More recessed lighting, ‘The Holiday’, ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’, ‘Marie Antoinette’

(posted from home)
(this post covers 23-27 May)

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Sunday, 27 May –

This afternoon I once again ended up at Rocky Ridge with my iced Americano and a nice, thick Sunday Times. Today was extra-hot and sticky so I had a long, leisurely read. I was deciding whether I wanted to also take a walk when I noticed storm clouds gathering in the skies toward home so I headed out. I made it home (and got the top up) before the rain started. I’m happy to report that the rain-gutter fix I did last week has fixed the problem of water dripping from the fascia behind the gutter.
That evening we watched ‘Marie Antoinette’, a Sofia Coppola film with Kirsten Dunst. I don’t know that it will become a classic but we both liked Sofia’s decision to make a period film using modern language and music. We liked it a LOT better than RT’s 50-rating and one reviewer’s snippish comment: “Off with its head!”. Who dubbed YOU king, dude?

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Saturday, 26 May –

Today Labashi gave me my summer buzz-cut (and then some!) before I hit the Starbucks for an Americano and bought a Times to read at Rocky Ridge. I spent a leisurely hour reading under the shade trees at Rocky Ridge then jogged my favorite route while listening to podcast episodes of NPR’s Tell Me More. Today was extra hot but the jog went well.
That evening we watched ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’, the Clint Eastwood award-winner. Well worthwhile.

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Friday, 25 May –

This morning I ran down to Starbucks and Eastern Market (for the great OJ) in the Miata and spent the afternoon on the web.

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Thursday, 24 May –

This morning I installed the remaining two recessed lighting fixtures and made the circuit splice in the basement. Everything worked first time. I guess I was expecting to have a bad bulb or something that would require attention but it’s all good.
That afternoon I drove the Miata down to Rocky Ridge and jogged the end-to-end route in a little over an hour and a half. That one went pretty well—not much struggle.

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Wednesday, 23 May –

This morning I installed four more of our seven new recessed ceiling lights in the living/dining room. The installations are a bit of a pain given that our attic doesn’t have stand-up room and doesn’t have a center walkway. After wriggling my way up through the access hatch above the closet, I have to crouch over and step from truss to truss to move about. It took us some time to figure out exactly where we could drill through the ceiling in a place with room for the above-ceiling 8 x 8 aluminum housing. Thank goodness for the stud-finder. Labashi spent a lot of time using it to figure out exactly where the trusses lie and therefore where the housings could go. Since we don’t have very good reference points to move the measurements from the room to the attic, we first drill a small hole in the ceiling and push a metal rod up through the loose fiberglass insulation. In the attic, I find the rod sticking up through the insulation and I rake the fiberglass away to determine if there are any wires or unexpected cross-members in the way. I also lay down two or three boards across the trusses which allow me to kneel or lay down while working around the housing. Labashi then drills a four-inch hole up through the ceiling drywall. At that point I run the wiring and connect in the segment leading to the fixture and the one leading away, then place the housing and nail the support brackets to the trusses. In two cases today, I could just barely reach back under the roofline to place the housings and had no room to swing the hammer to nail the braces so I used screws. By late morning the attic was heating up so I gave it up for today.
Labashi and I had a late lunch in town at Al Dente and spent an hour or so at a nearby electrical supplier looking for track lighting for the hallway. We were very disappointed to find that the only lighting we found acceptable was very expensive-- $700 for the components for a nine-foot track with seven lighting fixtures. They’ve got to be kidding! Looks like we’ll go with recessed lighting in the hallway instead.
That evening we watched ‘The Holiday’ with Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz. Chick flick. You gotta be in the mood for something silly and not mind watching otherwise good actors struggle to make something out of nothing.

More rain gutter work, ‘Little Children’, ‘Running with Scissors’, ‘Smokin Aces’, recessed-lighting install (posted from home)

(this post covers 17-22 May)

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Tuesday, 22 May –

This morning I had a quickie morning appointment at the periodontist so by the time I returned home the attic had heated up more than I’d have liked. I spent an hour or so installing and wiring up one of the recessed-lighting housings, sweating my clothes through. That afternoon we drove into town to pick up some electrical supplies at the new Lowe's in West York. We then had supper at Logan's Roadhouse. This was our first visit there and we shared an excellent rack of baby-back ribs. We spent the evening on the web and watched 'Deadliest Catch' and 'Frontline'

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Monday, 21 May -

I spent the morning running the cable segment down from the attic and installing the dimmer switch for the new circuit leg. Because I’m installing the new switch beside an existing one, I had to remove the old single-gang box (by cutting off the mounting nails with the SawZall) and install an old-work double-gang box then wire in the switches. That afternoon I went jogging at Rocky Ridge. This one wasn’t too bad— it took me a little over an hour and a half but the pleasant weather was very comfortable.

