Our Wander Years

Health status at the end of 2019

Posted on December 25, 2019 by Sparky

Jett still has cancer and it is still incurable and inoperable. But what nearly killed her in May is now, if not in remission, at least at bay. The evaluation testing done in MA and FL has been very positive. All tumors have shrunk. No one is making any promises or even venturing a prognosis, but the fact that she is in no immediate danger is a big win.

But she remains very weak and often feels pretty crappy. She actually got angry at me when my joy at her recent positive test results was muted. I explained that I would be truly joyful only when she felt better and was able to resume a more normal life.

She and I do share one serious health issue: weight. She is too thin and I am too fat. If medical science could provide us with a quick, painless way to transfer 20 pounds from me to her, we would both be very happy.

Other than the weight, I am healthy. I am hoping for a healthy 2020 for both of us.

And for you.

Categories: Health | Leave a comment

Genealogical research status at the end of 2019

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Sparky

As 2019 draws to a close, my count of known American ancestors stands at 353, with 211 being immigrant ancestors. Jett’s counts are 556 and 330, respectively. There were no major breakthroughs this year, though I did change my opinion as to the identity of her Egan great-grandparents. A deep look at the Egans that I had originally identified revealed some troubling discrepancies. Some research by a findagrave.com volunteer – an incredible amount of work from someone who had no skin in the game – convinced me that I had the wrong couple in her tree. It is amazing, first of all, that a complete stranger would invest so much time and effort in helping me out (thank you!) and, second, that after several years of research I can discover that I had the wrong great-grandparents in her tree. That branch is still a dead-end as I could discover nothing at all about their parents.

As part of this deep research into Jett’s recent ancestors – her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, I took a detailed look at all the supporting documentation and discovered a few interesting details that I had missed on the earlier passes. For example, one of her great-grandfather’s middle name was ‘Scribner’. Not exactly a common name and probably a family name. But there were no Scribners in her family tree, so where did it come from? Answer: from her great-great-grandfather’s first wife, Mary Scribner. She is not an ancestor, but he honored her memory, after her death, by giving his firstborn from his second wife her name as a middle name. Touching.

I also found a map of Otisfield ME where this branch resided, so I can now find their actual farm if I ever get up that way.

I also found some new mysteries. Her father, for example, was born in Victoria BC from an American father and a British mother. His citizenship, as listed on his first entry into the US, is ‘UK’. I am not sure about the rules of birthright citizenship, but it is possible that he was never an American citizen. I can find no record of naturalization. But he traveled out of the country a lot so he must have had a passport. His birthplace on one of the immigration entry records is “Cambridge MA” which is false. It is possible that they simply asserted US citizenship for him and were never caught. Mystery.

A second mystery: I discovered that her grandfather Edward had at least two children by a first wife. Jett never knew that she had a half-aunt and half-uncle. I didn’t try real hard but found no further record of them. Tracking them down might be interesting.

I will likely be teaching a genealogy class at the resort in 2020. That will show me, I am sure, how little I really know.

Categories: Genealogy | Leave a comment

A minimalist Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Sparky

Jett and I will be in our RV, alone, on Christmas. There isn’t a lot of Christmas spirit in our “house on wheels” this year due, largely, to Jett’s health. Or lack thereof. But we are making a feeble attempt. Jett insisted that I pull the box of Christmas decorations out of the shed and set them up. It took about 30 minutes, in warm weather, so it was a mere shadow of the day-long effort in sub-freezing temperature of years past. And it was an opportunity to see if the switched external outlets on the shed work.

They do.

So we have a minimal set of Christmas decorations in place. Which is more than some – many have no decorations at all. But to remind us of our place in the Christmas decoration universe, out neighbor around the corner put us to shame. Our two sites, side-by-side:

Ours

Theirs

Categories: FL, Places, RV Living | Leave a comment

“End Game” by David Baldacci

Posted on December 22, 2019 by Sparky

This is the 5th book in the series featuring the one-man army named Will Robie. The book starts with Robie in London single-handedly wiping out a band of 16 terrorists. But he is on the outs with his equally-lethal girlfriend, Jessica Reel, who while Robie was occupied in London was in Iraq wiping out about 40 insurgents, including a bunch in armored cars. She was the only one of her team of 16 to survive, but her mission was counted as a success. So the body count is hovering around 70 before the main story even begins.

