Refrigerator-free, period-accurate medieval camp cooking courtesy of the Society for Creative Anachronism, or SCA. Hummous recipes translated from 14th century source material. Lots of other stuff, too. And another similar site.
Solar funnel oven. I’ve been meaning to make one of these for years.
And read this one, too. I haven’t yammered much here about Bush’s 750 ‘signing statments,’ which is where he signs a law into existence and then states in writing that he has no intention of fulfilling them. But I should. There’s also that Scalito character they put on the Supreme Court, because even though Bush refuses to acknowledge the power of the legislative branch, he sees the power of the judicial. Scalito thinks ‘signing statements’ are valid when it comes to interpreting the laws so signed, and so will argue to protect his dear President.
I haven’t had a chance to really look around that much, but here’s Barbelith.com. It’s a big-ol’ message board that looks interesting.
So I was looking at a fairly detailed map of California, the White Mountains in particular. The road that goes to the ancient bristlecones goes beyond them to a place labelled Campito Meadows, so naturally I google it.
One result: The Bristlecone Medicine Wheel. At least, that’s what the Kiwi hippie newager calls it. This is the same hippie newager who made a 7-foot-tall stained-glass dome, called Wholeo, which you can see if you browse around from that link.
The gist is that, to this guy, the White mountains and the Owens valley to the west are a power spot.
Here’s a more down-to-earth map of that landscape.
Update: I just read that the hippie newager’s son died in a paragliding accident near the medicine wheel, which changes the flavor of that whole web site.
I’m stuck here in Houston. Gasoline really *does* melt through J.B. Weld, and so therefore I’m waiting for a new gas tank to arrive. I still don’t know what I’ll do with the old one once it’s removed, come to think of it. Maybe I’ll carry it around on the luggage rack as a spare. Har.
There is literally no place in Houston to buy Vanagon parts. The junk yards won’t stock gas tanks, I guess because of the safety risk. The local VW clubs are all about air-cooled Beetles and Busses. Even the neighbor down the street seems to have gotten rid of his Westfalia.
Yet another thing to dislike about Houston. 
This gives me time to plot and plan my return trip course, which will probably include (within Texas), the vacation house on the Guadalupe river, Lost Maples state natural area, and Balmorea state park. Hopefully I’ll be able to make timely reservations at both those places once the tank has for sure shipped.
Other points of interest on the return trip: Visiting people in New Mexico (wave wave), VLA, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, maybe Canyon De Chelly unless I’m all ancient-ruined-out, North Rim of the Grand Canyon (I have a vision of opening the side door of my Vanagon to see a mile-deep drop) plus a day or two of just wandering around the north side of the Colorado plateau.
These will all be quick stops. Maybe longer visiting the people, and maybe a couple nights at Chaco, but mostly just see and go unless the spirit pulls me to stay. My real destination is the eastern Sierras, the Inyo National Forest, the White Mountains, and the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, which will hopefully be accessible by the time I get there. There’s still a bit of snow up there at 8-10,000+ feet… I’ll have to take some snowshoes. The campsite is open, but the higher-elevation Grove Of Patriarchs might not be as accessible as we’d like.
Other Eastern Sierra points of interest would be Tioga Pass and the Devil’s Postpile area, but neither pass will be open for traffic until June. Then again, I might end up taking a month to get there (since I’m stuck here), so no problem. If I were in better shape, I’d just plan to snowshoe over Mammoth Pass to the Reds Meadow/Postpile area, but alas I’m a flabby guy who lives at sea level.
I was poking around my Xanga account, seeing what the XangaGnomes hath wrought.
There’s a thing called ‘Invites.’
Now, first of all, there’s no such thing as an ‘invite,’ since it’s a verb. The web-linked word ‘invite’ means if you click on it, you’ll invite someone to some event. If someone else has invited you, then you have received an invitation.
Now it just so happened that I had received an ‘invite’-ation from someone I’d never heard of before. So I clicked on ‘View: Your Invites,’ which yielded another list of the same invites (after about a year’s-worth of load time.)
But there was no indication of what my invite-ation was *for.* I click on the guy’s name, and it shows me his profile. I can ‘accept’ or ‘decline’ the invite-ation, but I can’t know what it is.
Did the XangaGnomes lose sight of their goal here? Do the youth of today (gladly, I’m not one of them) have a new meaning for the old word ‘invite’ to which I’m not hep?
This is part 4. Part 3 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 1 is here.
Wyoming.
Wyoming is big and empty. But somehow, everywhere you look, there are service vehicles for natural gas or oil or mining or something. It’s wide-open, except for the fences and the company towns. It’s like if you stuck your butter knife into the dense collection of Houston refineries and picked some up, and then spread it really thin over the scablands.
This connection is not lost on our political system. Bush is from Texas (sort of), and Cheney’s from Wyoming.
Wyoming is an amazing place, really. It can be hauntingly beautiful, even when it’s devoid of anything at all except the interstate and billboards for Little America.
I’m pretty sure I’ve blogged about Little America before, so I won’t rehash.
Little America figures in this blog, however, because I refueled there. I made it about 120 miles east of Ogden, Utah, almost to the middle of southern Wyoming, before the van decided to die.
In our last installment, I ended with a teaser about how I should have listened to the van’s squealing alternator belt. See, ever since I bought the van, the belt would squeal a little when it was wet and rainy, and it had been snowy and wet all through Utah. So being incredibly stupid, I decided that’s what was going on: That it was just wet somehow.
Now, I’d like to point out that on a Volkswagen Vanagon, the alternator belt wraps around the crankshaft wheel and the alternator wheel, but also the water pump. So if it breaks, the battery doesn’t charge (not such a big deal), and the water pump stops working (very, very big deal).
