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Archive for March, 2012

ROADTREK TO ALASKA…PART ONE

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March 29, 2012

Wednesday March 28, 2012

We’re on our way to Alaska!

Left San Diego today as we begin our trek toward Alaska. First stop; Costco-San Diego for gas and some supplies. Regular gas here is $4.19/gal. This road trip to Alaska will have us visiting family and friends along the way up California, Oregon, and Washington bringing us to the Canadian boarder some time in April. Our first step today will bring us to Santa Monica where we’ll visit our eldest daughter, her husband and our five year old grand daughter. We’ll stay with our daughter while in Santa Monica but love that we’ll be able to run back and forth to the motor home. On the weekend we’ll be in Beverly Hills visiting family. Yes, we do have some fairly wealthy relatives and friends but have found that, unfortunately, wealth is not contagious.

Leaving our three little grandsons was very hard & we’ll miss them so much. We probably won’t see them again until sometime in late Fall and they’ll have changed a lot as children this young tend to do. But…they’ve told us they love us up to the “roof” and up to the “sun” which is about as big a distance that they know of so that was pure music for grand parents to hear We’ll have to hold on to that for awhile. The oldest (4 yrs. old) knows he and his family might move to a different town this summer and was worried we might not be able to find him. No chance of that!!!

You can park your RV in a busy Costco parking lot even in San Diego

Electric Boat Motor

For those of you that don’t know about “THE CONTINUING SAGA OF THE TORQEEDO BOAT MOTOR”… we bought a Sea Eagle boat about 18 months ago. The boat is something akin to a zodiac and the boat, itself, works fine judging from the few times we have used it. Why haven’t we used it more? Well, here is where the SAGA starts. We bought a Torqeedo electric motor with the boat to take our various grand kid around the lake with us when they visit. This electric motor has three major components; the tiller, the battery pack and the prop. It, the motor, has failed each time we have used it. The first time the company repaired it saying that starting and stopping the motor has to be done in an EXACT order or the motor will fail because some circuit in the tiller is extremely sensitive. OK, so the next time we used it was this past February when the grand kids were visiting. We set up the boat, went around the lake a couple of times with the kids and the motor failed again despite our doing everything exactly as instructed! ”Oh”, the company said, “It must be something wrong with the tiller just send the tiller back and we’ll fix it” So we sent the tiller back and got word that there was nothing wrong with it. “Just send the battery unit back because that must be the problem”. OK, we sent the battery pack back to the company for repair, no easy task since the battery pack has “hazardous materials” in it. Nope, according to the Torqeedo company, “there’s nothing wrong with the battery pack so just send us the prop”. So into the box it goes and now awaiting pick up from UPS (the box for the prop is 18″ x 4′). If they tell us that is working fine? Then what? Anyway, we won’t have the boat and a working motor with us in Alaska this summer. Moral of the story: If you buy a Torqeedo motor for your boat, always bring your oars with you because there’s an excellent chance you will be using them.

Driving the Freeway in Los Angeles

We’ve found that driving the freeway in the L A and San Diego area to be fairly easy. Yes, even in “rush hour”. Just as an aside, “rush hour” in L A starts about 2:30 pm and lasts until about 7:00 pm. To drive through this gauntlet unscathed, you have to adjust your mind set. Recognize that you are not going anywhere in a hurry, go slow and use the GPS to guide you to your appropriate freeway and exit. We get honked at, “the finger”, folks zooming from behind us to get in front of us, etc. We really don’t care if they get to their destination first and risk their lives doing it. We just do our own thing. First of all, you may have a ton of folks behind you but you rarely have anyone very close in front of you as they speed on their way away from you. Second, having left plenty of time to get where you are going, you’re not in a hurry so relax. The L A freeways have as many as seven lanes going in one direction and many times the lanes are full of cars (a bit like a parking lot) and they are all jockeying to get ahead. OK, so they have worked all day, let them race up to the next car and be stressed out. You, in the meantime, just mosey along as best you can.