What is the main story? “Blue Man” – the boss of both Robie and Reel – has gone missing while vacationing in Colorado. They are both called back to the US and sent, together, to Colorado, to find Blue Man. They encounter a small town in which the law – a sheriff and a deputy and a few remote state troopers – are outnumbered by skinheads and survivalists. They make little progress for several days, but then have some run-ins with the skinheads. They kill a few and eventually are captured by them. They are seconds away from dying when they are miraculously saved. Who saves them? Well, I won’t reveal that, but it is just one of several surprises that pop up as the body count continues to soar. The deaths in this little town are coming so fast that bodies have to be imported from outside just to replenish the population.

It is all great action and fun, if you like death. The whole thing was a bit over the top for me. But it did keep me turning the pages.

Spoiler alert: they kill all the bad guys, find Blue Man and return him to Washington, safe and sound, and their romance is rekindled. But you knew that. That is just how Robie and Reel roll.

6 out of 10.

Categories: Books | Leave a comment

Travel doodling, national parks, monuments and memorials edition

Posted on December 21, 2019 by Sparky

National parks

I guess because the 11,600 miles needed to visit all 30 MLB ballparks was not a sufficiently large challenge, I looked for a larger one. Visiting all 46 national parks in the contiguous US (well, 50 if you include Dry Torgugas National Park, Channel Islands National Park and Isle Royale National Park which are accessible only by plane or boat and Biscayne National Park, which is underwater) is a challenge in itself, but if I were to undertake this challenge I would probably include the 116 national monuments and maybe the 30 national memorials as well. This would be a monumental (so to speak) undertaking involving nearly 200 destinations, probably more than 100 travel hops and at least 8 months of travel – long enough that park winter closings become an issue. Whether it is feasible in a single year is an open question. But I did go so far as to plot a route that would get me to all monuments and memorials efficiently in one very long tour. This route would get me close to most of the national parks, too, so adding them would probably not boost the travel miles by more that another 1,000 miles. But national parks are not one-day destinations, so including them adds at least another 2 months to the timetable. My rough estimate for the monuments and memorials only: about 17,000 miles (plus maybe another 4,000 truck miles getting to the destinations from the RV parks) in 77 hops and 6 months.

A truly massive undertaking. And it makes me wonder: has anyone done it?

This is probably not something for which there is an official “done it” list. Part of the problem is that it is a moving target. The list of monuments and memorials changes frequently. In fact, it is likely that the list would change by the time I finished the tour.

Again, not a tour that I am likely to actually make. But, damn! Wouldn’t that be the fodder for some really good blog posts?

National monuments

Categories: Adventures, Preparation/Planning | Leave a comment

Travel doodling, MLB edition

Posted on December 20, 2019 by Sparky

While the summer of 2019 was intense in terms of medical drama, it was light on time-consuming activities. No softball, not a lot of golf or disc golf. Few outings to restaurants, theaters or even family events. I had spare time on my hands and the travel bug ate away at me. So I devoted a few hours to “travel doodling” – imagining a long RV trip. But it had to be travel with a goal. I decided that a worthy goal would be visiting all 30 major league baseball stadiums in a single season.

The rules were:

Start and end in Fort Myers FL.
Travel no more than 300 miles per day when traveling.
Stay in an RV park within 20 miles of the ballpark (exception: an American RV park was needed for a Toronto game). Due to the proximity of two stadiums each in San Francisco/Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, the tour would require just 26 hops to visit all 30 ballparks.
Arrive for a game early in a homestand and stay at least one additional game, to allow for rainouts.

The question was: how difficult would it be to complete the tour in a single season?

I started with the 2019 season and found that it was relatively easy to achieve the goal. Specifically, I concocted a tour that would finish on 9 Sep 2019, nearly a month before the end of the season.

Just about the time I reached this conclusion the 2020 MLB schedules were released, so of course I had to repeat the tour using the 2020 schedules. This was easier as could pretty much replicate the sequence of cities that worked in 2019. That sequence, with some minor changes, still worked in 2020: I would finish this imaginary tour on 23 Sep 2020 – closer to the end of the season than in 2019, but still eminently feasible. The reason that the 2020 schedule was more difficult was that I had to wait long periods for teams to return from travel. For example, there are 11 days between the game in Detroit and the game in Cleveland, despite needing just a single travel day to get to Cleveland. Guess I would have to find something fun to do in either Detroit or Cleveland to kill the time. Easier said than done.

