Mental Workout

May 21, 2009 Thursday
I’m back. It’s said that to keep your mind fit, challenge it. So I signed up in November for a class in celestial navigation taught by the US Sail and Power Squadron/Skagit Bay. Now I’m not new to this concept of keeping the mind active. Although I have long moments of wondering why I’m doing this to myself. It all started several years back when a friend of mine signed up for Piloting class taught by the same folks. She wanted me to come to the first class and since I had taken a coastal navigation class (same as a piloting class), she wanted to know if this would be a good class. I stayed and she dropped out. I bonded with my instructor and more importantly with my classmates. So at the end of the class we all said, “of course you’re going to take Advanced Piloting” with such things as running fixes and vectors for set and drift to keep the cerebral juices flowing. I signed up. And once again at the end of THAT class we all asked if we were going to do Celestial Navigation (or as USSPS calls it Junior Navigation) together. Which we did.
Junior Navigation or JN for short is just the first of the two navigation courses taught with a year in between. JN only uses just the sun for its celestial body to determine where you are on the planet earth. I’ve never experienced such a love/hate relationship with a course of study. I loved the feel of a sextant in my hand and “bringing the sun down” to the horizon. Or doing “sun run sun” sights. I love the knowledge of the science and its long history, which until just 20 years ago was the only way to determine a vessel’s location. GPS is a very recent technology. A sextant and a clock plus a few books told you your spot on the surface of a very big body of water and where to steer for that speck of land in the middle of the ocean. I loved looking up the tables and filling in the forms. And I was in pure joy while doing this except when my dyslexia got in the way. And it was. This was the first time in my twenty years of education that I had to deal with my disability head on. I was not very nice to myself; to the point of having to apology to my neighbors for the total outbursts of frustration which I loudly and freely expressed. At severals points during the six month class I wanted to quit not because I didn’t understand the material or concepts but because in working the many tables I would mix the numbers up. This was hard for me to accept. And I sometimes really beat myself up. Very unhealthy……….


But I stuck it out for three reasons; my instructor, George Brooks, was the best. He was understanding and encouraging. He knew his subject down to the 100th decimal and showed and shared his love of it. The next reason was my classmates, which were very supportive of me. After all we had gone through a lot together over the past two courses and sitting in that college classroom with them was a very safe environment for me to make mistakes in; and the last reason for staying was the material with all of its centuries of history standing behind it. To see how it was done; to understand how it was done and to marvel at the magic of it all. To find your spot on this planet.
So the final JN exam is over and I got through it okay – I passed. And now the whispers start, “are you going to take the last of the four-course parade? Are you going to take “Senior Navigation”? Just near the end of JN that question came up and one of our classmates said he was going to go for it. Do the last of the chain. Everyone else rolled their eyes. At the end I said I was going to have a go of it. And now the hands start slowly to rise and say, “okay, I'm in”


There is a bond among us in that class. We have shared a lot. Both good and bad. The class itself has a personality and I think it wants to go for one last round.

December 29, Monday - Damn Lucky (Washington)

On Sunday Snee-Oosh was packed up and Hannah, Joan and I headed for Sacramento. I drove the Coastal Highway with its dips and dives. We dragged the trailer hitch on a couple of occasions as we swung in and out of bridges crossing streams – the Pacific Ocean off our starboard side.
Again the low outside back right tire was of concern but we couldn’t find a tire shop open on Sunday.
We stopped for naps then had supper with Inger again in the capital city. For an after dinner treat, we went to the theater to see a great performance of STOMP.
On Monday Joan jumped ship by staying in Sacramento with her friend while Hannah and I finished the trip north. We left the city before the rush hour. As soon as 8:00 showed up we were in a tire shop along Interstate 5. The man said that the outside air pressure on the RV was fine. It looked low because the inside dual tire was flat and was taking the whole weight of the right back RV!! He pulled out a broken link from set of tire chains. (It was the blunt end that went into the tire!!)
Eight days earlier we saw many piles of chains on the freeway in the Seattle area and had run over a few when we were heading south . We had been driving about 1,100 miles on a flat tire! We almost fell to our knees thinking about the highway along the coast with the immense stress put on that outside tire as we drove the curving roadway. A blowout with the RV going over the side to the ocean far below was a very high probability scenario. We gave thanks. We were blessed.