An alternator belt costs less than ten dollars, and in the case of a Vanagon, can be installed by anyone with a 10mm and a 19mm wrench, in the course of, oh, about 20 minutes on a good day. 32 minutes if you’re having a lousy day.
Or if you’re having a REALLY lousy day… It breaks on I-80 in southern Wyoming.
I’m driving and suddenly notice that there’s a huge cloud of… something coming out of the rear vents of the van. After a split-second of panic, I realize that it’s steam, and a split-second later, I realize that of all the huge clouds that could emanate from the engine compartment, steam is a pretty good one.
I pull over, and before I can get out of the van, there’s a guy there to help me. Huge clouds of… something… have the ability to draw strangers to your cause. He’s maybe 50 and is asking if he can help, and I’m frantically trying to get the engine compartment lid off so I can see where it’s steaming from, and in doing this, I cut him off. I am rude. I instantly feel bad about it, but for some reason I feel it’s more important to know where the steam is coming out. Maybe because that way I can fix it.
A moment later I tell him: I didn’t mean to cut you off. I appreciate your stopping, but I think I’ve got it under control.
We shake hands and he drives off, but not before telling me that there’s a place at the next exit. Terry’s Diesel.
I never did figure out where the steam was coming from. It was too hard to see, and the wind was too stiff. Big, hard wind. Mighty wind. Mighty cold wind. I could barely get the engine compartment lid back on, because the gusts kept tossing it around. This is not exaggeration.
Note: There is one thing you should never do if you find yourself in the position I was in, and that’s drive the vehicle.
So I drove (very, very slowly) the quarter mile to the exit. The van hissed and complained, and some guy with a functioning truck got stuck behind me on the exit ramp. My reasoning was that it was really really cold, and I’d watch the temp gauge and if it got really high I’d stop and let the engine cool down before trying again.
I pulled over next to a shack with the words ‘Terry’s Diesel’ on it.
I have plenty to be frustrated about at this moment in time, but what I’m choosing to bicker about is this story over on mediamatters, about how a Fox ‘News’ commentators and Newsweek magazine both claim that using the term ‘arrested’ to describe what has happened to Rush Limbaugh is incorrect or misleading or whatever.
Way back when this story first started, the right wingers were railing that Rush wasn’t really a drug addict, and that it was disingenuous to call him that. Then we were told it was disingenuous to say that he had shopped doctors, because he was innocent until proven guilty. Now that he’s been arrested on charges, it’s disingenuous to say that he was arrested.
If anyone ever, EVER says there’s a liberal or Democratic party bias to media, you should remind them that Newsweek has Limbaugh’s back.
This is part 3. Part 2 is here. Part 1 is here.
Ogden, Utah, to me has been represented by three things:
1) I-84 takes an eastward turn from I-25 at Ogden, eventually re-joining it south of Salt Lake City, thus forming a big ol’ loop around the urban west side of the Wasatch mountains, and the mountains themselves. Driving from Seattle to Houston, we leave I-84 to continue east into Wyoming on I-80.
2) Ogden will be the last vestige of urban civilization until we reach Denver, two states away to the east, and is the first vestige of urban civilization after Boise.
3) The Red Roof Inn, a quarter mile from the I-84 turnoff, which is an exceptionally good deal, even during the peak season. It’s so cheap because it’s not easy to get to. You have to find its hidden entrance off a side street from a side street. I’ve stayed there more than a few times, because of item 2 above.
My plan was to stop long enough for lunch and then get back on the road. I had my motel with me. All through northern Utah, the van was doing fine, except for…
I’m on I-25 about five miles from the I-84 turn-off. It has been snowing all day, and it’s still snowing, and it seems that it will never stop snowing. Ever. The highways are a mess… Ogden drivers, it seems, aren’t used to the snow, so they’re going either extra slow or way too fast. The traffic update on the local NPR station takes about ten minutes. I’d have to look at a map to understand it, too.
The point here, however, is that the fuel ventilation system on my van is munged, and there’s lots of spray from the road, and water is getting into the gas tank through the munged vent system, and the van is losing power, on an overpass bridge that seems to stretch into infinity before me.
I’m driving on the shoulder, the van barely able to keep up a minimal speed. It’s mostly coasting down the overpass, and at the bottom I pull more fully off the shoulder and stop.
It’s a mile walk in the snow, no matter what. I could try and climb the chain link fence on the equipment rental place next to the highway as a short-cut, but I’m not sure how well that would go over. I’m lacing up my boots when the cop comes.
He pulls the patrol car up behind the van and gets out. He explains to me that the snow plow is coming, and he’d rather my van not be on the shoulder when that happens. He’s youngish. He reminds me of a housemate from way back, Abram. Abram as a cop. Some of my readers know Abram, so they know how funny that is.
I ask; Which way to the nearest gas station? I just need a bottle of iso-heet to get the water out of the fuel system.
He says: It’s about a mile down the road. There’s a Chevron.
I say: Well, it’s a good thing I’ve got waterproof boots.
Ayup.
Well, I was maybe hoping you could help me out with a lift up there, if you’re going that way anyway.
Sir, we’re not a taxi service.
I know, I’d be grateful if you could just help me get to the next exit, and I could get my van out of the way quicker.
Eventually, he gives me a ride to the station, waits, and gives me a ride back to the van. I dump in the iso-heet as the snow plow chunks by. I also took the gas can and filled it up, and so I put that in, too.
Starts right up. I wrap a little duct tape around the gas vent hoses as best I can, which isn’t very. I don’t even stop for lunch; I’m headed east.
Now, if only I’d paid more attention to the squealing alternator belt…
