Giving Thanks

Today is the national day of giving thanks.  It started as the fall feast before winter sets in and after the harvest is done and stored.  It is an ancient tradition for agrarian peoples who felt a need to mark the time of plenty in hopes that it would ensure more plenty.  Not really effective but the rites serve to remind people of the work needed to sustain life.  Did the ancient hunter gatherers also have a fall feast?  They also spent a lot of effort getting ready for the harsh winter like the bear who feasts to store fat to sustain it thru the winter sleep.

Veteran's Day on Binary Day

Thinking of all the veterans out there today.  If only the origins of this day of remembrance really had meant the war to end all wars.  But alas, we humans never learn.

My First Rally Experience

Last weekend, I went to my first RV rally.  It was the local chapter for my brand of RV - Leisure Travel Vans.  It was at a campground about 70 miles south of my house - Creekside Campground in Edinburg, VA because it had a nice meeting room.  Expensive campground at $35+ a night with electric, water, cable, wireless internet.  Sites were fairly level with a plastic picnic table and gravel and all in a line with little space between sites.  There was a nice creek behind our sites.

Pondering Van Electricity

In pondering what to get for a new refrigerator, I used my battery monitor to see how much juice each thing in my van takes.  It is an interesting exercise.  Here are the results:

Remembering

A decade ago, a terrible thing happened.  The deliberate murder of as many citizens and visitors to this country as a few vicious fundamentalist religionists could manage.  They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and thousands died that day.  Thousands who harmed those vicious people not at all.  That is the definition of terrorism.  The cowardly murder of people who are not at fault for whatever the supposed grievances are.  The effectiveness of the current brand of terrorism is the successful indoctrination of the murderers to also kill themselves.

49 days on the road. Lessons Learned

This post is a recap of what worked well and what didn't work on my nearly 2 month trip in the van.    I put key words in bold to make it easier to find a topic in this rather long post.

8/21 - Down the hill to home

I got on the road by 9 am. Just made coffee, walked the dog and took off. I forgot to secure the closet door and the dog got scared. This time, her solution was to get on the bed with the cat. We stopped at the Sideling Hill rest stop and I secured it with a bungee. She then resumed her position in the aisle and didn't try the bed again. We got home at 11am.