Jeff's 2008 Road Trip

Latest Projects

2008-10-19T22:45:00.001-07:00

Lexus showcase

T-Mobile touch screen (MyFaves Facemaker Application)

RV Travel Plans

2008-10-19T22:01:00.000-07:00

Last years RV road trip

The plan for this years RV road trip.

Rally for the Republic

2008-09-19T22:20:00.001-07:00

Seattle Summer

2008-09-19T22:12:00.001-07:00

Nebraska and Casper

2008-09-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

Texas

2008-09-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

Knotts Berry Farm

2008-05-05T22:55:00.001-07:00

Roswell & Carlsbad, NM

2008-05-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

Hiking in Carlsbad Caverns. Wow I wouldn't go so far as to say Carlsbad Caverns are better than Yellowstone Park but there is nothing at Yellowstone that is better than the experience of hiking through the narrow passage ways and huge caverns decorated with soda flutes, stlactites and column formations.

There are two entrance to the caverns, first the elevator that takes you 70 stories down into the big cavern and a natural entrance that you walk down tight switch backs to the bottom. The bats exit out the natural entrance nightly at dusk. When we first entered the natural entrance it smelled a little like a urinal.

Guatto, bat poop, can pile up to 40 feet deep in the bat cave. You only notice the smell when you first enter the cave. As we turned the last corner where the opening of the cave was still visible I could see clouds of steaming mist leaving the cave as the light was shining into the cave. You can only see it from the inside of the cave looking out and I though that's where you smell it the most. I wasn't sure if it was musty cave smell or fermenting bat poop.

Palm Springs / Joshua Tree

2008-05-04T15:35:00.000-07:00

Desert Hot Springs was a real treat. I had wanted to visit the world famous windmill farms for the past five years. We spent a day driving down dirt roads filming different windmills from all angles. I plan to use some of the footage on my personal website or possibly start up a windmill specific website.

Gretchen had a few friends in town that she had grown up with that came over to visit and enjoy the natural mineral water. We spent time working on websites, real estate deals and miniature golfing.

One of the days we drove through Joshua Tree State Park. The large bolders and Joshua Trees were interesting to look at. At the peak of the park you can see Palm Springs and the boarder of Mexico on a clear day.

Sailing to Catalina Island

2008-04-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

Andre Michel sailed us over to Catalina Island on his 32' sailboat. We secured "mooring"in the Avalon Marina with a great view of downtown and the Avalon Casino.

On the way over Andre showed me the ropes of sailing and how to tie a few knots. We had 20-25 knott winds so when we finished motoring out of the Long Beach marina, where Andre stores the boat, we turned off the motor and at full sail were going much faster than the motor was able to go.

The boat seemed to be a 45 degree angle with the wind blowing so hard It made me feel like if I stood perpendicular to the water I would fall out of the boat and into the ocean. My feet were on the bench across from me and my back was against the chair I had been sitting in after we got the sails up. Even though it took four hours to sail to Catalina is seemed to go by quickly talking to Andre and adjusting the sails to let the wind "slip over the sails".

When we arrived at Catalina we had to pull the "dingy" out of a bag, blow it up, put boards into it's bottom to make a flat sturdy floor then attach a small Honda motor so we could go from the sailboat to town. Riding in the "dingy was my favorite activity on the island, second only to driving a golf cart off road and down a steep hill.

First Week in L.A.

2008-04-09T21:54:00.000-07:00

The first week in Los Angeles included visits to the Los Angles Art Museum, the La Bra Tar Pits and mountain bike rides up and down the beach .

We got a great spot at Dockweiler State Beach and I decided to extend an additional week for three weeks in L.A. The location is a base while in the L.A. area, it's half way between Santa Monica and Long Beach. The only down side is the constant background of jets flying out of LAX located about two miles North East of the RV camping area.

The Dockweiler State RV park includes full hookups except for cable. Usually if you want to stay near or on the beach with an RV in California you have to stay at a state park and so far Dockweiler State Beach is the only one I've found with electric, water and sewer hookups.

The solar panels I bought back in Seattle seem to cover all the power needs so the RV doesn't need external power. Except the built in coffee maker, front TV and microwave only work when plugged into "shore power", but the 12 volt T.V. in the bedroom works fine just using the batteries. I use a few inverters that turn the power stored in the four 6 volt deep cycle batteries to 120v power to charge electronics like laptops, cell phones, cameras and running the wireless internet.

Here are a few photos of vases put together, I liked the ones made of certain glass that reflected colored prisim of light. The museum was full of paintings by Picasso and other artist although my favorite areas were the modern art that was a combination of photography, painting and sculptures. I included a photos of Hermosa Beach where we rode to for breakfast this morning.

Last Week of March

2008-03-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

We spent the last few weeks of March at Campland on the Bay in Pacific Beach just a little north of downtown San Diego and Silver Strand State Park on Coronodo Island across the bay from downtown San Diego. Some of the highlights of the past two weeks were the sunsets on the beach, a concert by Candlebox at the House of Blues downtown, the Science Center in Balboa Park, playing Starfares and riding motorcycles with a local sport bike club. I spent over a week getting through the book John Adams by David-McCullough and found it better than 1776 also by David-McCullough that I finished last month. I found Thomas Jefferson to be most interesting as he is mentioned in both books as a constant over consumer that seemed to impress and capture the hearts of all he came in contact with.

