Goodbye Ray

I am so sad.

Just last week 

I wrote about how pleased I was 

to discover the Ray Bradbury Theater.

Encompassing both old memories and new joys, 

it was like getting to meet an old friend all over again.

And now my old friend has passed away.

I know that instead of being sad, 

I should feel happy 

to have experienced the gift of his wit, 

his imagination

and his genius. 

And in time I'm sure that is just how I'll feel,

But tonight I am just sad.

Ray Bradbury

August 22, 1920-June 5, 2012

the Transverse of Venus

First off, thanks to all of you who commented, emailed and called.

I spoke with my Doctor, I go for an ultrasound tomorrow and will discuss options with her on Friday.  There is still some pain and we both believe I may have a stone stuck in my bladder, we'll see.

Anyhow, I'm feeling much better and today we took off down to Santa Cruz where the local astronomy club had set up a viewing station for the transit of Venus across the sun.

What a great afternoon, perfect weather 

for this once in a lifetime event.

There were lots of people, 

lots of telescopes 

and a general air of festivity.

Someone even made free cookies 

commemorating the event.  

How cool is that?

I didn't have a filter for my cameras, 

but I was able to get this shot 

using one of the telescopes and my iPhone. 

 Venus can be seen in the lower left.

The next shot is another one I got from the telescope. 

I didn't have a clue what I was doing, 

but I sure do like the effect.

Could I be down at the shore 

and not include at least one shot of pelicans?

On our way home, we had to stop at the market 

and I thought these flowers were just so lovely,

I had to take a picture.

And in honor of today's astronomical event, 

I'm including this picture. 

I found this in the house 

and the name and cover just tickled my funny bone. 

If Cholula Red wasn't already an established name, 

I'd name her the Galactic Derelict.

That's it for tonight.

Scary

Last evening, I felt a pretty sharp pain in my abdomen.   Having had kidney stones before, I suspected they might again be the culprit.

 Since it wasn't "hospital" bad yet, I decided to tough it out and see what happened. I have a stash of pain meds from previous bouts, so I broke one in half and hoped for a halfway decent nights sleep.

 And that's exactly what I got, a halfway decent nights sleep, fitful at best.

About 5am, I decided to stop trying to sleep, and the rest of today has been one of those days where unreality reigns, napping, dozing, half aware.

Finally about 2:00 it suddenly alleviated, and I figure the worst had passed. Still a bit sore but infinitely more comfortable, I've spent the rest of the day indulging in a marathon of Lost and taking a few pictures.

I suddenly realized that it had been raining, 

in June!

But I'm kind of a sucker 

for those little drops of water.

I like them a lot better in pictures 

than on my head . . .

And I finally got a clear shot of a hummingbird.

Not a great shot, no action and very little color, 

but at least it's in focus!

Now I think I'll have a cup of tea 

and go back to bed.

This and That

Regular readers know that we love our Lazy Daze motor home. Being a somewhat small company, you don't see all that many out there.  Usually, when you see any artwork involving RVs, it's rarely a Lazy Daze. That said, a friend of ours was vacationing up in Seattle and saw a weekly paper with this on the cover.

 

Wow, Lazy Daze in artwork, what a find.

Intrigued, I looked it up and found it was painted 

by an artist named Casey Weldon.

Hoping there was some kind of back story, 

I emailed him and he replied

"My grandparents owned one when I was a kid 

and they often took my brother, cousin and I out camping. 

The painting is a sort of reminiscence of two sisters 

I have a vague recollection of meeting 

at one of the camp sites. 

I was in love with them, 

as much as any boy could be in love for a week, I guess. 

They were older, 

and I don't if it was general disinterest in us, 

the campsite, 

or another issue, 

but something about them seemed sad. "

Is that a cool story or what?

And speaking of Lazy Daze artwork,

back when we first got the rig, 

we camped for a while with Lazy Daze friends 

John and Ilene Van Gossen.

Ilene Is a talented artist 

and gifted us these small paintings, 

just perfect for the kitchen in the rig.

I look at them every day 

and they continue to inspire me, 

I wish I could paint like this!

