NC Media Watch

Why do we RV? (Corrected)

Russ Steele

Ellen and I are often asked by our non-RVing friends why we RV and some times it is hard to explain.  One of our favorite RV destination is the Salmon River in Idaho.  The beauty is awesome and when you have your own bed, refrigerator, stove and comfortable chair with you; and can stay as long as you like to watch the sun rise and sun set in places like Stanley Idaho, and visiting the mining towns of yesteryear and marveling at the technical achievements of our ancestors you might catch the bug.  Ellen and have visited most of the places in this video of Custer County Idaho. If you do not have a clue as to way we RV at the end of this video, you are not going to be a good candidate for RVing.

H/T to an Idaho friend for the video.

More on California's High Speed Rail

Russ Steele

A number of readers have jumped in to defend high speed rail citing examples of rail success in Europe.  Ellen and I have traveled by train multiple times in England, Scotland, and France. On one trip we brought a rail pass with car rental at each stop. We were staying in country cottages and visiting our oldest daughter attending York University.

On another trip we took the high-speed train from London to Paris with our youngest daughter who was finishing an education abroad semester. On a previous trip to France,  Ellen and I used regional rail. All the train trips were an enjoyable experience. On the Eurostar train to Paris, the three of us and one other couple were the only ones in our rail car. With only five people to serve we received incredible attention from the staff.

I wondered at the time, with so few riders on the Eurostar, how could it be profitable. According to a Skynet story here it has never been profitable and even with record number of passenger, who are avoiding airline hassles, it is not projected to operate in the black. 

Thomas Sowell has some thought on California's high-speed rail in his article Reckless Spending at TownHall.com

Building a high-speed rail system between Los Angeles and San Francisco may sound great to people who don't give it any serious thought. But we are a more spread-out country than England, France or Japan. The distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco is greater than the distance from London to Paris-- by more than 100 miles.

In Japan, the distance between Tokyo and Osaka is comparable to the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But the population of Osaka alone is larger than the combined populations of Los Angeles and San Francisco-- and Tokyo has millions more people than Osaka. That is why it can make sense to have a "bullet train" running between Osaka and Tokyo, but makes no sense to build one between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

However little President Obama knows or cares about economics, he knows a lot about politics-- and especially political rhetoric. "High-speed rail" is simply another set of lofty words to justify continued expansion of government spending. So are words like "investment in education" or "investment" in any number of other things, which serves the same political purpose.

The problem with California's high-speed rail is it will suffer same fate as the Eurostar, it will never be profitable. After the Federal government gives California money to build it, then the California tax payers will have to foot the bill for operations and maintenance. It will be just another black hole sucking in our tax dollars for ever. Not a good bargain, just for the the bragging rights of having a high- speed rail.

Exit Question: How can California HSR every be profitable? Please explain!

Seeking broadband connectivity while traveling

Russ Steele

As an active blogger broadband connectivity is always an issue when going on vacation. Ellen and I are RVers and we take most of our vacation trips in our Airstream trailer, pulled with a GMC diesel powered truck.  Some times, we leave our rig home and use B&Bs, both in the US and abroad, or stay with friends along our route. Regardless of how we travel, broadband connectivity is always an issue and requires some advanced planning.  Where is my broadband, is the first question I ask we arrive at a new location?

We were thrilled when the RV parks started installing WiFi networks. Initially they are rather crude and signals were often weak, but once connected the service was not super fast but serviceable for blog posting.  In some parks you had to walk around to find the best signal and then use the nearest picnic table, not always outside our trailer.  I have had some strange encounters when the RV owner come out of their trailer or motor home in the dark to find me sitting at their picnic table in the dark.

My weak signals solution was to build a directional antenna for a WiFi access point. The plans were published in Trailer Life in 2005.  Today the RV Park network are more robust,  but the service is so slow it all but unusable for blog posting. More and more RV users are demanding WiFI access, and as a result you and 100 other RVers are trying to use one DSL or Satellite connection. Speed are often worse than they were during the dial up days at 14.4 Kbits.

When more cellphone companies started to offering broadband access, I build a WiFi  hotspot into the GMC truck, which used a WiFi router and a Verizon Broadband Card with a high gain antenna on the truck roof. This mobile broadband hotspot served us very well on our cross country trip,  but it was too bulky to take with us in the car or when flying.

When Verizon came out with the MiFI device, which was a mobile broadband card, with a build in WiFi router, I was one of the first in line to buy one.  It worked well in strong signal areas, but lacked an antenna port to increase the performance and reliability in weak signal areas. 