A New Year Starts in Nevada

2008-03-24T15:42:00.001-07:00

I spent most of January in Nevada starting off with a road trip in the RV with Rivers, Mark and John to Jackpot Nevada for my birthday.

After the birthday weekend I headed down to Las Vegas for the next four weeks. While in Las Vegas I toured the Hoover Dam, visited the Star Trek Adventure, strolled thorough most of the major casions, played Texas Hold'em with some famous poker stars, camped for a week in the Red Rock National Canyon and ate at a lot of dirt cheap buffets!

Most of the time I stayed at the Oasis RV Resort located on Las Vegas Blvd. about one mile south of the MGM Grand. They had two heated pools, hot tubs an 18 hole miniature golf course and nightly events in the clubhouse. I bought into a timeshare thing so it only cost $10 a night except a few nights that I stayed over that were $70 a night to stay there.

Kyle flew down for a week long visit, then Gretchen came for about a week. Jason and Elizabeth were also in town for a few day.

March in San Diego

2008-03-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

During March I visited the U.S. Midway aircraft carrier. There were over 30 fighter jets, helicopters and vintage aircraft on the deck and in the bay. It took about five hours to go through all the decks and read about the battles, airplanes and missions the Midway saw while in service.

A few days later I visited the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park where they had one of the 12 existing SR-71 Black Birds and a space capsule along with about 100 other aircraft.
On another day I went through the San Diego Zoo, the Photography Museum, The Museum of Man, The Science Museum.

My first fact finding mission to L.A. was to a presentation by Richard Gage of Architects for 9/11 Truth and Steven Jones of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. Both organizations now have hundreds of Engineers, Professors and Researchers that have signed on a supporting members. There were about 1,500 people at the 9/11 Truth presentation.

Why do I care about the 9/11 truth movement? At first I was board of my computer job and thought what could I do outside, travel and make some money? Hummm... well I could catch Osama Bin Laden. Anyway I was thinking well I'll just find out where this guy lived in the past contact some old friends of his and do the job myself.

Then after a little research I found many New Yorkers and other concerned citizens questioned the official accounts around 9/11 most shocking were structural engineers, figher fighters and first responders claiming that explosives were already planted in the buildings before the planes hit. Professor Steven Jones a Physics professor at BYU, recently retired, has found the chemical signature of Thermate in the dust of the world trade center wreckage. Steven Jones has stood up for what he found against threats and after loosing his job. After having his findings verified by other researchers I feel it warrants a more though look into 9/11 given the findings of explosives that were planted in the buildings before the planes crashed into them.

"In the beginning of change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for it then costs nothing to be a patriot."

Second fact finding mission of the month. I drove up to L.A. on two different occasions first was to see a device that claimed to enhance your vehicles gas burning engine with hydrogen allowing you to get 50% better gas millage. The image below shows the device disassembled. When assembled it screws onto a mason jar full of water and when the car is started the cables connected to the battery charge the coils bubbling Hydrogen out of the water that evaporates into a gas and flows out the tube into the carborator supposedly making the air that mixes with the gas Hydrogen rich and more explosive when mixed with the gas so less gas in needed. the guy had tools to adjust how lean the car ran he may be onto something that we could all drive around running our cars lean on gas. Either way I plan to buy a kit and enhance my air intake with the hydrogen device if it could add one mile per gallon in the RV that would be almost a 20% increase. www.water4gas.com.

Week in Washington D.C.

2008-03-24T14:30:00.001-07:00

Went to New York for a few days in March then rode the Greyhound down to D.C. to visit Chris Phillipsen, one of my best friends from college. In all the trip was only a week long but times about perfectly. In New York I went for a jog through Central Park, spent an afternoon in the Museum of Natural History and tried several variations of Pizza. In D.C. I met up with Chad a friend from Seattle while Chris was at work and we went through the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in the Capitol mall. Chad knew his way around Washington pretty well so we went to Patty Murray's office then over to see if Ron Paul was in. At Ron Paul's office he came out to meet us and gave each of us a signed copy of the U.S. Constitution. Chris, his daughter and I went on an all day walk through the capitol mall. We visited the Archives to view the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the United States Constitution. Then we viewed the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Washington Memorial, Lincoln Memorial and Reflection Pool.

15 minute poker

2008-03-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

Played poker at the RV resort for a $5 buy in. We had a timer and every 15 minutes would change the game so we we would play 7 card stud, 5 card deuces wild, Texas Hold'em and 5 card stud all in an hour.
I got almost the who table to press hard into 4 fives, I had a deuce wild showing and a five and another deuce wild and five in the hold. I almost cleaned the whole table out on that hand and was guaranteed part of the winnings if I would have just folded the rest of my hands but got greedy and pressed into another player during Omaha Low and he had the only hand in the deck that could have beaten my hand I figured there was only one hand that could beat me and we were raising and re-rasing the maximum on each card. Goes to show don't get greedy.

RV Roadtrip 2008

2008-03-01T16:08:00.000-08:00

California - San Diego - Coronodo Island - Silver Strand State Park