This is the 2020 sequence of cities, dates, games and approximate travel miles on the hop:

3/28, Tropicana Field, St Petersburg FL, Pirates vs Rays, 113
4/3, Georgia State Stadium, Atlanta GA, Marlins vs Braves, 477
4/7, Minute Maid Park, Houston TX, Mets vs Astros, 791
4/9, Globe Life Park, Arlington TX, Astros vs Rangers, 256
4/13, Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City MO, White Sox vs Royals, 559
4/18, Coors Field, Denver CO, Cardinals vs Rockies, 608
4/28, Chase Field, Phoenix AZ, Astros vs Diamondbacks, 866
5/1, Petco Park, San Diego CA, Dodgers vs Padres, 356
5/4, Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles CA, Cubs vs Dodgers, 157
5/7, Angel Stadium, Anaheim CA, Nationals vs Angels, 0 (same RV park as for #9)
5/16, Oracle Park, San Francisco CA, Braves vs Giants, 426
5/19, The Coliseum, Oakland CA, Rangers vs Athletics, 0 (same RV park as for #11)
5/29, T-Mobile Park, Seattle WA, Braves vs Mariners, 808
6/16, Target Field, Minneapolis MN, Brewers vs Twins, 1655
6/22, Miller Park, Milwaukee WI, Blue Jays vs Brewers, 366
6/26, Guaranteed Rate Park, Chicago IL, Athletics vs White Sox, 108
6/29, Wrigley Field, Chicago IL, Brewers vs Cubs, 0 (same RV park as for #16)
7/3, Busch Stadium, St Louis MO, Brewers vs Cardinals, 302
7/10, Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati OH, Pirates vs Reds, 358
7/17, Comerica Park, Detroit MI, White Sox vs Tigers, 263
7/28, Progressive Field, Cleveland OH, Royals vs Indians, 169
7/31, Rogers Centre, Toronto ON, Orioles vs Blue Jays, 291
8/10, Fenway Park, Boston MA, Twins vs Red Sox, 547
8/14, Citi Field, Queens NY, Phillies vs Mets, 213
8/17, Yankee Stadium, Bronx NY, Rays vs Yankees, 0 (same RV park as for #24)
8/21, Camden Yards, Baltimore MD, Red Sox vs Orioles, 201
8/25, Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia PA, Pirates vs Phillies, 199
8/28, Nationals Park, Washington DC, Phillies vs Nationals, 134
9/1, PNC Park, Pittsburgh PA, Brewers vs Pirates, 248
9/21, Marlins Stadium, Miami FL, Reds vs Marlins, 1173

I didn’t actually identify the RV park that would be used, so I used the distance between the ballparks as a proxy for the travel required for each hop. The total travel mileage for the 2020 tour: about 11,670 miles (including the 155 miles from Miami to Ft Myers to complete the circuit). Whew! The longest hop is Seattle-to-Minneapolis, a distance of 1,655 miles – about 15% of the total mileage.

MLB parks 2020 tour

I doubt if I will ever actually embark on such a tour. But I could. And it is fun to think about.

I wonder how much tickets to 30 MLB games will cost?

Categories: Preparation/Planning, Routes, Sports | Leave a comment

Chancellorsville Battlefield (Oct)

Posted on December 19, 2019 by Sparky

Chancellorsville battlefield

Photos in the museum

Auto tour marker

Visitor’s Center

The end of the year is approaching and I am going back through my photos trying to spot any posts that I should have made but didn’t. This is one – my brief stop at the Chancellorsville Battlefield on my way south with Rusty in October. We had to get both the dog and the car to Florida for the winter, so I drove both down. Mostly it was long hours of tedious driving, but I did stop in Chancellorsville after my overnight in Alexandria VA.

I was pressed for time so I didn’t do much more than tour the visitor’s center and drive part of the self-guided auto tour.

For a detailed description of the Battle of Chancellorsville, I refer you to the Wikipedia article here. The nutshell summary, though, is that this was a major Confederate victory just months before Gettysburg. Some historians describe this as Robert E. Lee’s “perfect battle” due to his brilliant strategy in outwitting and outfighting a vastly superior Union force. But he lost his best general, Stonewall Jackson, and the confidence in his invincibility that was engendered here may have resulted in his catastrophic loss at Gettysburg just two months later.

The Battle of the Wilderness, fought a year later, was very close to the Chancellorsville battlefield – just a few miles down the road. That was also a major Civil War battle that interests me but I did not have time to visit it. Next time.

Categories: Places, VA | Leave a comment

The inverter switch

Posted on December 8, 2019 by Sparky

Now that I have told you all about the inverter, let’s take a step back and deal with the more critical electrical problem: the failure of the inverter switch. The problem manifested, about 10 days ago, with the refrigerator suddenly and unexpectedly losing power. I was panicked at first, thinking that the refrigerator itself had failed – a problem that could potentially cost more than $3,000 to fix. But after trying several things (checking circuit breakers, jiggling wires, voodoo incantations) that were unsuccessful, I, on a whim, flipped the inverter (the old one that never worked) on. It still didn’t work, but it failed in a comfortably familiar was – the refrigerator came on, briefly, until the inverter overloaded and quit. This was pretty solid proof that there was no problem with the refrigerator (whew!) and that the problem was somewhere in the rather complex circuitry that powered it.