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Sunday, 20 May –

This morning I started the planning for connecting up the new recessed lights and realized I have a problem. I see the circuit I was hoping to extend is unsuitable—it has too much load on it to add the new lights. It would be a real pain to try to run a new circuit, particularly in routing the cable blindly up through a partition to the attic. But eventually I realized I can extend from a new circuit we had installed last summer and I don’t have to run a cable the whole way up through the partition. I need a dimmer switch in the circuit anyway so I can run a segment up halfway from the bottom to the switch hole and another segment down from the attic to the switch hole; problem solved---- in theory anyway! I spent the afternoon measuring to the general area, taking down ceiling panels, planning the splice into the feed cable, figuring out where to drill a new cable-routing hole, drilling the hole, and routing the lower cable segment.
That evening we watched “Smokin’ Aces”. Silly but kind of fun.

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Saturday, 19 May –

Labashi jumped on the web this morning and found what looks like the ‘right’ bulb for our project (a short R14 with medium base) and found that Lowe’s carries them. While she was doing that I installed the aluminum flashing strips on the front rain gutters. I then took the Concours in to pick up the R14 bulb. Late in the day I mowed the lawn before we settled in for the evening to watch ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ and ‘Braveheart’ on cable.

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Friday, 18 May –

Today we spent hours shopping for recessed lighting at Lowe’s and Home Depot and still came away with questions. We have been looking for 4-inch ‘eyeball’ fixtures (‘trims’) which will allow the ceiling-mounted recessed lights to be directed on wall-mounted art work. Our difficulty, however, is in finding the insulation-contact (“IC”)-rated housing for the eyeball trims we want and in finding the ‘right’ bulbs. We’ve also had a tough time finding a good display which will show how the light washes against the wall. We finally decided the best way to proceed is to buy one of each of the trims, housings, and bulbs we are interested in and try them at home.
As we headed home we stopped at the video store to pick up some movies and decided today would be a good day for our own little film festival. Back home we first watched ‘Little Children’ with Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson and liked it. Then we watched ‘Running with Scissors’ for the second half of the double-header. We’re not fans of that one.
That evening we started playing with the various combinations of lights. I took the reflector off my mechanic’s trouble light and used it to power the fixtures. By holding the fixtures up against the ceiling we could simulate how they will cast the light beam against the wall. It quickly became apparent that we don’t want the ‘spot’ bulbs, we want a ‘flood’ bulb. The spot bulbs all had a multi-faceted reflector and these throw an ugly, streaky beam. And after trying the flood bulbs it became apparent that we need a shorter bulb—a PAR16 sticks out the end of the fixture and is too easily seen from the side.

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Thursday, 17 May -

Today I made a morning run into Starbucks and Lowe’s in York (it’s great to have the coffee shop next to the home-improvement store!), then I spent the afternoon working on the rear gutterwork on our house. While the replacement of the old downspout with larger downspout last week was good for improving water flow, a recent light rain had revealed a different problem. Even with a low volume of water there was a significant amount of dripping all along the fascia behind the gutter. A search of the internet confirmed what I suspected— low-pitched roofs tend to have problems with the slower-moving water curling back under the shingle-line rather than dripping off into the gutter. The recommended fix is installation of aluminum flashing under the drip-edge and overlapping the inner gutter-edge. I found Lowe’s has rolls of ten-inch-wide by ten-foot-long aluminum flashing painted brown on one side and white on the other — perfect for the job and easy to handle. I cut off two-inch wide strips and started installing (using self-drilling screws) at the lower end where the flashing easily slipped into place. As I approached the upper end I had to remove the gutter-screws to fit the flashing but only for the last ten feet so that wasn’t a problem. Now we need some rain so I can see if the fix worked. That evening we drove into the Texas Roadhouse for ribs.