Feeling somewhat inspired, 

I worked on a couple of shots 

I've taken of small pewter statues 

that we will be selling.

I couldn't figure out 

where the striped light came from, 

but I liked the effect, 

so I just went with it.

And once again, 

that's it for today.

Light

I spend a good amount of time 

in the back of the rig.

It's technically the bedroom, 

but to me, it's my den.

Depending on where we're parked, 

the view changes by the minute.  

Today, I looked up 

and saw this beautiful pattern.  

I tried to play with the settings 

to get a better shot, 

but in just a few minutes, 

it was gone.

Just a couple of memory shots.

Sugar Free No Flour Chocolate Cupcakes

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We're back on the low carb wagon, have been for a few days now. As always, this puts us into a different mode, food wise.

That said, it's not really difficult once you set your mind to it, and the huge selection of great food available is always a treat.

As usually happens after a short while, I go into sweets withdrawal, which means it's time to get out the old recipe book. Well, not really the old recipe book, because tonight, I'm looking for something brand new.

I always start this search with almond meal, also called almond flour. Not as fine as wheat flour, but it sure adds a lot to the flavor.

I haven't been baking for a while since when we're off low carb, I tend to just buy from whatever bakery is available. Once I get back into the habit, it seems to get easier. Tonight, I made a HUGE mess in my tiny kitchen. The good thing about my small kitchen is that even when it looks like a bomb has gone off, it cleans up in a snap.

I love living in the motorhome.

I think it's worth mentioning here that I frequently bake (and cook) in the motorhome. A lot of people ask about how it's done, but once you get used to only having the kitchen implements you really need, it becomes quite easy. I have very few kitchen appliances. After years of having at least one of everything ever made for the kitchen, I find I'm quite happy with just a good quality stick blender (make sure it's powerful enough to meet your needs) and a good selection of knives.

Now, on to the cupcakes.

This recipe comes from the CDKitchen. The original recipe can be found here, but in case you hate clicking links, here's the ingredients.

2 cups almond flour
1 cup Splenda or other heatable sugar substitute
6 tablespoons butter
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 eggs, separated
2 teaspoons baking powder
5 tablespoons cocoa powder

I'm not including their frosting recipe, because, to my way of thinking, it's a bit carby. And, you know what? I like my own frosting much better. My frosting includes some cream cheese, a bit of butter, a hit of vanilla and some Splenda. On occasion, I add other flavorings, sometimes nuts, whatever strikes my fancy at the time. It's my go-to frosting recipe and it always get raves. But back to the cupcakes.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F.
Whip egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff.
In separate bowl, cream butter with egg yolks until light yellow and fluffy.
Add vanilla and sugar substitute, beat until mixed.
Fold about 1/3 of the whipped egg whites into the butter mixture
Now add the whole thing to the whipped egg whites.
Fold lightly.
Add half of the almond flour and again, fold lightly.
Add remaining almond flour, baking powder and cocoa, fold thoroughly,
Be careful not to break down the whites.
Fill paper muffin cups in muffin tin about half full.

Bake at 325 degrees F about 15 - 20 minutes

Without frosting, these come to a mere 4 carbs each (2 grams of fiber, so only 2 grams of usable carbs). Add whatever you use for frosting (they would also be great with fresh whipped cream) and they are still a nice low carb treat.

I really liked these, they weren't too sweet and they weren't too chocolate-y.

Terry, who is not a chocolate fan at all, thought they tasted a bit like something you'd buy at a health food store (the kiss of death from my Hunny Bunny). I believe what he didn't like was the chocolate. I used an unsweetened cocoa powder, which I found a bit bitter, but it didn't ruin them for me.

I would make these again, but will most likely try the recipe without the cocoa powder, maybe use an orange flavoring, or maybe add a banana. What I really appreciated was the texture, they were quite light.

One thing I'd like to mention. I know a lot of people aren't on board with the low carb way of eating. I'm in the camp that this is a very individual decision, since every person's body and metabolism is different. Terry is borderline diabetic and our Doctor has suggested this as a way for us to control his blood sugar, so we're going to follow our Doctor's orders.

the 10th Kingdom (and Maps)

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Have you ever heard of the 10th Kingdom?

