Yosemite

We stayed a week in an Escapees park in Coarsegold, CA.  Coarsegold was named for the quality of the nuggets found in the river there during the gold rush.  During that week we went to Yosemite twice, and visited one afternoon with my second cousins once removed in Exeter, CA.

Yosemite is awesome.  The valley was carved out of granite by glaciers, leaving smooth domes and sheer cliffs, which makes for lots of waterfalls.  On the first day we toured Yosemite Valley, and saw

El Capitan:

the largest monolithic chunk of granite in the world.  Some people were climbing the face as we were leaving the park:

Bridal Veil Falls

is the first waterfall you see on the way into the Valley.  Yosemite Falls

is the highest waterfall in North America, and the 5th highest in the world.  It falls 2475 feet in three stages (you can see the upper and lower in this picture).  The water comes from melting snow, and it often dries up completely in the summer.

On the second day, we went to Glacier Point, which is on the South rim of the valley, and to the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees (more sequoias).  From Glacier Point, at 7000 feet, you can see Half Dome really well

 There never was another half, the glaciers carved it that way, and pieces of rock have been falling off the face ever since.  There were climbers on Half Dome that day:

See them?  The trail is up the back side, not up the face like El Capitan.  There are other great views from Glacier Point.  The falls in this one are Nevada Falls and Vernal Falls, and the mountain peaks in the background are over 12,000 feet.  We hiked to the base of Vernal Falls on our first day.

 They cut holes in two of the sequoias in Yosemite in 1895, and built a road through one of them.  That tree fell down in 1969, no doubt helped by having a big hole cut in it, and so they didn't cut another, but the second is still standing.

There are more Big Tree pictures, but as someone said to us, once you've seen one 270-foot, 3,000-year-old tree, you've sort of seen them all.  But they are awesome.

Lake Havasu / Oatman

Flashback ... while waiting for the hitch in Bullhead City, we took a day trip to Lake Havasu to see the London Bridge.  Lake Havasu city was founded by Robert McCulloch (of the chain saws), and he bought the London Bridge and brought it there.

They collect replica lighthouses there, too.

 

 On the way back, we went through Oatman, AZ because there was supposed to be a ghost town near it.  It turns out Oatman IS the ghost town, but it's really a thriving block or so of tourist traps - I mean, local shops.  If you're ever in the neighborhood, pass through quickly.  To get there, you do have to go on an interesting original piece of Route 66, which was abandoned in 1963 in favor of the current path, over which I-40 was later built. Here's one of the locals in Oatman:

Sequoia National Park

Our first stop on the National Parks tour was Sequoia National Park.  The giant sequoias are not the tallest or the oldest trees, but they are the biggest in volume, and the heaviest, and are some of the oldest living things on earth.  Some were over 1000 years old when Christ was born.  The General Sherman (in the picture above) is the biggest sequoia, 275 feet tall and 2700 years old.

Here's Vicki standing on the path, between two sequoias.  The trail is part of the Congress Loop trail, which runs 2 miles through the forest.

And here's Vicki hugging a tree.

We took a few hikes through the woods, and down to Crystal Cave, where we took a guided tour.  It's a nice walk down to the cave entrance, with a waterfall along the way.

The Woman's Perspective, Part One

Well, gang, it’s time for the woman’s perspective on this new way of life.  ‘Keeping house’ in an RV is very different than keeping house in a house. There are things one needs to be concerned about on a regular (sometimes daily) basis that we take for granted when living in a house.

Let’s start with toilet paper.

I stopped shopping for toilet paper in 1991. I didn’t stop buying it; just stopped shopping for it. That was the year I moved to Kirkland, Washington and was introduced to the mega store ‘Costco’. I was in awe of a store where the shopping carts were hand trucks and everything was ‘giant-sized’. Reminded me of Woody Allen’s movie ‘Sleeper’, for those of you who remember.

In any event, I discovered the 30 mega roll packages of Charmin. And from then on until I moved into the RV, I had been buying those 30 roll packages when we needed them.

But…Charmin and RV’s do not mix, due to the plumbing arrangement in an RV (which I will go into in more depth in a later entry for the few of you who are still interested in our blog, after reading this scintillating article). Basically, Charmin is too good for an RV. In an RV you need thin, rough TP. You can buy special TP just made for RV’s, which is thin, rough and expensive ($1.00 or more for a tiny roll) or you can find one that is thin, rough, and cheaper…and do the dissolving TP test to see if it qualifies for RV life..

Being cheap myself, I headed off to the grocery store to ‘shop’ for TP for the first time in over 20 years. I stood there bewildered by large, double, extra large, and super large rolls consisting of 1 ply, 2 ply or multi-ply. Scented, unscented, ‘lotioned’. ‘Green’ ‘Recycled', single rolls, 2 rolls, 4 rolls, 6 rolls, 8 rolls, 12 rolls …..and so on. (Do we really need all these choices?)

All I wanted was a small, 1 ply, single roll to test. Not to be found.

I finally settled on the only 1 ply roll I could find…Scott 1000 sheet roll.  Not exactly cheap, but a good value.  Took it home and put it to the test. 

For the scientists out there….the test consists of putting a few sheets of TP in a jar with water and shaking it up to see what happens. If the TP dissolves for the most part, it is probably OK for the RV. If it clumps and stays together, it will do exactly that in the RV plumbing system which is ‘highly undesirable’ and can be ‘costly to repair’. (In fact, just about anything one does incorrectly or slightly incorrectly in an RV can be ‘costly to repair’!)

Well, Scott passed the test with flying colors. Now, hopefully, as long as the makers of Scott don’t alter their formula for TP, I may not have to ‘shop’ for TP for another 20 years.

So, stay tuned for the next episode, Boys and Girls. 

(PS: John can’t believe I’m writing about TP, but if he can write about golf and the economy on this blog – I declare it ‘open season’ on topics.)

MMT makes the big time - Playboy

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/06/honest-mom-i-only-bought-the-new-playboy-to-read-the-article-on-umkc-economics.html#more-2445

Ready to go ... maybe

We got our new hitch installed today.  It's 117 degrees out.  Good thing we didn't wait until summer, it might have been really hot.