‘Breaking and Entering’, Mother’s Day, shower light install, ‘Flight of Passage’, ‘Mountain Patrol’

(posted from home)

(this post covers 12-16 May, 2007)

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Wednesday, 16 May –

Today I zoomed in to Starbucks for a pick-me-up and Times and then rode over to a gun shop in East York to look around. I then rode on down to Long Level to see what kayaks are in stock at Shank’s Mare. They have a nice demo Hurricane Tracer thermoplastic boat for 1/3 off but that’s still over $1000 so I’ll just stick with my ugly-but-paid-for boats, thank you very much. That afternoon I started on the installation of one of three recessed lights for our hallway. The first step was to identify how to wire them in to the existing light/fan fixture and the two three-way switches in the hallway. It took awhile to stare at the diagrams in the wiring book and compare to the little bit of wiring I can see to determine the fixture is in the middle of the string between the two switches and therefore how to wire the new ones in. Then I pulled out the instructions from the housing. Something odd here--- these housings are supposed to collapse so they can be inserted up through the hole in the ceiling but this one has no way to collapse—it must be installed from above. Also, I see the housing is for a screw-in bulb, yet the bulbs provided by the local electrical house are two-wire halogens—and, in fact, are 12-volt bulbs while the housing is a 120-volt housing. What a screwed-up order… NOTHING is right. I got on the manufacturer’s web site and see why--- what an incredibly confusing site. Apparently the local retail lighting dealer isn’t all that experienced in recessed lighting and tried to use this web site to match components—and missed badly. Back it goes. I then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to match up components that WILL work. I am amazed at how poor the web sites are for these lighting manufacturers.
That evening we watched ‘Mountain Patrol’ (also known as ‘Kekexili: Mountain Patrol’), a Chinese true-to-life film about a group of men attempting to prevent the slaughter of Tibetan antelope by poachers at tremendous cost to themselves and their families. RT says it’s a 95 per center and we heartily applaud that rating. Excellent film.

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Tuesday, 15 May –

Today I spent most of this hot, sticky day installing a UL-Wet-approved recessed-lighting fixture and IC-rated housing in our shower. I had hoped to do the entire installation from the bathroom but had problems with wire-routing and had to climb up into our very small attic space on this 85-degree day. I had tapped in to the switched supply line for the bathroom fan so the shower light comes on when the fan is used. That’s perfect for the application and required only about three feet of wire. But a false ceiling and having to cross a ceiling joist made it impossible to route the wire from below. This turned out to be a good thing, though. I only needed a minute to route the wire so I spent another ten minutes inspecting the roof and the attic space for any evidence of water or insect damage and was happy to find everything is fine up there. Labashi LOVES her new shower light.

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Monday, 14 May -

Another under-the-weather day today. I’m slowly getting over it but not yet back to normal. That made it a web-day today. I’m also reading a good bit. I finished off ‘The Mangrove Coast’ by Randy Wayne White and started ‘Flight of Passage’ by Rinker Buck. The former wasn’t my favorite of White’s books, perhaps because it’s mostly situated in Panama rather than South Florida but it just didn’t seem very well written. But ‘Flight of Passage’ is a good one. It’s the memoir of Buck’s teenage years when he and his brother re-covered a $300 Piper Cub and flew it from their home in New Jersey to the West Coast and back.

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Sunday, 13 May –

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! Today Labashi and I drove over to my brother’s home for a Mother’s Day cookout. Mom is in good health and my ‘little’ brother and his wife are to become grandparents this Fall. The weather was a bit cool so we ate our burgers inside. We had a great, fun family day sitting around talking. Back home that evening, Labashi and I watched the Survivor finale. We were disappointed to see Yau-Man get screwed over (who does Dreamz think he’s kidding?) and, if Yau-man was out, happy to see Earl take the million dollars.

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Saturday, 12 May –

Rats. It’s another day under the weather with my cold or allergies (or whatever). I have no idea where this one came from. I spent a sleepy day on the web today and again had a little afternoon nap—something I normally can’t do. That evening we watched ‘Breaking and Entering’ with Jude Law, Juliette Binoche, and Robin Wright Penn. We liked it very much so I was surprised to see RottenTomatoes.com gives it a 33 on the tomatometer. Generally I don’t like films which score below 60 or so but this one has a lot more going for it than the score indicates. Law, Binoche, and Penn are great actors to watch and I very much enjoyed the look at life in multicultural London. The storyline was a little predictable but I don’t know—there’s something else going on here; this film didn’t deserve the trashing it took.