I hadn't, but since I've been doing nothing but staying in (still sick, will I ever get well?) I've been combing the library database on my computer and sending Terry for things to watch.

I found the 10th Kingdom, and it piqued my interest. A modern fantasy with roots in all the old fairy tales, it tells the story of a modern girl and her Father who are transported to a parallel world.

I don't want to tell you any more of the story, but I will tell you this. It's quite long at almost seven hours, but for me, the story just flowed. Bolstered by great characters, sharp writing and really fine acting, it's a treasure.

While many of the characters are based on those from fairy tales, this is definitely not for children. I don't think young, fairy tale aged children would enjoy it, but it's certainly appropriate for older young ones. Think Lord of the Rings.

Speaking of Lord of the Rings, this is every bit as impressive. Beautiful creations, stunning makeup, the CGI is seamless and the makeup, WOW!
The costumes and sets are equally impressive, and since there are major women characters, the jewelry is really eye-popping.

And did I mention the BeeGees and Procul Harem?

I was doubly impressed when I realized that this was done one year before Lord of the Rings. And it was made for television.

Rent it and let me know what you think.

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Okay one more, completely unrelated thing.

Do you like the Frommer's Travel Guides? I think they're fun to look at, especially when we're not traveling much (like now). I also like their maps, and I recently found a link to a website that lets you download every single map from all the Frommer's books.

If you're interested, here's a link.

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Got Recipes?

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My friend Jonna sent me a request to join a recipe tree. I've participated in several of these over the years and have received a couple of great recipes, BUT . . .

There's always a but.

The way it works is you only have to send one recipe, but then you have to forward the request on to twenty people, hopefully people who will respond.

Well, I managed to scrounge up twenty people, but I've already gotten a bunch of emails from friends who either don't have the time or don't feel like they can come up with twenty people to send it to.

So since I love trying someone else's tried and true recipes, I thought I'd throw it out here . . .

Anyone want to play?

If you're interested, please email me, or leave a comment and I'll send you the full instructions.

Or you could just post your very favorite recipe in the comment section and then I'll have a whole bunch of new recipes to try!

Our Catalytic Heater

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Now that winter is upon us, there's been quite a bit of discussion of catalytic heaters over on the Lazy Daze board. While many folks have mounted their catalytic heaters (usually an Olympian Wave) permanently, we had ours installed so it can be moved, or put away entirely.

With this discussion, several folks have asked for pictures of our setup, so I decided that I would do an entry here on the blog. If you're not an RVer, this might not be of any interest to you (or maybe it will?). Anyhow, you have been warned.

When we first got our catalytic heater, we got a Wave 6 figuring that bigger is better. A few uses disabused us of this notion, and fortunately, we found friends who were amenable to a trade.

For mounting, we decided on a quick connect valve, but we knew we wanted a hard wired on/off valve. A bit of scouting around found the best spot for this was under the kitchen sink. We could hook in to the propane line for the stove, and we could use the empty space under the kitchen drawers as a place to store the propane hose when not in use.

Here's a picture of the connection to the propane. The red handle is the shut off valve. We make it a practice to turn the propane off at this valve every time we turn the catalytic heater off. Pardon the dust, I do my very best to keep this clean, but it's kind of intimidating with all this electrical equipment!

You can see the actual heater hose extending from the cabinet face next to the propane detector.


Here's a shot of the area when the heater is not in use. After use, we simply push the hose back in the area behind the cabinet. As you can see, the hose sticks out just a bit, but it's pretty inconspicuous. You'll also see that the screened cover is back in place under the sink. Originally, this panel was screwed into the wood, but we removed it, then sawed off the screws flush and glued them in place (this pleased me cosmetically). Then we simply placed velcro on the back of the panel and the front of the cabinet. It holds the panel in place just fine, but others may find a cleaner solution for attaching the panel.