Ah, rush hour in Los Angeles

March 29, 2012

We’re in Santa Monica and while in Santa Monica, we usually park on Palisades Street next to a park that is surrounded by multi-million dollar homes. There’s free, 72 hour parking there and though it is illegal to “live” in the RV there, you are at least parking in a reasonably safe neighborhood. We’ll stay with our daughter and her family for a few days and enjoy their company. Santa Monica is famous for enforcing parking laws so following the sign restrictions is essential if you wish to avoid a ticket. Don’t know about “stealth camping” here but doubt that the homeowners wouldn’t quickly become aware and call the enforcing agency. It is a gray beach morning now and quite cool. The outside temp is 59. We are only six blocks from the ocean so there is frequently a “marine layer” in the mornings here. Have already walked our grand daughter to her local elementary school so the day is off to a good start.

Our neighbors A lovely small park.

One of our neighbors. There are many multi-million dollar homes here.

Tags: Alaska, Alaska road trip, L A freeway, road trip, rush hour, Santa Monica, Santa Monica parking, Torqeedo boat motor

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GRANDPARENTING MOMENTS. BLACK, GRAY AND FRESH WATER TANKS

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March 25, 2012

Tales From The Tricycle Lane

We have a few days left in San Diego so yesterday we took the three little boys to Mission Bay for the afternoon. Besides the Pacific Ocean there are swings, slides, climbing bars and sand. It is true, we were outnumbered but the things to do there kept the boys busy. Of course, like all good Grand parents, we brought snacks and drinks for the kids. The two older boys, four years and three years old, are very social and really like to be around pretty girls. Climbing on the bars of the jungle-gym was essential that day because that’s what a group of little girls were doing at this playground. So off to climb they go very tentative at first but then, in an environment of athletic girls, the boys skills improved rapidly. Soon they were up on the highest point of the bars swinging and jumping down to the sand just like all the other kids. ”How old are you?” is apparently one of the most important questions in childhood, think it might have to do with pecking order and acceptance and kids seem to know this intuitively. When the four yr. old boy questioned the girls on their ages and was told they were seven, eight and nine yrs. old, he went into instant age inflation. First he said he was six. The smart three yr. old who knew better, just looked bug eyed but did not rat out his brother. So climbing, jumping, chase and digging proceeded smoothly. About an hour later, the three yr. old loyally said, my brother is six. At which time the four yr. old said “I’m not six, I’m seven”. The younger one just said “Oh”. Once in a while, one of the girls would say to the four yr. old, “You’re short” or “You don’t run very fast” but he took it in stride and didn’t explain that he was actually pretty good for being only four. So it went, a beautiful sunny day at a beautiful beach, watching high-energy kids have fun. Here we oldies are thinking it would be great to be younger and the young ones want to be older.

Mission Bay and Other Free RV Dump Sites

There are very few services that are free in San Diego so the Mission Bay RV Dump Sites are a welcome respite for the wallet. There was no line to wait in as it was early afternoon and most RVers like to dump thier tanks in the morning. I never understood this early morning need unless you are hurrying out of town. You see lines of RVers waiting at free dump sites in the mornings when in the afternoon there is usually no one there. So far, we have never paid to dump our sewer tanks or get potable fresh water. I know, I know, business that offer dump services have to be compensated for their willingness to provide the service but we have heard of charges of $10, $15 to $25 just to dump. Just a little price gouging, we believe. If we had to pay to dump for an unreasonable amount of money, we would likely go to a campground with a dump for one night, use their services and leave. The campground would be happy to get the money and paying to dump the tanks would at least have some “added” value. We don’t have any fancy equipment for dumping, just the dump hose, a “non-potable water” hose for rinsing and lots of hand sanitizer. We never put any additives in our tanks and have never had a problem with odors in any of the RVs we have owned. Along the interstate highways there are usually free dump sites. Among the many sources available, we use the book “the Next Exit” for free dump sites. It lists what services are available at each exit on Interstates and indicates “RV dump site” if there is one at a Rest Area. Our GPS will tell us of a Rest Area but doesn’t indicate if it has an RV dump site. When we had a large RV, 36′ plus the length of the hitched towed car, we used the “the Next Exit” as it indicated in red print any service compatible with a “big rig” for ease of getting in and out of there. There may be “smart phone apps” for this information but since our cell phones are “dumb phones” we haven’t researched the “apps” possibilities. Though we try not to drive the interstates, sometimes that is the best option and “the Next Exit” becomes useful to us.