The other downside was the need to have two cellphone accounts with data packages, one for the broadband card and one for my cellphone. The upside was that both Ellen and I could log in with our laptops over the WiFi network.

When it came time to upgrade my Palm Treo cellphone I bought the Motorola Droid, which is an excellent phone for monitoring my blog while traveling. I have a Typepad App that lets me manage posts and comments, but with my big fingers the small keyboard is not adequate for creating long posts. I was looking for a better way, by  tethering the Droid to my laptop.

With some help from the “tech” at the Verizon store, I discovered an app call PDA Net which allows me to connect my Mac Lap top to the Droid.  We tried it our on our latest trip and I was very impressed with the performance.  PDA Net was created and is supported by June Fabrics. Details here. There are version for the iPhone, Blackberry, PalOS, Windows Mobile and Android.

I was able to tether my Droid to my Mac laptop and the turn on the WiFi Internet sharing so Ellen could log in with her laptop, down load e-mail and do some surfing while I was working on my laptop. While the speed was not up to our Comcast connection at home, it was way faster than the WiFi in the RV Parks.

The only place we could not get 3G broadband on this trip was in the McArthur-Burney State Park. We had access at Sugar Pine Point at Lake Tahoe, Hereford Ranch in Burney, McCloud RV Park in California and Diamond Lakes RV Park in Oregon.  If you are going to try tethering your broadband cellphone to your laptop I highly recommend the Droid and Verizon which has build out a robust mobile broadband network.

I could get 3G access even when there were no bars on my voice coverage.  One of Ellen’s big frustration on this last trip was the poor AT&T coverage for her iPhone, once we got off the main highways she did not have any service.  Another reason for a Droid phone is the removable battery. I bought and extra battery and charger, and I am never with out power to the phone. Ellen’s iPhone seem to need charging after 30 minutes of use. 

The biggest benefit to may new configuration is economic. Now I only need one cellphone account and one data package, saving me about $60.00 a month in cellphone bills.

Stay Tuned. I am working on a more powerful configuration for the trailer, to pull in even weaker signals when off the highway and into the woods.

An economic observation from the RV

Russ Steele

Over the years we have camped through out California, Nevada, Idaho and Oregon every summer. Some of our favorite State Park camp grounds sell out in only hours after the reservation go online six months in advance. This is especially true for Sierra camp site reservations in July and August, when the valley is very hot.

However, this year walking around the camp ground at Sugar Pine Point State Park near Lake Tahoe and McArthury-Burney Falls  State Park we found many open camp sites during the week. More visitor in the weekends, but still open sites on the weekend. This would not have been possible in past years, when all the camp sites booked up in hours after reservations opened.
 
Most of the visitors at Sugar Pine Point and McArthury-Burney Falls appeared to be middle income families with children, if the high-end family vehicles and RVs with bike racks on the back are accurate indicators.   

 At Diamond Lakes in Oregon, we found the RV park was turning away travelers. Across the road from the RV Park is a National Forest camp ground with much better lake views and access to the water, however no power, water or sewer services, that are essentially empty. Many of the low cost and mid-range cost camp sites are going un-used.

On the other hand the higher-end RV parks in Oregon, with full service connections, are full to overflowing with older folks and older international travelers in rented RVs.  Several traveling with what appear to be grandchildren. One can conclude that retired folks are spending their nest egg and folks who are still working are harboring theirs by staying close to home.

We stayed one night at the Hereford Ranch RV park at Hat Creek. Many of the campers were from the upper Sacramento Valley, who had come to the Sierra to  escape the valley heat for two weeks.  Not going too far from home.

Hope and Change has modified the lifestyle of many family campers, but has not had a significant impact on retired folks with their big RVs.  Yes, we all wince at the fuel pump, but that only results in one less dinner out opting for more meat on the grill at the RV, and and fewer bottles of $15.00 California wine. Australian wines are a real bargain at $5.00 a bottle and are quite good with a steak or grilled trout.  

Also, as we traveled though multiple rural small towns in California and Oregon, and we saw many closed business and restaurants, perhaps as many as 1/4 of the business on a street.  Not an encouraging sight.

Exit Question: When will the economy turn around, restoring confidence in our political leaders?  Oh!

What is the cost of Icelandic volcano eruptions?

