Johnston

Day 197 has been updated with Photo's (Russian River at Jenner & Fort Ross)

Day 198 has been updated (sorry about being so lazy, but I'm working on Day 199 now also?)

(4/7) - Day 199 has been updated.

(4/8) - Day 200 has been updated.
(4/8) - Day 201 has been updated.

(4/9) - Day 202 has been updated.

(4/10) - Day 203/204 has been updated.

(4/11) - Day 205 has been updated.

(4/17) - Day 206 has been updated (sorry it's taking so long - got a little side tracked)

4/20) - Day 207 has been updated

(4/20) - Day 208 has been updated

(4/28) - Day 209 has been updated - only two more days to go!

(5/8) - Day 210 & 211 have been updated. This is it for the final section of the trip..

What's left? Not much, so if you're tired of reading this, I certainly can understand. Maybe for my own sake if no one elses, I do have some days way back in Michigan that still need photo's added (they've been uploaded, just never inserted them in the blog). I also haven't uploaded hardly any video's for the second half of the trip (since St. Petersburg, FL). Maybe it's late, but I'd still like to get that done. So will keep using this status entry to let you know if anything else changes.

...BTW - Working on something for a Family Reunion in August 2009 - more in the new blog below...

New Blog!

Drque suggested that since we had so much fun staying in touch while we were on the RV trip, we should get together and do some sort of family network site so we can continue to stay in touch going forward. There are probably better web sites for this and we're looking at a few, but in the meantime I thought it might be fun to go ahead and setup a new blog in Travellerspoint for those who are already used to using this one.

If you're family and have a Travellerspoint user id, I've set you up as an author already for this new blog. You can go ahead and try posting news or info about a trip you've taken or whatever. I posted a couple of (hastily written) instructions in it to help us get started.

I'm not sure whether other friends want to post to this also or not, if so let me know (by posting a comment of course!) I can add you. This is an experiment, but I figured it wouldn't take long to set up and we could give it a try.

Here's the link:

http://jcircle.travellerspoint.com/1/

ps - I certainly don't plan to post daily entries on the new one myself as I did for this blog, but will try to weekly or so...

pps - if you have a preference for a social networking site you'd prefer we use, we should start a discussion for that! OK - I'll add one more entry to the new blog for this purpose and give us some ideas to start with...

Yes, I think I've got the map caught up:

Also, in case you're wondering (or new) - there are still about 10 days +/- back in September where I haven't finished adding pictures to the blog entries. Believe it or not, I do intend to get these caught up (for my own sake if no one elses). There was a lot of interesting stuff we saw during that portion of the trip (as we have everywhere we've been!)

Since these are so far back now, when I do get them updated - I'll put a note in a current entry.

Also, in case you're new - you can click on the Categories on the right. The Preparations category has some introductory stuff about us and our trip. I intend to (someday?) start using some of the other categories better, such as Education & Photography - but haven't had time to yet. We're trying to get through New England before winter hits and are running a little behind. Once we get farther south, we'll slow down a bit which will make it easier to get all these grand plans caught up (unless we find even more places to visit!)

I have been adding titles and descriptive information to photo's all along. However, after reading some recent comments, I (finally) realized that you can't always see this info. You do see the info if you view the photo's from the Photo Album, but most people just see the photo's when I include them in a blog entry.

You may have noticed that I tend to post a bunch of thumbnails together, without putting much info about the individual photo's (thinking that since I had already written descriptive info and attached it to the photo - you could see it).

After realizing the error of my ways, I asked the Travellerspoint people if they could add the descriptive info when you enlarge the photo. They have made this change:

Now, when you click on a thumbnail to enlarge it, the photo window will contain the title & descriptive information!

So the next time you enlarge the picture the Rainbow Bridge, it will tell you that I took the picture from the Maid of the Mist!

Travellerspoint helped me with my map problems, so I am finally updating it. I am a couple of days behind (what else is new), and there is still some fine tuning I could add - but it gives you some idea where we've been. (Looks like I've got a couple of extra dots to correct as well.)

(Caution - if you have a slow connection, this will not load very well)

Anytime you want to see the latest iteration of the map, you can click on the Author (jl98584), select Travellerspoint Provile, then select the Trip (Re) Discovering America.

I would appreciate your feedback (via Comment or email):

I have been adding some details about the photo's to the photo's themselves. I assumed that when you clicked on the thumbnail, it would not only show the photo - but also the descriptive information about the photo. It doesn't (I'll make a suggestion to change this in the systems forum). In the meantime, do you prefer to get Photo descriptive Info in the Photo Albums or in the Blog entry directly?

Am I uploading too many photo's? If I add the description for each photo in the blog entries themselves, they will get much longer (I won't be able to stack the thumbnails as I have been).

Any other suggestions you have for making this better would be appreciated (am seriously lacking much free time, but will do the best I can).

No projects are ever without unexpected setbacks, at least none that I can recall. Actually they should not be unexpected, since they always seem to show up, but in my delusional state of mind, I always seem to assume that things will just unfold without a hitch.

Preparing for this trip is no exception. Of course, I knew the RV needed some work – after all it is quite old (1991 is old for an RV) and there were several ‘little’ projects I had been putting off for some time. (Maybe I should take trips more often and force myself to catch up on the repair jobs?) How much simpler life would be if I just got work done as needed, instead of putting things off!

One of the not so small problems I had been putting off was a leak in the front bunk area over the cab. The weather stripping had been dry and cracked and rain seeped into the wood for some time. Earlier this year, I placed duct tape over the tracks and thought it had stopped the leaking, so I thought all I needed to do was buy some new weather stripping and stick it in (wish I’d thought of that 5 years ago when I bought this rig!)

In some places, this worked just fine.

However, when I got to the cab over the driving compartment (this is a Class C RV, which means there is a bunk over the cab – there was more damage than I thought. Panic set in, thought I’d have to have the wood floor replaced ($$$) – but I took it to the RV shop in Shelton (Sundance RV) and they said it wasn’t that bad. So I fixed it up the best I could, and a week or so later, it is ready (from that job anyway).

During the repairs, I also learned that my rig is too old to be able to get drawer guides from Winnebago, and too new to find them at the RV salvage yards. So I had to fashion some myself out of a cutting board using my Dremmel cutting tool.

A short (?) list of other setbacks/repairs includes:

Replaced both main blinds
Replaced most of the running lights (should have done them all, but I ran out of time)
Replaced water pump and installed an inline water filter
Installed a new electric heating element for the water heater (Charlie installed the switch for me!)
Replaced the vent covers
Removed & reinstalled the ‘skirt’ off the back bumper (with shorter screws so I could store the septic hose in the bumper)
Installed a bike rack on rear bumber (using this for Mom’s walker at the moment)
Repaired one of the bench backs
Built a new drawer and repaired other drawers (incl. drawer guides)
Shampoo’d carpet, flushed water tank with clorex (and twice since with clean water)
Had RV Serviced, including turning brake rotators
Had Awning installed

Spent LOTS of money at various RV service shops & parts stores...

All in all, I spent so much time on the RV, I didn’t really get my office stuff packed for the trip (bills still have to be paid, taxes done, etc. while on the road).

So in the end, I threw lots of stuff into boxes and into the RV. As I get a chance, I’ll sort this all out and ship home what we don’t need. In the meantime, having to move all this stuff around this little tiny rig will give me lots of incentive to finish the job!