RV Gray and Black Tank Level Gauges

Our RV came with a read-out that is supposed to tell us how full our various tanks are. Problem was if the tank level, for example, was over the 2/3 level and almost but not quite full it would still read 2/3 full. Also, these “original equipment in-the-tank” sensors were easily fouled and would give false readings. This can prove to be a problem if you are boondocking far off the beaten path. In the case of suddenly having a full gray or black water tank or even an empty fresh water tank while in the middle of nowhere it is…um, well let’s leave it at “inconvenient”. So we got this “more accurate” read out set-up called “SeeLevel Gauges” and had it installed professionally last year. We are told they can be installed by any handy RV owner but it took a professional almost four hours to install ours and he had done many installations of these in the past on the same type RV we own. Crawling under the RV appealed to neither of us (we’re trying to be retired) and when we saw what it took to have it installed we were glad we did not try the “do it yourself” method. There are electrical strips that go on the outside of each tank and can read the level through the wall of the tank. That strip needs to then be wired to a read-out inside the vehicle. Our SeeLevel read-out was placed on the inside wall of a cabinet after a hole was cut in the cabinet wall and the screen was attached. The wires from the tank electrical strips were run to the cabinet wall that holds the new read-out screen. We did not detach or disassemble the original equipment read-out system. When the two read-out sets of numbers are compared, it is amazing to us we didn’t have more problems with having suddenly full tanks. Well, come to think of it, we didn’t have many problems because we just dumped the tanks as soon as the original equipment read-out had been 2/3 full for a day or so likely cutting into some of our time in beautiful, quite, off the beaten path, boondocking spots. Now, our new read-out system for the black, gray and fresh water tanks are more exact as well as accurate and we can boondock knowing that we won’t have to leave a great boondock spot we’ve found any sooner than necessary. We’re frugal with resources (no grass to water & “navy showers”) so we can last for about 8 days before it is time to dump and refill with fresh water.

Traveling With Empty Tanks

To save on gas, we try to keep our black and gray water tanks as close to empty as possible when driving. Don’t want to pay for the gas to move heavy, full tanks. We do, however, travel with water in the fresh water tank. Fresh water that is potable is not as easy to find as dump sites, in our experience. Since we always use the water from our fresh water tank for drinking, cooking, etc. we like to be sure we have a ready supply. We have a “fresh water ” only hose with a water filter attached. Never had any trouble with the water from our fresh water tank, don’t use bottled water and never use any additives. We don’t always keep the gas tank full. If we know there will be a ready supply of gas stations along the way we just keep the gas tank above the 1/2 way mark. We do try to keep our propane tank full since we “home cook” all our meals. So far, this has worked for us. Going through the Yukon and in Alaska, we plan to always fill up the gas tank and run with it as full as possible.

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ELECTRIC BOAT MOTOR, STREET BOONDOCKING, GETTING READY FOR ALASKA TRIP

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March 21, 2012

Street Boondocking

This past week and next week is our San Diego “Street Boondocking” time in front of our daughter/son-in-laws’ house. Is it illegal? Probably, as are many things. Our son-in-law went around and asked the neighbors if they would mind and we got the “go ahead” from them. We know this OK is not valid with the police but hopefully the police won’t be concerned with us. We could stay in a campground but we’re right in front of the house and our young grand sons run out their door and right into our RV. I say they love us, Jerry says they love us for our snacks (especially cashews). Both may be true. We don’t care about the reason, we’re just glad to see them. San Diego is sunny so no problem with having enough solar power. Nearby Mission Bay has free dump sites (at least two of them that we know of). They don’t have potable water available for RVs in Mission Bay but we get that from our daughters’ house. Of course, we could stay inside the house but that would not be convenient for anyone, especially us.

The Continuing Saga Of The Torqeeto Electric Boat Motor–

Ha. You would think it would be easy to get the battery to this electric boat motor shipped off to the company to be repaired (the company thinks the circuit board in the battery has failed this time). If you buy one of these motors, we believe repairs are in your future. Anyway, the Torqeeto company was very nice about this “usually not working” motor and is paying the shipping from San Diego to the factory. They sent us the stickers for the battery box. Then we had to arrange a time for “pick up” by a shipping company. Oh, not just any shipping company, but one that will take hazardous materials. It turns out, that since 9/11, certain items that had been shipped with few problems now must have special handling. OK, so we set-up a delivery time and waited. The morning of the scheduled pick-up, a HUGE flatbed truck parked across the street. Ruh roh, that couldn’t be for this 18″x18″ box! Ah, but that huge truck was here to pick up the box. Even the driver, who had made many deliveries that morning, agreed it was a little extreme but said “times have changed”. No kidding.