‘The Last King of Scotland’, ‘Blood Diamond’
(posted from home)

(this post covers 8 – 11 May, 2007)


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Friday, 11 May –

I must have overdone it yesterday. Today I woke with a sore throat and lots of nasal drainage after a miserable night. I’m not sure if I have a cold or I have allergies to the massive amount of pollen in the air now. But whatever the case, today was a loss—I spent it all in my chair or napping.
That evening we watched ‘Blood Diamond’ with Leonardo DiCaprio. Leonardo did a great job of acting but the storyline is way too violent and simplistic.

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Thursday, 10 May –

I rode the Concours down to Starbucks for a coffee and the Times this morning and then rode on to Rocky Ridge. This time I jogged a different route which took me to the far ends of the park but on the northern side of the ridge. I was pleasantly surprised to find new trails in this area. Where the old trail had been a heavily-rutted path straight up (or down) the hill, the new trails wind back and forth, providing a much better surface for jogging or walking. Today my jog was a slow one but lasted for an hour and forty-five minutes.
That evening we watched the extras on “Last King of Scotland” and ‘Survivor’.

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Wednesday, 9 May –

Today I zoomed the motorcycle over to a local fishing shop near Pinchot Park to look around and then shot down through Dover to the new West Manchester Target for a Starbucks fix. This Starbucks is inside the Target, the first one of these symbiotic arrangements in our area. I had planned to ride on to Rocky Ridge for a jog but then decided I’d get my exercise today by mowing the lawn on this hot but airy day.

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Tuesday, 8 May-

This morning I had a quick follow-up with my periodontist on the surgery work I had done last week. All is well. That afternoon I picked up and mounted the tire I had left for repair after my flat up in the Black Forest several days ago. The tech had found a puncture in the tread but there were no clues as to what had done it. I then took the van to the nearby car-wash to clean off the dust from the forest roads. Late in the day I installed the new 3 x 4 downspout I bought last week to resolve a rain-gutter overflow problem. I had problems removing the old 2 x 3 drop fitting from the gutter because of the tough rubber sealant used on it but otherwise the installation went as expected.
That evening we watched “The Last King of Scotland” on DVD. Forrest Whittaker is magnificent as Idi Amin but I have mixed feelings about the success of the movie overall. I’m not fond of movies ‘based on true events’, particularly when we aren’t privy to what the true events were. In this case it’s quite a stretch to show the young Scottish doctor as a close advisor to Amin and to invent a storyline of the doctor having an affair with one of Amin’s wives.

Lake Marburg boating; Cove Mountain hike; Route 6 eastern half; Lackawanna, Lyman Run, Patterson, and Prouty Place State Parks; “Mrs. Henderson Presents”

(posted from home)

(this post covers 27 April- 7 May, 2007)

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Monday, 7 May –

I woke around 0400 this morning and noticed the temperature had fallen to 27 degrees. So this is Spring in the mountains, eh? My top cover (the down sleeping bag opened as a quilt) had slipped off and I had gotten a little chilled so I dug out Labashi’s big zero-degree bag and was soon warmed up again and fell back into a wonderfully-heavy sleep.
I arose at 0715 to find the windows frosted over so I fired up the Buddy heater to start the morning. As I dressed and had breakfast I started up the van and its defroster to clear the windshield. By 0800 I was back on the road and slowly climbing up out of the quiet little valley surrounding Prouty Place and back up to Route 44.
I pointed my way toward home and turned on the Ipod to listen to more podcasts of ‘This American Life’, these from the February-March timeframe. Highly recommended listening.
Back home I found Labashi happily working away on her garden stuff. I cleared out the van and later we drove up to the Hillside restaurant for dinner. Afterwards we watched ‘Mrs. Henderson Presents’ with Judy Dench and Bob Hoskins. It tells the “based on true events” story of The Windmill Theatre in London during World War 2. Mrs. Henderson was a 70-something widow who decided it wouldn’t be a bad thing to own a theatre and to have some tasteful on-stage nudity to perk up the boys’ spirits during wartime. It made for a surprisingly good flick.