Hannah and I continued north making it from Sacramento to Portland after eleven hours of driving to spend the night on the street in front of Will and Caitlin’s home. We got to spend time again with them over supper. How sweet to be able to be with them both at Sea Ranch and Portland.
Unlike our first swing through the Rose City a little over a week ago, there was no snow on the streets but the evidence was everywhere with plowed piles of snow in every parking lot and street corner.
When Hannah and I arrived back at our home valley, we found the same condition – piles of snow wherever it was out of the way of automobile movement.



It was so nice to finally drop anchor in the storage lot of Shelter Bay. For the first time since March, I was home to stay for a length of time. I could finally confront the temporary move back into my space that happened when I returned from my circumnavigation. I was very slow in opening boxes and putting items back where they were earlier in the year. I wanted a change in my living space. I wanted to clean out items that I was afraid of throwing away. Now I can do it with purpose without the pressure of hitting the road again. I am finally home. Amen.

This will be my last entry in my blog for a while......

Cheers, Ron

December 26, Friday - Holiday Season (California)

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were a delight with Will’s family and our family plus two dogs melding together wonderfully. Both families practice low impact gift giving with focus on the people and not the material exchange.
For breaks we wandered through the redwoods looking for the mushrooms (a big pastime in Sea Ranch) where locations of prime mushroom picking are closely guarded secrets. Or going to the beach to take sun shots for my celestial navigation class. I was overjoyed when Caitlin and Will’s mom, Sharon, joined me. Both are top-drawer sailors so they joined in taking turns with the sextant.
Or taking rides in Tom’s (Will’s dad) three-sitter airplane along the coast. Life is good.
(The word from La Conner was that 16 inches of snow was now on the ground) Life is very good.

December 23, Tuesday - The Best There Is.

We waited until the Sacramento rush hour was over then headed to the coast via I-80 and then Route 37 across the northern tip of San Francisco Bay then north on Highway 101. At Petaluma Hannah took the wheel for the head tripping drive out to Highway 1 then north on the famous coastal highway to Sea Ranch. The drive from 101 to the community is about an hour and a half of constant awareness of curves and clearances. The road cuts drop straight to the fog line on the road and taking out the passenger side mirror was a real concern. Fortunately the traffic on the road was light so the helmsman could work the road and not the other vehicles, too. This section of the Coastal Highway is spectacular driving with unbeatable views. I was in the back letting Hannah work the road without input from me. Nice experience for her.
Good old Hannah got us to our destination without a hitch. It was another six hour shift from Sacramento to Sea Ranch.
We were no sooner settled in when Sea Ranch Security came knocking on our host’s door inquiring about “the RV in the driveway.” Sea Ranch has several components: some of the houses are along the main highway and the open areas down to the cliffs above the sea, but there is a larger group of homes up in the heavily wooded redwood forest and this is where Will’s parents live. Totally isolated from the busy flow found elsewhere. AND like Woodlands in Tamarac, Florida they have an ordinance of no RV’s at people’s homes because it is a visual distraction for the people living in the area. Damn if people are visiting a resident like a family member or a long time friend. But Security was cool and said it was okay for Snee-Oosh to stay tucked back in the woods as long as someone doesn’t complain.

December 22, Monday - Hang Time (California)

The day was clear and cool and Inger said that it was an unusual day due to the almost continuous rain that the area had had. We quickly put on walking clothes and explored the levee system that “protects” the Pocket District (a river meander) of Sacramento. From there we headed for the Broadway District for a movie at the Tower Theater. The theater itself is a showpiece of the 30’s but the film “Slumdog Millionaire” far out shined the building. Superb flick.