Getting Ready for Alaska Trip

We’re doing a bit of running around in preparation for our Alaska road trip. Because some of the time in Alaska we plan to be hundreds of miles off the beaten path, we feel a need to get some repair supplies we might not normally carry with us. Some of these items could be useful in places besides Alaska so we feel it is the proactive thing to do. Our Lazy Daze is fairly new (2010) so we shouldn’t have too much trouble. It is built well and should be able to take a little rougher treatment than most RVs. As for taking a newer RV to Alaska…we thought about waiting a few years but while it gets older, so do we. We’ve written to the Lazy Daze RV group for suggestions and gotten some good advise that we appreciate. http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/lifewithalazydazerv/

Tags: Alaska, Alaska road trip, boondock, free dump site. San Diego, Lazy Daze RV, San Diego, Street Boondocking

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THE END OF THE SNOWBIRD SEASON

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March 17, 2012

Left Senator Wash Tuesday 3/13/12. The “Snowbird Season” is essentially over there and many folks are headed back “home” now that the weather in the Northern states and in Canada has warmed. Even the “Liberry” in this snowbird desert community is closing for the season. The “Liberry” is an old Airstream trailer that was donated for folks here to have a book exchange location. It could not be called a library by any standard as it has almost none of the attributes of a true library. We were told the grandchild of the woman who donated the trailer always pronounced library as “liberry”, hence the title.

Senator Wash Book Exchange

Senator Wash Book Exchange AKA liberry

Wednesday MARCH 14, 2012

Traveled from Senator Wash to Yuma (gas $3.74/gal for Regular) to get supplies then boondock camped overnight at the Casino off I 8 just west of Yuma at the Algodones exit. The camping/boondocking there is free but the place is a very crowded huge dirt parking area with no services. Lots of folks here go into Algodones, Mexico from here and have dental work done, glasses made or buy their medications. Algodones, Mexico has been known to be quite safe for visitors, so far. The prices for the dental, glasses and meds are a small percentage of the cost of these items in the US and Canada. We have not heard any complaints about quality. I think if there were problems of quality or safety, Algodones would quickly become a ghost town.

Driving along I 8 toward San Diego. The terraine along I 8 is incredibly difficult. As we travel, we always try to imagine what it would be like to be in a covered wagon. Now, of course we have a lovely, smooth highway to move toward the West and even wind mills for power generating.

West on I 8

We marveled at how daunting it would be to make it to this area heading west in a covered wagon and see miles and miles of mountains of rocks to traverse.

They must have figured out a route around these rocks.

Trip to Alaska

This is the first leg of our trip to Alaska. We’re busy figuring out what we need to take on this trip and where to store everything in our small RV. Have never been to Alaska before so this will be a learning experience. The price of gas in San Diego on 3/14/12 was $4.29 per gal. of regular. Yikes!!! We budgeted for $5.00 a gal. of gas on average for this long trip to our northern most state but at the rate prices are climbing it is likely be higher than $5.00. Ha, what we really need to pack is a boat load of money. Too bad we don’t have a secret treasure chest full of greenbacks. We don’t think postponing this trip for a year or two will help as we’re thinking that the price of gas over the next few years will trend up, not down. So, we’re going to head “north to Alaska” this year.

For the next couple of weeks we’ll stay in our RV in front of our second daughter and our son-in-laws’ house in San Diego before working our way up the US and across Canada to Alaska. We love to visit them plus they have our three grandsons which adds to the fun. The oldest grandson is four yrs. old, the next one is three yrs. old and the youngest is just 18 months so this place is never boring.

Tags: Alaska, Algodones, boondock, budget, camping, casino camping, gas, gas prices, San Diego, senator wash, Yuma

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LAST WEEK OF HIKING & BOONDOCKING AT SENATOR WASH

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March 12, 2012

Wednesday 3/7/12

Today we just hiked around the reservoir following the road dirt road. We hiked along with a couple of our neighbors from British Columbia and their 6 mo. old dog, “Dora the Explorer”. Warm with a light breeze, lovely environment and good company…life is good.

A picture of cute Dora.

