABE-yun.  Two months ago I posted a blog with pix of our demolished mailbox and a couple gabion mailboxes, as well.  In that post I said that I was going to build one myself.  The time has come.  I've got all the pieces, less a few nuts and bolts to attach the numbers and flag.  Here's pix of the assembled gabion basket with a piece of cardboard indicating where I'll cut a hole to insert the mailbox.  It's a square column, 4' high, 2' wide and deep.

The basket pieces are held together with heavy duty spiral-shaped wires call helicals.  It's a clever design, allowing a basket to be assembled in just a few minutes, no tools required, slick and quick.

Above: Two 2' square basket pieces, with helical between them.

Below: the helical is partially wound into the 2 pieces. 

The assembled basket is loosey goosey when empty,

but will tighten up nicely when I add a half ton of river rock.

The 5" steel numbers will be mounted on this steel plate, with spacers between the numbers and the plate to get the floating look.  The plate will be attached to the basket, below the mailbox.

In my 7/15 post I said it would cost $400 to replace the stucco mailbox in-kind.  I was a little low: actual replacement cost would be $550.  The gabion, new mailbox and numbers will total about $250, materials only.

The good news is the US Postal Service will pay the full in-kind replacement cost - or so they say. Our mail carrier fessed up the first day she delivered our mail when we returned to LHC.  She did it, reported it to their claims people, told me to call them to arrange payment.  The claim form is supposed to arrive tomorrow: fill it out, add supporting documents and pictures, send it back in, wait for check to arrive.

to be continued.

No Exceptions!

We arrived at Mono Vista RV Park at noon, parked in the indicated check-in spot.  Trish went to the office to check in while I unlocked the entry and basement doors, our usual routine.  She returned in a couple minutes, said office was vacant with sign on door: "No Check-In Before 1 PM.  No Exceptions!"  Huh.

Rather than remain parked in the check-in spot and block incoming traffic, I pulled into a vacant pull-through site to wait.  A woman, presumably one of the owners, showed up promptly at 1 PM and Trish entered the office - and was read the riot act!  Not only did I have the audacity to move out of the designated check-in space, I had parked facing the wrong way in the pull-through site!  You'd think it was the end of life as we know it.  What the hell difference did it make?  None whatsoever.  But, No Exceptions!  Nazi Bitch.

The woman continued grousing and bitching during the check-in process despite Trish's best efforts to lighten things up.  Woman said she'd be damned glad when the RV season was finally over, a subtle indication she was fed up to here with Exceptions like me.  Ve haf vays to make you regret being an Exception - 7 days in 'cooler!'  Shades of Steve McQueen in The Great Escape.

We often arrive at parks before official check-in times, which are typically between 11 AM and 1 PM, but, also typically, the office is staffed during normal business hours and checking in a little early is no problem whatsoever.  We're customers.  Customers are good.  Customers are made welcome.  Not at Mono Vista!  Customers are a pain in the ass - sometimes even an Exception.

Trish finally made good her own escape from the warden's office, related her fun experience to me, duly informed me that I was scum of the earth and even worse - an Exception!

Obviously, the warden is in the wrong line of work.  There's gotta be a prison somewhere that needs her skills; either Angola or Parchman Farm would be perfect.

2016 Summer

Here's the good, the bad and the ugly of our summer travels.

1.  The Good:
  A.  3075.  Number of miles we towed the 5W; about 1400 miles less than any previous summer

  B.  7.  Number of places I played pickleball - in 5 different states

  C.  Best RV park ever: Crown Villa in Bend, OR; spendy but worth it, going back next year

  D.  Awesome!  The Sierra Nevada Mts as viewed from US 395.  We stayed overnight near Lone Pine, CA and took a gander at Mt Whitney (climbed that sucker in 2009 but never viewed it from afar).  That's it below, the peak on the far right, picture taken at 10X zoom from 15 miles away.

  E.  Reunion.  Spent a couple evenings with Curt Elton, fraternity brother I hadn't seen in 50+ years.  He and wife Naomi live near Boise.

  F.  Visited with LHC pickleball friends Dale and Bobbi, David and Elaine.

2.  The Bad:
  A.  Landing gear failed because nut on drive shaft fell off; easy fix, new bolt and nut, $1.49

  B.  RV entry door lock internal screw came loose, deadbolt was engaged, couldn't gain entry.  Trish entered via basement, popped up through basement trap door, removed lock from inside; easy fix

  C.  RV tire picked up a screw, ruined the tire.  Tires were bought last summer at Discount Tire for $153 each, had 9300 miles on them.  DT installed new in-kind tire on wheel, balanced for $19. They're the best!

3.  The Ugly.  Nazi bitch in RV park office, separate blog coming: NO EXCEPTIONS!

Sleepbus

This odd looking conveyance pulled into our campground yesterday.  At first glance, I thought it was a mobile dog kennel, custom made for a wealthy person who travels to the big dog shows.

Wrong!  It's for people, not dogs.  It's half bus, half sleeping pods/berths/cubicles/coffins, 26 of 'em to be exact.  Baaaaaaaaaaaa!

This is strictly for folks who aren't big on privacy, aren't claustrophobic and have exceptionally large bladders.  There's only one half-bath for 26 people; cross your legs, grit your teeth, tilt your head back, keep your mouth closed until it's your turn - and hope you draw a low number in the daily restroom lottery.

There's regular sleepbus service between LA and San Francisco now, using rigs that sleep 12, see pix below.

I wonder if and how seat belt laws apply to these things.  Say you're moving along at freeway speed, hit a patch of ice and spin around 180 degrees.  The folks on one side would go flying across the aisle, banging into the bunks on the other side and finally ending up on the floor - three deep.  Could be fun, though, depending on the age and sex of your fellow passengers.

I've slept in lots worse places than this, only concern is my peanut-sized bladder.  For Trish, it's a no-no; she's claustrophobic.

Mono Lake, CA

When it was formed 760,000 years ago, it was a great deal larger than it is now.  Much of the the shrinkage in modern times is due to tributarial fresh water being siphoned off to quench the thirst of Los Angeles.  The Lake water itself isn't thirst-quenching because it's a basin, has no outlet, and is 2.5 times more saline than the Pacific Ocean.

The water is too salty for fish but not for brine shrimp.  They're tiny, flimsy-looking little critters about 3/4" long - unlike the foot-long fakes pictured below.  Millions of migratory birds stop at Mono to feast on shrimp and alkaline flies, which abound in the spring.

As noted in the above picture, the minerals in fresh-water springs combine with lake-water carbonates to form calcium carbonate, aka limestone.  This action, which only occurs underwater, eventually builds tufa towers that become visible as the water level goes down.  The tufa towers resemble stalagmites or an illustration on the front of a sci-fi paperback - in a word, weird.

Mono Lake is near Lee Vining, CA, a small community near the back door to Yosemite NP.  The mountains in the picture below are part of Yosemite.