Here's a shot of the hose when it's extended and attached to the heater for use. While it looks like it's in the way, it's never been a problem for us. The hose is somewhat stiff, and we always know when it's in use. We've had this setup for over five years now and it works well for us.


Usually we start with the heater facing the front of the motor home. We usually put it in the kitchen as you see here, but it can be moved forward into the actual living area if we like, due to the length of the hose. You'll notice a red mat under the front of the heater. This is a silicon baking pad. While the heater doesn't put out a lot of heat straight down, sometimes, we feel it gets a bit warm in front of the heater. The silicone pad simply makes sure no extra heat reaches the flooring in front of the heater.


After a while, when the rig is nice and toasty, we'll take the heater into the bedroom area and face it towards the back of the rig.


One huge advantage of the catalytic heater is that it requires no battery power to run. It's also extremely efficient on propane, and quite small.

I should also mention that it's important to always have ventilation when using a propane heater. We open the vent in the bathroom, which seems to offer plenty of airflow. We also turn it off at night (we never sleep with the propane heater running). Also, we always turn it off when we leave the motorhome.

We use our Olympian Wave 3 about 80% of the time. The furnace is awful handy, but it's very noisy, pretty inefficient and uses a good amount of both propane and battery power.

Windy . . .

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I'm sure happy we're living in the motorhome.

We seem to be in the midst of a pretty violent windstorm. The power went out last night and as of 9pm, is still not happening. I can hear the wind whistling, the trees groaning and the debris scuttering along the ground.

But here in the rig, we're snug and warm.

How well I remember when we were living in the big house, what a pain it was when the power went out. We still had heat, but no lights, no computer, no internet. Scrambling for batteries, tripping over my messes.

Now, here in the rig, it's really not that much of a bother.

That said, I find the wind and its' accompanying noise bothersome. Makes me wish I wasn't under all these trees!

I always think back to when we were first in New Mexico and I got a taste of what a real windstorm was like . . .

You can read about it here.

Wow, reading that, I seemed to be so much more in touch with everything when we were on the road. Now I seem more numb to my surroundings. Just reading that post makes me itch to leave this place.

Snap out of it!

There is one good thing I'm noticing during this storm. Since we've switched our lights over to LEDs, we use hardly any power at all. We've used all the lights we wanted, both last night and throughout the day into this evening and still, the batteries read 94% . Not bad at all. While it was expensive, it sure seems worth it at times like this.

We still have the stock fluorescents that Lazy Daze installed at the build, but one of these days I'll get around to changing those too. For now though, all our tiny fixtures have been switched to LEDs. I love that they burn so cool, the halogens were so hot, I was always worried about heat build up.

I'm reading this and I guess it's kind of indicative of my state of mind.

Wandering, scattered, wistful and ready to leave.

Still, I look across the rig and see my sweet mans face and know that everything is all right.

I'm going to hit "publish" before I ramble even more.

More Photography

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I'm continuing to play with the new camera, and I remain pleased.

Last night, I decided to test the low light capability of the SX40. This is often a problem with digital cameras, they seem to get confused when there isn't enough light and are prone to digital "noise". Noise can be seen in many digital photos as the pixelization you sometimes see in the darker areas.

Knowing this, I decided to try shooting well after dark. I found myself down near the Santa Cruz boat harbor and it seemed like the perfect place to try a night shot.

While it was well past dark, the harbor is flooded with a lot of lights. I shot using several different scene settings and found I got the best results using the "fireworks" setting.

This is my favorite shot of the night. The photo below is SOOC (straight out of the camera) except for resizing for posting on the internet. You might want to click it to enlarge it to see the detail.


By enlarging it, you can see some noise in the night sky, although it's not too severe.

Here's the same shot after I did a bit of manipulation. I sharpened it up a bit, cropped it and played with the detail and color. For a hand held shot taken at night, I'm quite pleased.


I believe the excellent quality I'm getting from this camera has to do with Canon's new software and the fact that they've changed the sensor type (BSI CMOS). So far, it seems like they've hit on a winning combination.

And for no reason at all,
I'm including these two shots.