Thursday 3/8/12

Ah, it’s Thursday and off we go on the “Thursday Guided Hike”. It was nice. A small group for this the last hike of the snowbird season for 2011/2012. This time we hiked to the Imperial Dam, a hike of about 5 miles. We passed an area that had been heavily mined by independent gold miners. Incredible how they dug down into rock that is so hard. This was some determined bunch. Some of the abandoned mines were so deep we could not see the bottom and some went off to the side underground presumable to follow a vein of gold. Of course, if you are going to work a mine in the desert year round, you are better off way underground in the heat of the summer sun.

This hike had about a dozen hikers.

Below is an example of some of the rock the gold miners were dealing with.

Below are examples of a few of the abandoned gold mines.

Below – some examples of the Senator Wash area flora.

Below: picnic area at Imperial Dam

Imperial Dam

Friday & Saturday 3/9 & 3/10/12

We are still boondocking down by the reservoir at Senator Wash on the South shore but we woke up in the morning to find they had lowered the reservoir for crop irrigation. We lost our water side view! The campers next door said our property value dropped overnight! Nothing left to do but to slog across the exposed muddy reservoir bottom and hike around the reservoir following the shore line. Hiking the shore line brings you over to the North side of the reservoir which is lovely and isolated as there is usually only a rough dirt road leading to that side. The potable fresh water, dump sites, a paved road and other services are all on the South side of the reservoir making the South side of the reservoir the default area for boondocking near the water. Well, this time, we found a number of RVers had made their way to the North side. They traveled over the rough, dirt road, even with large RVs and found great camping sites near the water! Upon further observation of these intrepid campers, we realized that they were mostly young, working folk and were only here for a long weekend. Ah youth, no problem, find a place off by yourself, have fun, make all the noise you want playing your music because there is hardly anyone around and your out of there in a few days. So it is quite doable, just the weekends might be a little noisy.

Why walk all the way around on the dirt road? Just walk to the other side through the mud (see below).

Evidence that there are raccoon here, even though we have never seen them.

Below is a picture of a large, secluded campsite right at the water on the North side of Senator Wash. A group of young men in multiple campers were camped here for a long weekend and it looked like they brought just about every toy known to man. They said they have been coming here for years.

Sunday & Monday 3/11 & 3/12/12

Sunday and Monday were our days of mostly lazy rest. Just reading, relaxing and sunning ourselves as we watch the reservoir be refilled by the Colorado River. Monday, of course, is a stock market trading day so Jerry is lost to any exploring until the market closes. Unless there is really something we really want to see during market hours, it is better for us financially for Jerry to be doing his stock trading. He hasn’t made us rich, (“yet” he tells me) but he is able to keep plenty of gas in the tank and food on the table so it is hard to argue about that. Monday, 3/12/12 is our last full day here a Senator Wash as we will be visiting family and getting ready for our trek to Alaska this summer.

Tags: Alaska, boondocking, camping, gold mining, hiking, imperial dam, motor home, rv, senator wash, senator wash reservoir

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Senator Wash Down by the water

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March 7, 2012

lots of birds

more birds

senator wash reservoir

Water surface smooth as glass

Down at the shore in Senator Wash

We have moved to the shore of the Senator Wash reservoir. Not far from Hurricane Ridge. Actually, just down the hill. What is it that draws us to water views? It is lovely here at the waters’ edge. The birds are busy finding food both in the water and on the shore. They’re chattering and quite enjoyable to hear and watch. Sitting at the shore, next to the motor home, only about 50′ from the water, enjoying the warmth of the sun with a gentle breeze off the water, watching the water fowl. looking at the reflections of the hills on the opposite shore…OK so this is not a bad life.

We’re located near a couple of kayakers from British Columbia. Tomorrow, we will go on a hike with them around the reservoir. As is the case in most of this area, the Canadians outnumber the US citizens, we think they recognize a good deal when the see it. Plus it is warm here which is a big deal if it snows at “home”. I think many would be down in Mexico, perhaps at the beach, right now if they weren’t concerned about the violence going on there. This place is a good choice if the beaches in Mexico are essentially unavailable to we ‘fraidy cats.

Services in Senators Wash

There is a post office here and we have used it to receive our mail from our mail service. They also take Fed ex and UPS delivery and that is more than a little handy. Down the road about six or seven miles is the military base. The military allows we civilians to enter the base. They offer movies nightly for free and non-military folks can buy gas, propane as well as purchase some items in the small convenience store. There are a few overpriced food items available but at least this little store will keep your milk and bread supply replenished without having to drive the 20+ miles to Yuma for these basics. Getting on the base is fairly easy if you have the paper work they require such as proof of vehicle insurance, vehicle registration, picture ID and a good reason for wanting to enter the base. As it should be, the military will not let anyone enter the base without the proper paper work.