Russ Steele

We have been discussing the impact of volcano eruptions on climate and agriculture, but there are other economic costs, as noted by other blogs.  Claire Tucker, Know Your Money, sent this link showing the impact on the European airlines and the over all European economy.  (Click for a larger image)


More graphics here.

Mother Nature does not really care about European economics, nor does she care that the amount of CO2 emitted in the last thirty days exceeds all that we humans have saved by driving hybrids and using LCF lights.  And according to geologist in Iceland the worst is yet to come. It is foolish for we humans to think we can control the weather and long term climate trends. She is the lady in charge, Europe will have to adapt, starting with new economic models for business dependent on air travel. 

We are back in Nevada County

Russ Steele

We have returned from our trip to Idaho, BC Canada, Washington's Olympic Peninsula, and the Oregon Coast.  Visit Ellen's Trip Log for all the details, but I will have some observations in up coming posts.

Now that we are back I will resume a regular blogging schedule. I will have a column in The Union on Saturday.  It is about a unique deficiency in our local economic development efforts. Stay Tuned. 

Economics in the Twilight Zone

Russ Steele

This not about Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. We are in Forks, Washington, and they are having the "best summer tourist season ever" according to a Chamber Board Member.  With the publication of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series and the release of the movie Twilight, Forks has become Twilight Central.

Forks is now an economic magnet for car loads of middle age women from LA, and major cities across the west, all converging on Forks. These matrons are soon elbowing teen age girls clutching Twilight books to their chests out of the way at the Chamber of Commerce's Information Center, while the teen's Dads are cools their heels in the Timber Museum next door to Twilight Information Central. About 600 "Twilighters" a day was the Chamber estimate.   

Forks was just a sleepy little logging town on the edge of Olympic National Park in the upper left hand corner of Washington. That is until it became the setting for a love story about a teen age girl named Bella and a vampire named Edward. Now Forks motels have No Vacancy signs, restaurant parking lots are full, and the stores are bulging with Twilight Gear, including the ACE Hardware store. To meet the national demand the Forks Chamber has an online Twilight gear store. Bella's pick up is parked outside the Chamber office. "The most photographed vehicle in America," according to the volunteer docent at the Timber Museum next door.

Maybe the Nevada City Chambers can commission a local author to write a series for teen age girls, set in Nevada City, that speaks to the hidden fourteen old in every middle aged woman in America. Let's give the Forks a little competition! 

Power on the road

Russ Steele

We normally stay in RV parks with a 30 amp circuit, that will support the microwave oven and the AC if needed.  We carry a generator for dry camping in US National Forest and Canadian Provincial Parks, but it also comes in handy when the the power goes out in the RV park, as happened the other night just about dinner time in Osoyoos. Osoyoos is Mexican Riviera of Canada according to the lady at the visitor center.  It is reported to be the warmest place in Canada. No argument from us, it was about 88 degrees and no breeze at dinner time.

Our little generator will not handle the AC unit, nor was it intended to, so we have this nifty little fan to create our own breeze.   

 

Speaking of fans, this one is just down the street from where we are parked. This is the ultimate green RV, with it's own wind turbine for charging the batteries. That is if there is some wind.  We have see a little drizzle, but not much wind in Vancouver.

Cobalt Book Signing Update

Russ Steele

The books signing was a huge success, not in the number of books sold, but in the sources of new very valuable information on Cobalt and the Blackbird Mine. One visitor  drove a 150 miles to bring a suit case full of material he had saved from the Cobalt school house while it was being torn down. He also had a portfolio of about 50 color photos of the town site before it was destroyed, plus 8mm movies that had been converted to a digital format.  Wow!

We are delaying out trip one day to spend Friday in the Museum to digitize the pictures and copy the movie DVDs. This material will be posted to the Cobaltmemories blog in the coming months.  Other former Cobalt residence came by the Museum, some to buy more books and others just to chat, adding details to existing stories and telling some that I had never heard before. Others offered their photos collection. Powerful primary source information.

By any measure a huge success.

Book tour update

Russ Steele

We were honored with a front page story in the Reorder-Herald the local paper last Thursday, a 20 minute interview on Voice of the Valley on the local radio station on Monday, and on the way back to our trailer we spotted this marquee posted by the local Arts Council.



People are waving, saluting or greeting us like long lost relatives when we come into a store.  "Saw your picture in the paper" they say, or "saw you on the web."  Even before we arrived in Salmon potential buyers were calling our cellphone asking where they can buy of the book. This book signing is a far bigger deal than I imagined. Stay tuned the signing is on Wednesday -- all day.