Bill Schell's "BeachWeb" for August 2011 
Back home in Stuart, and GLAD to be here... -
the feeling of 'contentment' of having one's own shower, bed, yard
(with weeds, such as they are) friends, etc. is overwhelming... to say nothing about the 'held-mail'
(not nearly as bad as we suspected) that we had to
'plow-through' as well as other-things (like burned-out light-bulbs,
and taking-off the hurricane shutters (to let a bit of LIGHT into the
house!)
are these guys cute or what?
(
no - this pictue is not particularly relevant for much of anything,
- I just thought I needed to put in a picture somewhere and this
is where it ended up...)
NO QUESTION: we
- saw a LOT (9,300 miles / 2 days short of six-weeks) of the United States (and Canada) from the Interstate Highway System
- while
we "SAW" (SEE / VIEWed) a LOT of the country from the Interstate
Highway System - an interesting group of facts you MAY NOT KNOW is
this: - though the Interstate System was 'authorized' by congress in
1956 and took roughly 35 years to complete, and cost (ultimately) $425
BILLION dollars, it is 'about' 42,000 miles long and we have now
'done' about 22% of it.. - that's a pretty major accomplishment... and
it does not consider those parts Mr. Bill has done before this trip,
which would raise the number to roughly 30 %...
- saw
A LOT of crop-land - and more and more and more crop-land - America
grows a LOT of food (but we did not see many cattle? (maybe the wrong
season)
- saw A LOT of blueberries (amongst other things) growing near Vancouver
- saw A BIG (small) black-bear who seemed as afraid of my trike and me and I was of him... - but - well - he was STILL BIGGER THAN ME AND MY TRIKE!!!
- saw A LOT of hotels - but - well - some were excellent, some not so - most 'WiFi' is not that great in hotels
- saw
A LOT of cycling paths / trails - and did pretty well there - (other
than the fact that I SHOULD have taken some low-pressure-tires)
- had the oil-changed in the mini-van TWICE, but other than that, NO (NO!) Toyota problems AT ALL
- ate a lot of EXCELLENT Chinese food while with Ms. May's parents & sister & sister's family in Vancouver
- ate a lot of other 'so-so-food' in other places - big surprise was probably KFC who has some amazingly tasty stuff
- did 'a bit' of white-water-kayaking in Idaho (which was VERY NICE (and our 'host' there, Ms. Kimmie)) took VERY VERY GOOD CARE OF US!
- rode a VERY NICE (and VERY EXPENSIVE) fully-suspended tricycle at a Fort Collins recumbent bike shop
- rode ONE TRAIL twice (Tunnel Hill State Trail (rails to trails)) in extreme southern Illinois
- Ms.
May had one flat-tire on her diamond frame bike - I had NO flat-tires
(though I chose to change my back tire at one point, - it was looking
pretty sad...)
- basically a VERY VERY VERY FINE TRIP, and we enjoyed it a great deal but it is certainly good to be home
Some last minute pictures, videos, etc. etc. etc. ... ... ... ...
a
picture of "Shoshone Falls" (nearby-to "Twin Falls, Idaho" -
near-by-to-where we went whitewater kayaking and dropped our new Friend
Mr. Jeff at the airport...
(note that clicking on this picture may be hazardous to your network-bandiwidth-billing BUT IT WILL BE WORTH IT!!!!
last
trail we rode (about 20 miles (in the RAIN thanks to one of our
'friends'?), "Withlacoochee State Trail" (rails to trails) near
Ocala, Florida, on our last day...
and - because someone doesn't like this small-video - it's here but only under 'duress'...
As
August moves onward and upward we find ourselves further south and east
- inevitably on our way back south-east towards hurricane-land.
Ms. Tropical Storm Emily is threatening Stuart, but not in a 'big' way, at least not for now...
Driving is still, certainly, the ONLY efficient way to see the
USA... and every time I drive hither and yon I discover new
things to see and do - we discoveed, yesterday morning both a
white-water-park and a cycling-trail (5 miles one way) along a VERY
SCENIC river... We had neither seen nor knew of either before we discovered
them on a morning excursion... Very pleasant surprises. One
sometimes gets surprises on road-trips but they are rarely pleasant.