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Sunday, 6 May –

This morning I woke to a 37-degree morning and that wouldn’t have been bad on a nice sunny day but it was very windy. After breakfast I headed out and only made a few brief stops at the overlooks. The wind was blowing hard up out of the canyon so it didn’t make sense to stay long. I then drove back the forest road (Colton Road), thinking I’d start working my way south through the state forest to Leesonia. But I soon came upon an inviting trail. It was the Ice Break Trail and since I was now out of the wind and the sun was well up, the trail beckoned. I took the trail to its intersection with the West Rim Trail right along the canyon at Ice Break Vista, a very pretty little overlook. I sat there in the sun for a few minutes then headed back to the van. I pulled out the maps and decided I’d still like to work my way down to Little Pine State Park but I’d go see Lyman Run, Patterson and Prouty Place State Parks along the way. I re-traced the forest road back a bit to connect to Thompson Road to reach Route 6 and Galeton for the turnoff to Lyman Run State Park. I was unfamiliar with this one but since it had camping and fishing, I’d take a look. But there I found both campgrounds closed for construction and the lake completely drained. I spoke to some local guys who told me the old dam there had apparently been unsafe and it was torn down ten years ago and had just been re-built. The park is supposed to be back to normal operations by the end of summer. I stopped at the picnic grounds and walked back into the upper campground, also under construction. This will be a very nice park when completed. I then followed the Lyman Run creek up past the dam and into the State Forest. This very pretty and clear stream is part of the state’s Wild Brook Trout Enhancement Project and went on for miles. Here’s info about the project from the PA Bulletin: “Historically, brook trout are the only stream dwelling trout native to this Commonwealth's streams. Currently, special regulations for wild trout are typically applied to waters that support wild brown trout or a combination of wild brook and brown populations. Because brook trout dominate in smaller headwater reaches and tributary streams and there typically is a transition to brown trout downstream areas, very few waters under special regulations are dominated by wild brook trout. Based on discussions with various wild trout angling groups and feedback from the recent Trout Summit, there is interest in developing regulations directed at enhancing the abundance of larger, older wild brook trout in this Commonwealth's streams. The general concept is to reduce the effect of harvest of brook trout on the number of older and larger brook trout. The approach being sought is to apply regulations on a watershed basin level (main stem and tributaries) or a portion of the basin to provide a larger area for this management strategy to provide increased protection for larger brook trout in selected streams.” The resulting rules made this stream a year-round catch-and-release-only stream for brookies. Very cool!
The rough forest road eventually climbed out of the valley and took me across a gas pipeline to Route 44 just north of Patterson State Park. This one is a very small state park, really just a grassy area along the road and the camping spots are primitive and, unfortunately, not very level. An iron ranger is there for your payment of $10 per night Sun-Thursday and $12 Friday and Saturday. Probably the best part about this little park is it’s on the Susquehannock Trail System (STS). I pulled in to pick up a park brochure at the lone picnic pavilion and as I walked back to the van I noticed my left-rear tire was low… very low. I quickly pulled ahead to a flat spot along the park driveway where I could change a tire if needed and by that time it was almost down to the rim. I suspect I hit something sharp either in the park driveway or very shortly before, perhaps on the rocky forest road but I could not see any damage to the tire. I was very fortunate to have checked the spare just a few weeks ago. I had found it empty so had taken it in for a just-in-case repair--- and now I needed it! The change didn’t take long and I was soon back on the road and headed down yet another dirt forest road. Some five miles in I found Prouty Place State Park which is only a five-acre grassy area along a stream with a few fire-rings. I walked along the stream looking for fish and then looked for any trails leading off into the woods. I found an old forest road and took a short walk back in there but decided I’d wait for the wind to subside later in the day for that. Back at the van I read some more of ‘The Mangrove Coast’ and even napped a bit. By 1700 I was ready for a walk in the nice evening light. I walked back to the old overgrown road I had seen earlier but then noticed there was a blue trail blaze nearby. I followed it back into the pines and there saw an ‘STS’ above the blaze. This was apparently a side-trail which connected Prouty Place with the 85-mile-long Susquennock Trail System. I had recently read that the STS is one of Pennsylvania’s most rugged trails so my curiosity led me further. In about a quarter-mile I found the STS and a sign pointing south to Cross Fork and north to Denton Hill. I turned south and soon found myself struggling up steep trail. But the mountain top didn’t look far away and I was curious to see the trail up there so I continued. The climb up took me a little over a half-hour but was well worth it. This is the PA Wilds all right--- big trees, crystal-clear mountain brooks and nice long views. At the top I found an open area which may lead off to a road. It would have been a nice camping spot here in one of the East Coast’s top Dark Skies areas. I re-traced my steps back to the blue-blazed connector trail, marveling at the views and taking my time. Along the connector trail I was momentarily startled by a timberdoodle (a woodcock). I was crossing a seep area and trying to keep my feet dry when it exploded from a tiny hiding spot on the ground just a foot or so in front of me. It made its distinctive flapping and wing-whistling sounds as it zoomed off to my left and away.
Back at the van I made some Spanish rice for supper and then read a little more until dark. I poked my head out a time or two to see the stars but I was too engrossed in the book (and too comfortable) to sit out. The stars were magnificent, though… diamonds on an inky-black curtain.