New switch and juntion box at end of installation

New switch and junction box at end of installation

So I got, from the file of RV stuff that we keep, the documentation on the inverter and, along with it, the documentation on the inverter switch. This is the electronic component that automatically switches the power on the refrigerator circuit between regular (land) power and inverter (travel) power. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this switch was likely misbehaving. I pulled the cover off this box and the junction box below it, just to get an idea of the circuitry. I tried various things that sort of worked for a little bit, but then the circuit would fail again. I eventually gave up, re-routed the circuit to bypass the switch entirely and hooked it up to an external outlet. Then I ordered a replacement switch.

After a week of running the refrigerator on a jury-rigged circuit, I received the replacement switch. It took about an hour to install it. Much to my relief the refrigerator ran perfectly on both land and inverter power.

Total cost of the inverter and switch: about $300. But now, for the first time, I am confident that the refrigerator will have power when we travel.

Now we have to go somewhere and test it out.

As much as I hate spending good money on things that shouldn’t break, I am deeply grateful that it failed while we were in residence. Had that switch failed while we were up north, we would have returned to a refrigerator filled with thawed, rotting food. It would have been an unholy mess and I can’t imagine what the smell would have been like or how long I would have had to toil to make the place livable again. So if it had to fail, it picked a good time to do it.

Categories: FL, Places, RV Living | Leave a comment

Farewell, inverter, we hardly knew ye

Posted on December 2, 2019 by Sparky

1500-watt inverter, installed

For those one or two of you who read this blog regularly, you may recall that I complained some time back – certainly in the summer of 2017 and perhaps earlier than that – that our RV inverter – the electronic device that is supposed to provide AC power to our residential refrigerator while we traveled – wasn’t working. In fact it never, ever worked. Not once. Each time in cut in it almost immediately cut out, apparently due to what it perceived as an overload of its circuit. Consequently we have never been able to have the refrigerator operating while we traveled, which added an extra level of stress to each trip. We could be pretty comfortable with trips of less than 4 hours because the freezer was still below freezing when we arrived. But as we approached 5 hours on the road the freezer temperature creeped close to 32, running the risk of things thawing and bacteria growing. At the very least all of the ice in the ice dispenser would start to melt, creating an ungodly mess.

You might also remember that I complained about this to Camping World. It wasn’t really Camping World’s fault – it should have fallen on the manufacturer, Thor Industries. But it cost us $67 to have the less-than-brilliant technicians at Camping World look at the problem and declare that the culprit was a weak battery. Uh, guys, what part of “never, ever worked” (even when both the inverter and battery were brand new) did you not understand?

Beyond annoying. Infuriating.

Anyway, for a long time I thought that there was something wrong with the inverter. I eventually came around to believing that the inverter was fine but undersized for its job. The refrigerator was rated at 977 watts continuous consumption and the inverter was rated at 1000 watts continuous output. But the margin – 23 watts – was so small that if either rating was even a little bit off, or if the overload trigger was a little too sensitive, that it could fail to do its intended job. I concluded that simply replacing the inverter with a beefier model – 1500 watts – would solve the problem.

So I bought a 1500-watt inverter for $212 delivered and installed it today. Installation was a breeze – attach the 12-volt power lines and a ground, plug in the dynamic switch (the thing that switches seamlessly to use inverter power when the regular power is disconnected, either as a result of travel or a power failure) and mount it on the utility board in the front basement. Took about an hour. Initial tests suggest that it will work fine.

But I really won’t know for sure until we travel again.

If anyone needs a lightly-used (damn near never used) 1000-watt inverter, speak up.

Categories: RV Living | Leave a comment

“The Soul of America” by Jon Meacham

Posted on November 30, 2019 by Sparky

It seems that the purpose of this book is to make us feel better about having Donald Trump as President by pointing out other times in our history when things looked similarly bleak. Because the country has survived other bad times and bad leaders, Meacham tries to give us hope that “this, too, shall pass.” But I found it more depressing than comforting. I honestly hadn’t known much about some of the political travails in our early American history, nor some of the more recent seminal characters like Huey Long. I also hadn’t known the extent of the Jim Crow lynchings by the KKK and others – over 3,500, of which fewer than 100 were prosecuted and 12 were convicted. Depressing.

So the book is an interesting history read. But uplifting? Not for me.

5 out of 10.