The USA is STILL ONE THE BIGGEST pieces of land to drive across
(with an American-style "Interstate System") there ever
was. Seems like you can drive and drive and drive and still not
make
as much progress towards your goal as you would like. Somehow a
LOT of what we saw was crop-land. Crops , crops, and more crops.
There was hay, and wheat (lots of that (might be a problem for
those 'inhaling' it?)), LOTs (and LOTs of) corn, some soy-beans (we
think) and some other things we're not sure of. It's truly
amazing at the scale at which America raises crops.
Hotels are - yeah - the bane of our existence, but if they were not
here, where would we shower, laundry, sleep, etc. Campgrounds, I
guess. Think of all the other things we'd have to carry;
ground-sheet, tent, sleeping-pads & bags, sheets, blankets,
pillows, etc. etc. etc. - or we could sleep in the mini-van; put
the cycles outside, well... - whatever... Some hotels that are
cheap are actually great and some hotels that are expensive are
actually VERY NOISY, some have great features, breakfasts, some have
none. By and large, though, you get what you pay for...
And the greatest 'frustration' is "ookie-internet-connectivity" -
that's a 'technical term... 10 years ago much of the American Public
didn't even know what the "Internet" was - but today our lives 'depend'
on it... Hotels and other places (we were in Whole Foods one night
for dinner) the frequent claim of 'free-WiFi' - and we come to depend on it - so when
it's not there - life is difficult... The small screen of the iPhone
just DOES NOT compare to a real keyboard and a real screen when it
comes to looking for hotels, for instance...
Oh - and cell-phone (iPhone / GSM and/or edge network) is NOT A HECK OF
A LOT BETTER - we tried to use the iPhone's web-browser but we are
frequently in areas where the phone says "Searching" or "No Service" -
UGH UGH UGH - again - something we didn't know about 10 years ago - now
we seem to rely on them, and - of course - when they are not 'there' for us, we get frustrated...
Anyway - more thoughts, later... - keep in touch
============================================================================================
Our
Kayaking Adventure - actually from Sunday, 31 July, 2011, not from
August - it's something to keep you busy while August actually gets
under-way, and we have something more exciting than 'driving home' to
report on.
We managed to leave the "Garden Valley" EARLY to take Mr. Jeff (one of
our instructors) to the airport for his plane-rides back to Raleigh,
NC..., - then we drove on and on and on - we saw a bit of this and a
bit of that - and cycled here, and there...
We managed a brief (but sometimes wet (for Mr. Bill (who turned-over in
a rapids-area), but not necessarily for Ms. May)) kayaking-trip in
something called 'Inflatable Kayaks' - referred to by the 'hard-shell'
(kayak) crowd as 'duckies'...
Link to 'Aire' site - similar to what we used, but not exactly the same model...
We managed to get them through this company...
Anyway - this was 8 miles where sometimes you wonder what all the fuss
is about (you're bored to tears) and sometimes terrified of the
white-water... When asking 'what line to take through a rapid' -
someone responds with "Whitewater" - but after 60 years of thinking
white-water was dangerous (to boats and people) - it took me a while.
On the other hand, they don't call this 'White Water Kayaking'
for nothing?
The above 'route-line' was drawn on a Google-Earth image.
I did NOT take my good GPS since I did not want to risk
drowning or losing it (even though it is NOT behaving itself these
days). The city of Boise, Idaho is just about 80-100 miles
almost due-south of the take-out point at the bottom-left of the
image...
something a litle different: click on this link video-'taped' at this park.
=========================================================================================
This was our short cycling ride in Boise, Idaho...
Archived BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s): Click here for a list of the archived months
updated: 07:06 a.m. (USA-EDT) on Thursday, 18 August, 2011; by: Mr._Bill on the Apple Macintosh
'G5' - revID: 1g