December 21, Sunday - Up and Over (Oregon)

The urge to go over the last major barrier got us on the interstate early. We were delighted to see a light falling rain instead of snow. When we gassed up, a northbound driver said that the summit was okay. And it was. The outside lane was bare and wet while the inside lane for five miles was compact snow. We collectively sighed a sigh of relief when we cleared the 3,500 summit and started the long descent into the Sacramento Valley.
I’m always surprised at when you think you’re done, other little challenges appear like other lower summits but still making you pay sharp attention. The stretch from Yreka to Redding had high wind warnings that proved to be very true. It was like dancing on a string. The RV is very reactive to winds but handles well to the response of the driver. I was constantly watching roadside vegetation as to what the wind was doing to it as an indicator of the wind speed and direction.
Hannah pulled the big rig on to Inger’s street and shut it down after six and a half hours on the road. We were over the bad part of the trip and had a planned weather buffer day that we didn’t have to use and since we were not to arrive at Sea Ranch until Tuesday, we decided to do a layover day in Sacramento.

Sea Ranch Romp - New Mini Trip

December 21, Saturday – Yes, no, yes, no….. (California)
When I left my Circle Tour in November, I knew that within six weeks that Snee-Oosh, the recreational vehicle, was going to cast off the homeport mooring lines and head south to the coast of California. For years we have celebrated the holidays in the comfort of La Conner but this year the La Conner family had been invited to the parents of Caitlin’s fiancée in Sea Ranch on the coastal highway.
Caitlin and Will in Portland were going to drive down in their own car while Hannah, Joan and I were in the RV for the trip in the 29 foot Winnebago Outlook.

The schedule was to leave the Skagit Valley on Saturday, the 20th and even though it had snowed four inches seven days before we were to depart, I wasn’t worried because in the valley snow comes but doesn’t stay. Wednesday it snowed again and the forecast called for more snow on Sunday. I kept checking the highway cameras from Everett to Redding several times a day. I talked daily with Joan and Hannah about the trip. Weather was becoming a major concern. Questions started being asked about the trip: go; don’t go. Yes, no.
Hannah called saying that Joan had cancelled her appointment on Friday and within two hours our small group decided to leave a day early. This decision brought a major shift in activity. Because the temperature lows were in the teens and the highs in the mid-twenties, I had waited until the last minute to put water into the system which had been drained down for the winter.
On Friday morning Hannah showed up to help with the trip preparations. We put into service the indispensable radios. While I controlled the hose faucet, she monitored the filling process. I was edgy about putting in 44 gallons of water on board and then not going on the trip or finding a pipe leak. But all went well after thawing a frozen water filter with a heat gun.
From there we split up: Hannah chained up the outside duals while I disconnected and stowed the shore power. The chore was to safely descend the hard packed snow road to the bottom of the hill and getting out of my settlement to La Conner across the Rainbow Bridge.
I parked on the flat in town while Hannah drove up the La Conner hill to Joan’s to get luggage and food. Then we quickly headed as fast as chains would allow out of town in the full sunlight toward Interstate 5.
The interstate appeared twelve miles later where we stopped, removed the chains and joined the masses of vehicles heading south on the interstate. I-5 was a total surprise: bare and dry. We were delighted with the highway conditions and the traffic speed. Portland here we come.
The conditions changed within four miles to compact snow and ice between the lanes. Cars and trucks were flying into the ditches. I was glad that I had the added weight of a full water tank. The rig itself weighed in a 22,000 pounds. Together the RV handled extremely well. Thank god that the highway conditions improve after 45 minutes of freeway driving. I kept chanting, “No one panic; everyone stay focus and we’ll all get through it.”
We went from snowy freeways to packed traffic through Seattle area. Finally, finally we were up to highway speeds near Sea-Tac airport.
Hannah took the second shift and drove us down to the City of Roses. Thirty minutes from Portland a blizzard socked everything in. We gladly stopped for the night in front of Caitlin’s home.


Again the weather edge set in. When we awoke Saturday morning there was two inches of snow on the street and the rig. Saturday was supposed to be another good day. Why the snow?? As I pulled out of the residential district onto the many bridges of Portland trouble was evident everywhere that the conditions for being out on the roads were a mess. We crawled southbound. Northbound was shut down with an icy bridge as the cork. Traffic was backed up for miles. It was stressed out driving for an hour and a half then bare and wet pavement. After that, it was open road to Ashland but the Siskiyou Summit still hid in the wings for tomorrow. Saturday night found us parked it in the front of a friend’s house for the night. Snow was on the ground but the rain was coming down.