Trod Bogs Sadly – Oddstray's Blog

It was a longish trek for us to drive up to where we are now – at Brannan Island State Recreation Area. This is near Rio Vista, in the Sacramento Delta. It’s a sleepy kind of place, surrounded on three sides by water, and looking a bit unloved. Windy in the afternoons, but otherwise totally copacetic.

The horror was that we had to spend a $15 toll on a road (160) to go way high up in the wind on a bridge that was a single lane over the water. All my (S) danger alerts got triggered – what if we got blown off the bridge? I hate like heck to be confined to a single lane where there is no ‘out’. Anyhow, white-knuckling it got us through at about 30 mph with a huge build-up of traffic behind us and signs warning us not to pull off. Eventually, there was a turn off and I could let all those frustrated motorists pass.

Things improved considerably thereafter.

We arrived at Lake Nacimiento late yesterday morning. It seemed fairly empty, and we had a nice sort of isolated spot – we thought.

But it filled up and filled up and by 7pm we were surrounded on all sides. We still had a nice little plot of land to ourselves, though. The trouble was, everyone treated it as a doggy walk. Oh well.

As the sun began to set we saw a deer right close to our trailer eating the only green grass for miles (irrigated). We had spotted a group of deer earlier, on the other side of the road. This one was bold, but cautious, as far as possible keeping out of sight of humans.

We decided to bring the bread machine on this trip, or at least, B did. I was a little skeptical about the weight of all that stuff and whether it would be practical to use it to make white french bread, as the machine can only be used for kneading the dough; the raising and baking must be done separately. We have a really tiny cheapo Black & Decker toaster oven with us and I, again, was skeptical whether it could do the job.

You be the judge.

I made some tuna salad and we had it for lunch as an excuse to eat some fresh baked delicious bread.

We drove into Solvang to see what was there.  It was, um, interesting.  Unique.  Nothing like Copenhagen.  Frankly, fake.  Pretty, though.  Pleasant to walk around.

The center of town is mostly shops and restaurants.  The museums are a few blocks farther out.  The one we reached wasn’t yet open.

They did have a statue of a young girl, reminiscent of the little mermaid statue in Copenhagen.

Just outside Solvang is Mission Santa Ynez.  Which B has at long last learned is Saint Agnes (to us English speakers).

Lunch at the Chumash casino turned out to be great value, because we have enough left over for supper.  Plus, they have free wifi, so we could update our phones. They do make the ‘self-parking’ visitors take the long way around, though!

Well, there we were, thinking that we’d got through the worst of LA traffic relatively unscathed, with only a few slow-downs on the 405.

On the 101, at a place called Seacliff, between Ventura and Santa Barbara, I (Simon) heard a ‘pop’. Not terribly loud, but it was there. The obvious WTF moment ensued, and then the trailer’s Tire Pressure Management System (TPMS) went berserk, and we pulled over to the shoulder, got out and had a look.

Flat on the curb (kerb) side. The alloy wheel looks OK, as the tire didn’t come off the rim.

And the big message is that the TPMS saved the wheel, as there was no difference in handling, and the ‘pop’ wasn’t terribly loud.

So, we called AAA, and after a while, ‘Peter’ the tow guy showed up. I dropped the spare, and he had it torqued up in no time and we were on our way. Basically, we lost an hour.

We could have changed it ourselves, we have a jack, but better we have AAA. (why buy a dog and bark oneself?)

But holy heck, turn that wheel over and what do you see:

Complete sidewall separation! Tire failure in a big way. We’ve kept these tires religiously at 50 psi, but the wear pattern on the tread looks like over-inflation, and there’s this inner edge wear which doesn’t look good.

I asked Peter what he thought, and he said it was probably the age of the tire (2013).

Guess where we are going next: to get 3 new tires.

We’ve had this domain ‘oddstray.com’ for lo these many years – and hosted it locally, then  on friends servers and later on commercial servers. It’s been mostly for the purposes of providing a constant email address, independent of whatever ISP one is currently using.

Until a couple of years ago. We had been using dyndns.com for email forwarding, but it started to get crazy expensive. So we moved to NOIP.com. Problem in a nutshell is that they are willing hosts to a bunch of email spammers, so they got blacklisted by our real email hosts, RoadRunner, and email was delayed or never got delivered. No criticism to RoadRunner on this one, as we tried many, many times to get it sorted out. NoIP.com was simply completely unresponsive, but continued to take our money.

But now, WordPress has picked up the challenge, and is our new domain host. All for not very many dollars. Try checking out oddstray.com or sending an email to simon@oddstray.com.

Progress is a relative term.

May 17, 2016

Our site at Hueco Tanks Campground, near El Paso, TX

‘Pictographs’ overlooking our campsite, near El Paso, TX

Sunset with moon, Yuma, AZ

Tight quarters at Yuma State Prison, Yuma, AZ

Solitary, at Yuma State Prison, Yuma, AZ

Frolicking in the Colorado, Yuma, AZ

May 15, 2016

Santa Elena Canyon, from Big Bend National Park, TX

Those huge cliffs are in Mexico.  The grassy foreground is in the US.  Not visible at the base of the cliffs is the Rio Grande.  The Santa Elena River runs through that gorge.

Boat ramp into the Rio Grande, Big Bend National Park, TX

The “border” referred to is an imaginary line that runs up the middle of the Rio Grande.

We need a wall!!!!! </sarcasm>

The mule’s ears, Big Bend National Park, TX

😮   in a parking lot in Big Bend National Park, TX

Slot canyon in Big Bend Ranch State Park, near Big Bend National Park, TX

The bugs are huge in Terlingua, TX

Moody skies at Study Butte, TX

May 13, 2016

Enter a caption competition

Fate Bell Shelter, Seminole Canyon State Park, Comstock, TX

Pictographs at the Fate Bell Shelter site

Pictograph or vandalism?  At the Fate Bell Shelter site.

May 10, 2016

Mission San Jose, San Antonio, TX

We started here since this mission was just around the corner from where we were staying.

Mission Concepcion, San Antonio, TX

Mission San Antonio de Valero (yes, it’s the Alamo), San Antonio, TX

Who the heck put that mission in the center of town? It wasn’t that way in the movie!!!

Detail of a tile/stone arch (don’t remember which mission had this), San Antonio, TX

Mission Espada, San Antonio, TX

Mission Espada, San Antonio, TX

The Espada aquaduct, San Antonio, TX

Still in use, all these years later.

Mission San Juan, San Antonio, TX

Mission San Juan, San Antonio, TX

Mission San Jose, San Antonio, TX

Mission San Jose, San Antonio, TX

Mission San Jose, San Antonio, TX

May 7, 2016

Lake Martin,  near Atchafalaya, LA

Here we watched as an overweight couple climbed into a canoe and launched themselves into the lake.

Only to immediately capsize. The fella was most eager to retrieve their supplies, the gal was most eager to avoid being eaten by an alligator!. Anyhow, we helped her out of there and carried on with our hike. As we ambled back, they were just re-launching. More grit than we.

On the trail around Lake Martin, near Atchafalaya, LA

Louisiana is a swamp.

A typical cabin of the cajuns at Vermillionville, Lafayette, LA

From  here, we decided to stay south and head westward towards Big Bend National Park.