The Torqeeto Electric Boat Motor

Last month, the Torqeeto boat motor that we use with our Sea Eagle boat stopped working. This also happened last year and luckily it is still under warranty. Last year, the cause of the failure was the circuit board in the tiller. The company claims that if the tiller is not connected or disconnected it the EXACT order instructed a diode in the circuit board will immediately fail. Apparently, there is absolutely no room for error or the thing won’t work! So, this time, we called the company and stated that there was no mis-step in either the connect or the disconnect process but the thing still does not work. Sent the tiller off to the company and, lo and behold, it was not the tiller. Now they say it is probably the circuit board in the lithium ion battery (cause unknown) and we are to send that to them. OK, this motor has received little use but it fails with deadly regularity. If we didn’t already own it, we sure would not buy one and we definitely do not recommend the Torqeeto motor based on our miserable experience. It is true that their customer service is good but if you want to use the boat with a motor that works, good customer service is nice but not having to contact customer service is the best option. We would love to be out on the water in the boat. The water was like glass this morning and perfect for boating. OK, enough complaining. We will content ourselves with just looking at the water.

Oops! Tried to post this yesterday…no go until today.

Tags: birds, blm land, boat motor, boondock, electric boat motor, gas, kayak, mail service, military base, propane, rv, RV fulltime, senator wash, warm weather

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ANOTHER WEEK IN THE DESERT ON BLM LAND

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March 3, 2012

Still Living on Hurricane Ridge at Senator Wash

The wind is howling now. We read that a wind storm was coming and it has definitely arrived. Not hurricane winds but strong enough to blow over our outside chairs. The Senator Wash reservoir below us is full so we have a lovely view down to it from inside the motor home. Our neighbors are mostly from British Columbia and chatting with them is enjoyable. All of this area is for boondocking only. There are no hook-ups available here. Most everyone has solar panels and use the generator only to supplement the energy stores in their batteries if needed.

Internet Connection on the Road

We use the Internet daily, frequently for many hours at a time. I like to “surf the net” reading news, political commentary, interesting science or historical articles, travel information and plan our travels. Jerry usually trades stocks and stock options when the stock market is open and does research when the stock market is closed. We have a Verizon Hotspot with three gigs but manage to go over the limit every month without downloading any videos, etc. Today, we received the Samsung Hotspot we recently ordered. It’ll allow us to use 10 gigs of 3G plus 10 gigs of 4G and when 4G is not available we can just add the 4G gigs to our 3G gig allowance. Ha! Now we have 23 gigs total/month to use. Should not have to worry about going over our limits and if one device doesn’t connect, may be able to connect on the other device. Being fairly low tech, we did worry that it would be difficult to set up the new Samsung device. Nope, not difficult at all, just put the battery in, made sure it was charged, put in the password and it connected immediately! While writing this post, we are downloading some podcasts for later. Ah…it is the small things in life that please us most.

Thursday Guided Hike at Senator Wash

Every Thursday a Guided Hike is offered to everyone and it is free. Thursday, we all piled into a few vehicles (car pooled) and drove about 5 miles into the desert. Then, on foot, we started hiking toward the “Potholes”. About 2 1/2 miles later, we came to some old gold mines. What a hard scrabble life it must have been. They mainly used picks and shovels. Water’s pretty scarce in this area so water sluicing for gold was a complicated proposition but they managed.

As we hiked, we came across some modern day gold seekers out in the middle of the desert. They had come on ATVs with generators, large containers of water and other apparently essential equipment. One couple told us they found $80 worth of gold in the three months they had been looking there. Um, not so very lucrative but they said they were having fun.

Along the way, came to a part of the Colorado River where fisherman had been catching catfish. They would nail the head of the catfish to a wooden power pole and then skin and filet the fish while it was hanging there. We were told that it is easier to handle the preparation of the fish that way.

Thursdays weather was perfect for a hike; temp in the 70s with a light breeze. Each Thursday hiking group is usually composed of about 20 people and since the hikes only last about 2-3 hours, we are done before noon leaving the rest of the day for other pursuits.