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Saturday, 5 May-

Today I headed west from my overnight stay at Lackawanna State Park (north of Scranton). The overnight temperature had dropped to 35 degrees in the van but I was very comfy. I have a down sleeping bag which zips open to become a quilt and temps have to fall into the twenties for me to need to zip it into a sleeping bag form. If it gets below that, I can switch to using Labashi’s zero-degree bag as a quilt and I’ve yet to need to zip that one into a sleeping bag.
I stopped at a nice little coffee shop on Route 6 for a bagel and mocha and browsed the local paper to start this pretty day. The trees haven’t yet ‘popped’ here like they have down home so the mountains are still in their very-VERY-early-Spring look--- just a few buds in the trees--- but it’s to be in the mid-Sixties today and into the Seventies tomorrow.
I drove across Route 6 as far as Towanda and then buzzed up 220 to Sayre on the New York line, just to see what’s there and to see the upper reaches of the Susquehanna in PA.
Once back on Route 6 I drove on through to Mansfield and realized I’ve completed the Route 6 journey—now what? I decided to go on to the Grand Canyon of PA since last Fall I had been there on a cloudy and drizzly day and had barely been able to see into the canyon. Also, the campground at Colton Point had been closed for the season so I had taken a short walk on a prepared trail nearby as it was getting dark and then had driven on to Mansfield to stay in the Wal-mart parking lot. Surely I could do better!
Today the campground was open so I parked the van by 1530, took a short break, and then planned a hike along the West Rim Trail. I walked back the forest road by the campground to its intersection with the West Rim Trail and took that to the Barber Point Trail and back, a nice little jaunt of a little over two hours. On the way back I met a guy who was doing the entire West Rim Trail (30 miles) in one day; he had three miles to go and seemed to be doing very well.
Back at camp I made supper and then blogged a bit before retiring to read for an hour or so before sleeping.

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Friday, 4 May –

Today I had to get back on the road for a few days. The weather is too nice to waste sitting around home. I decided I’d like to finish the Route 6 trip I started last Fall and did from the Ohio line eastward. But instead of driving up to Route 6 above World’s End State Park where I left off, I drove to the eastern end of Route 6 at Matamoras and will drive it Westbound to the middle—or maybe a little further.
I spent the day at the wheel listening to the excellent podcasts of Ira Glass on “This American Life”. I don’t know if I was just more ready for stories than I usually am or what but every one of them was a winner today. I also listened to some old radio podcasts and thoroughly enjoyed a Suspense Theater production from the mid-Fifties.
I drove westward as far as Tunkhannock. I then decided I’d prefer to spend the night at a state park rather than at a Wal-mart so I can take a walk and maybe do a little fishing. I drove to Lackawanna State Park and set up camp by 1700 and then went for a walk and jog. I walked along the lake to stretch a bit and then jogged for an hour, much of it uphill and extra-slow (there are lots of hills around here!). I then blogged for a few hours in Mocha Joe before calling it a night and turning in to start my next Randy Wayne White book, ‘The Mangrove Coast’.

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Thursday, 3 May –

Today I trailed the boat back to my brother’s house to drop it off to him for the stretch of good weather coming up. I’ve had it for a few weeks and have had some wonderful weather but it’s his turn now.
That evening we watched Survivor—a bit of a ho-hum episode. I also finished my latest read, ‘Shark River’ by Randy Wayne White. I first started reading Mr. White’s work in Outside Magazine years ago. I picked up his current novel while on the road in Florida this year and mentioned it to our friends in St. Pete, who lent me a handful of his books to read. They’re great light reading, particularly if you’ve spent any time in South Florida and love the area.

