All posts by cs

up the river

adventure, boats

New Bern, NC is located at the Trent and Neuse Rivers. Northward, it is a scenic sail through fresh water. I took a dip into the dark water for refreshment but not long enough to attract gators 😉 The river narrows into dense hardwood marsh and becomes very still and unspoiled in areas. A brief rain squall halted our journey as we tried to eliminate the horizontal flow of precip into our dry cockpit. Once upstream, the current accelerates (est. 2-3 mph) and buffets the hull. The edgewater property is private rural land and in some places evokes images from the movie – Deliverance. At 23 miles we marked a GPS waypoint and turned tail.

IMG 2094

Google Earth Placemark

LAX layover

jogging, places

Lots of fashion on the Strand. Come to stroll, strut and be seen. I believe that most of them arrived on retro-schwinn bicycles. Pro beach society types have the practiced style and look of year-round weekend beach time. Manhattan Beach, CA is “Was up!” compared to Venice Beach – “Ich don’t think so“. Google Earth Placemark

A good lunch location is the El Sombrero #1, for authentic Mexican food. Bueno.

down hard

adventure, boats

a little roadside trouble… A trailer axle bearing disintegrated with much smoke and heat. A passing motorist with beeping horn and waving of arms gave the alert. The hiway exit up yonder was only a mile away but not wishing to risk the hub assembly departing the vehicle or a wheel fire we ground to a halt. Inglorious end of voyage.

coastwise nav

adventure, boats

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The challenge is to cross without touching bottom (sans electronic depth finder). You can’t see bottom. You can sometimes see a slight change in the hue and color of the sea surface if the light is right. We used a light mushroom anchor and known length of line dropped over the side, old school river boat method, to estimate waters depth. Six feet, four feet, the chart shows shallows that would ground our 1.5 foot draw. The easy way out is to join up on another craft and assume (hope) that their local knowledge was good while watching for tel-tale warning like reduced speed or tilting adjustments to their v-drive. Our draft is fixed so the only escape is a 180. Sometimes it’s clear when the odd sea bird is sighted — standing out there in the suspect area and only ankle deep.
Google Earth Placemark

SEA layover

jogging, places

The Seattle Elliott Bay Trail runs along natural edgewater. I picked up the trail at the NCL pier and reversed course at the top of Smith Cove Waterway (2.25 mi). The course is paved and wide enough for bicycles and bladers.

Google Earth placemark

Nice CutAway BTW

cars

Honda et. al. are not resting. While the US Government pours design incentive money into Hydrogen Fuel Cell tech. The Japanese continue to engineer increasingly efficient Hybrids. Their technology is moving fast enough to make the current green car offerings – well… old tech. I would be hesitant to actually own one of these only because it will likely be obsolete on advent of the next generation (kinda like your 5 year old desktop pc paper weight). There will be a new improved engine version always raising the bar or setting the pace every few years. The gains are not incremental. We’re talking double digit percentage economy AND power advancement. Big problem with the Fuel Cell which hasn’t been thought through – There is zero infrastructure to support the distribution of alternative fuel. No way to immediately ramp up a way to store it, make it, transport it, sell it without spending zillions. I’m afraid that our boys (GM / Ford) are on the wrong tack.

LAX layover

jogging, places

From Aviation and Century we climbed on the Big Blue Bus #3 and rode Lincoln St for 20 minutes. At Ocean Park Blvd. we jumped off and headed west on foot for a little over a 1/2 mile. We stumbled upon a local farmers market already in progress and had fun tasting the fresh fruit samples. Onward a few more blocks to the beach. North or South take your pick. Jogging, biking, roller blading, walking, people watching. No thongs or string bikinis. I guess that’s only Hollywood stuff. The Venice Beach / Santa Monica Ocean Walk is a bit seedy. The hippie jewelry, incense and tarot card vendors look like refugees from Nor Cal, immigrating by way of Big Sur no doubt. I half way expected to see Fletch bumming about 🙂

Google Earth Placemark

BEST sedan

cars

best 4 door

The 1960 Chrysler Imperial Le Baron, IMHO, is the most beautiful, perfectly proportioned, graceful 4 door car ever created. Who says that 1959 Cadillac had the most flamboyant fins?