- - - Red - - -

- - - Stripes - - -

That's it for today.

Adam Sandler and 667!

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Not much to write about today so this will be a short post.

I will say I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. We stayed indoors, cooked goodies and watched movies.

But before I go any further, I have a confession to make.

I can't count.

Remember how I said that yesterday was my 500th post?

Duh, well, no it wasn't. Somewhere, I got that idea, but in reality it was my 667th post! I kind of know where the error was, but it's so confusing I can't explain it, just take my word for it.

Sorry!

Now, about Adam Sandler.

I've tried to watch several of his films, but I find him silly and often really gross. Then someone told me I should watch the Wedding Singer.

Starring Adam Sandler and the adorable Drew Barrymore, what a delight this film is! After watching it and checking reviews, others suggested another pairing of Sandler and Barrymore called 50 First Dates.

Another lighthearted and endearing movie!

If you like romantic comedies with bucket loads of charm, check out both these films.

And that's it for today.

Friendship

Just a bit of rambling today.

I value our friends, what would our life be without them?

One of the pleasures of being back here has been reconnecting with old friends. Some I contacted immediately, others I run into here and there, and the connection is immediately, happily re-established.

But this last week, we've had the pleasure of enjoying friends who are also RVers.

And we've been reminded of a simple truth.

While we love all our friends, there seems to be a special bond between those of us who live the RV lifestyle.

There's no having to explain the joy of living in a small confined space. We all instinctively understand the difference between a house that moves and a stick house. We know the joy of going to bed (in your very own bed) and waking up in the morning, looking outside and realizing you're in a whole new environment.

We understand the reality of conserving resources because we live it every day. Water, electricity, propane, we all understand pretty much how they work and the need (and ways) to conserve. We understand shopping for groceries, keeping in mind smaller cabinets and a smaller refrigerator. We understand cooking in a tight, well stocked kitchen, having all the necessary implements, but nothing extraneous.

It's a lifestyle that is hard to explain to those who haven't lived it.

And while I cherish and treasure my old friends, it is so wonderful to spend time with new friends who understand the direction our lives have taken.

I wanted to post this because I guess I'd forgotten . . .

"Two may talk together
under the same roof for many years,
yet never really meet;
and two others at first speech
are old friends."
- Mary Catherwood

Photo Safari!

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What a fun day!

As I said yesterday,
today we got to play tour guide.
We took Russ and Donna
out to see the the Pacific ocean
from the Santa Cruz perspective.

Here we go.

Our first stop was the Pacific Garden Mall.
Not many photo opportunities,
but I did like these heads,
poking out from under a roof line.

I also thought this bird was pretty nice looking,
but Donna may have gotten a better shot.

Next, we took off in search of pelicans.
Unfortunately,
I think they heard we were coming
and mostly, they decided not to show up.

This isn't a pelican

There was no shortage of pigeons though.
We all thought they were pretty funny,
congregating for lunch at the garbage cans.
Later, we saw repairmen
covering the openings with smaller doors.
Where will the pigeons meet now?

We had a yummy lunch,
and I liked the way the sun looked,
shining through the sunshade.
This picture was taken with my iPhone 4s.

To make this entry slightly RV related,
here's a shot of a motorhome,
Santa Cruz style.

Due to lack of pelicans,
I'll take pigeons.

Next we took off down West Cliff Drive.
Again, welcome to Santa Cruz.

Lovely flowers on West Cliff Drive.

FINALLY, we saw some pelicans.
They were a long ways away,
but we saw them.

Using my iPhone
I took this shot of the sun on the bay.
The sun was quite bright
so I was shooting blind.
I was pleased to see that a gull
had flown right into my shot.

If you blow this us (click on it)
you'll see a a line of pelicans
flying out to sea.
Kind of like at the end of Jurassic Park

And finally, birds at Natural Bridges beach.

And one final shot (taken with my phone).

This was one of the first days
I went out shooting with both the Canon
and the iPhone.
It's an interesting experiment,
and one I will repeat.

Russ and Donna have decided to stay a while,
so more fun is in our future!