Tuesday, July 19, 2011

This hotel once again has terrible WiFi so I have decided to tour John Muir Woods instead of trying to work here.  I plan to take a few hours during the hot part of the day, if there is one, and work on the blog at a WiFi place along the road.  Today will take me to Lake Tahoe and into Nevada, not exactly sure where.  At 7:30am the sky was very overcast and I hope it opens up when I get to the park.

Many years ago Ann and I spent a few weeks touring the coast here and I am not sure we ever saw further than 100 feet in front of us due to fog and rainy weather.

A few people asked about how this tracker thing works, and I took a photo of the gear this morning as a reprogrammed it a little and will write that up as well.  Ham radio is a terrific hobby and has the potential to be a life saver in disasters when all or part of the public communications infrastructure is out of service.  APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) is what I am using and it is free, as is all ham radio SERVICE after one acquires the gear.  The stuff I am using cost me about $170 total and can be used for voice communications as well.  More later, but read the links if you are interested in how this works.

Here is the map of todays proposed route:


Lessons Learned: Temperature is so personal.  As I added a layer to keep me warmer, i asked a local woman if it was always so cool here in July.  She said it was not usually this hot and fanned her face with some papers she was carrying.  What?

Coming soon - Why I (and Bob Pirsig) think everyone that rides a motorcycle long distances should feel comfortable doing their own maintenance on a routine basis.  I could never have taken this trip if I expected a dealer to be around to take care of stuff that might fail along the way.

2 comments:

aprioriworkshop said...

John Muir Woods is fantastic, hope you enjoyed your visit. I was there last summer and was also lucky enough to see it on a no fog day.

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed meeting you at Recommended Service. I'm hope Dave mentioned his time as a chopper tech over in the rice paddies.

Glad you enjoyed the north Bay..but this is what you missed by not heading south

Greg

http://gregsgssite.shutterfly.com/