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Wednesday, 2 May –

This morning we had some extra-dry air come through so I mowed the lawn right after breakfast this morning and didn’t have to worry about wet grass jamming things up or leaving clumps all over the yard. Later in the day I made a run up to Big Bee Boats to pick up a seat bracket and touch-up paint for the boat. It turns out our Lund fishing boat was actually subbed to Lowe Boats. That has turned out to be good news and explains a few things. I couldn’t understand why my Lund dealer didn’t seem to know much about the boat and even the Lund factory seemed helpless. But since Lowe makes a twin-sister boat I was able to get the accessories I had been looking for and now understand what was going on.

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Tuesday, 1 May –

Today I had to go to the periodontist for a check on last-week’s surgery but that only took a few minutes. I then rode over to the local Starbucks for a coffee and paper. That afternoon I cleaned up the Concours and washed Mocha Joe. Ol’ Joe has some pretty deep scratches from his adventures in South Florida this year but he’s doing fine.

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Monday, 30 April –

I was going to take it easy today but later in the afternoon I rode the Concours down to Rocky Ridge Park for a little stretch-the-legs jog. I thought I’d start out slow-jogging and then walk if I felt any pain or stiffness from yesterday but the pain never came so I finished the hour-and-forty-minute time as a jog… a very slow jog but I was happy to be able to hang in.

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Sunday, 29 April –

Today I was ready for a strenuous hike. I rode the Concours up to Duncannon and took the Appalachian Trail up to Hawk Rock and then on Cove Mountain Shelter by noon. There I met three hikers, two of them a dayhiking couple from the Mountain Club of Maryland which maintains several PA shelters and the other a thru-hiker calling himself ‘Leader of the Pack’. The MCM couple told us interesting stories about building the shelter. LOTP was a bit silly looking, wearing a fuzzy-gray wolf’s head for a joke. But it’s good to see he has a sense of humor—he’s going to need it. He was northbound and is doing the trail as a “flip-flop”. He had left from Harper’s Ferry, WV, and was headed for Maine. Once there, he’ll take a bus or get a ride to either Harper’s Ferry to do the second half south-bound or go on down to Georgia and do it northbound.
After the shelter I continued AT-southbound to a blue-blazed trail near Halfway Rock and took it down to an old forest road at the foot of the mountain for the walk back out to the bike, a total of about 8 and a half miles. That was plenty for today.

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Saturday, 28 April –

Today I took the fishing boat to Lake Marburg (Codorus State Park) to log some more engine break-in time. I spent an hour varying speed in the 50-80 per cent range with occasional bursts of up to five minutes at 95-100 per cent throttle. Today was a windier day and I found I could only hit 19 mph into the wind but could hit 22 mph downwind at top rpms. I also figured out how the boat would lie to the wind, at least to today’s wind of 13-15 knots, enough to start small whitecaps. I powered into the wind at several bow angles and then shut down to observe how the boat swings, I saw it very quickly falls off (away from) the wind. The bow swings left or right and lies sideways to the wind (and therefore more subject to the bouncing of the waves) for a bit, but then the bow swings on through, finally stabilizing with the wind coming over the stern quarter. If we look at it as a clock with dead-ahead into the wind being noon, then if the boat falls off to starboard it lies a bit at 0300, then finally stabilizes (quits turning) between 0400 and 0500 (and never points dead downwind). If it initially falls off to port, then it lies in the trough of a few waves at 2100 before stabilizing between 1900 and 2000, again never making it around to the point where the wind comes from dead-astern.
After a good hour of break-in I found a protected cove and did a little fishing for a half-hour or so, then headed back since rain was threatening. As I tied down the boat onto its trailer a light rain started.
That evening we watched ‘Dances with Wolves’ and ‘Open Range’ on the movie-classics channel. We had seen some of the ‘Dances with Wolves’ scenery in the Black Hills of South Dakota last summer and ‘Open Range’ was shot in the Canadian Rockies foothills near Calgary, another of our favorite areas on last summer’s trip out West.

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Friday, 27 April –

I spent most of today on the web reading various news sites, shooting and motorcycle forums and surfing the web for info for my upcoming trips this summer and next winter. I also rode the Concours in to the Eastern Farmer’s Market for some fresh orange juice and had an interesting conversation with the orange-juice guy about Florida. He’s also a fan of the Florida agricultural interior, particularly the area around Lake Wales.