What next?

Forest fire, lightning strike and now, what next?

I got up at 3:15 AM this morning to get something
to ease Robert's sore throat. He was having trouble
sleeping.

As I entered his office from our bedroom I heard
a terrible mechanical screech. It wasn't the weather
warning, TG. It wasn't the furnace pump, which
sometimes squeaks asking for oil. It was coming
from downstairs.

Soon it became clear it was coming from the
computer room off of the kitchen. I thought it was
coming from our new modem, but soon realized it
must be coming from a UPS. I crawled under the
desk, found the offending screeching thing, but how
to make it stop? Turning off it's power wouldn't help.
That was what was making it scream. Finally,
moments that seemed like eternity, later I found the
button to push and quiet reigned!

By that time Robert had joined me. He said that
since he couldn't sleep anyway that I might as well
go back to bed. I did.

I was afraid it was our new modem that had gone mad,
and was glad that, at least we were leasing it and wouldn't
have to pay out the money to buy another one. I was not
happy that we would again be without Internet for a few
days, because of the holiday weekend. It wasn't the
modem. It turned out it was the UPS itself that had
failed!

Mystery solved. Computer and modem still working.

Home again

May 25, 2011

We returned from our travels to discover that a lightning strike
had apparently fried Robert's computer and had damaged the
network port on my old computer. The Qwest technician comes
tomorrow to fix our DSL cable and to determine if our DSL modem
is also gone. The controller (the Mate) for the Solar system has been
zapped also. Since Robert left the solar running the house was
without electricity after the Mate got zapped. Apparently
nothing else of the solar system was damaged. Fortunately, it
couldn't have been off very long. The freezer was at -5F when
we got home and the frig was fine, the ice cream had not
thawed. All and all not a very happy welcome home.

The trip was fun, but not as expected. We went to Haswell, as
planned. The site now has a very official sign "Plishner Deep
Space Exploration...." There is another word after exploration,
but I don't remember what it is. Robert gave a lecture and was
called upon to give input many times while we were there. It was
fun for me to see the place because I have heard so much about
it. It was much as I pictured it. While we were there it was
hot, very dry and VERY windy. Our VAN was covered in sand,
inside and out. The temperature wasn't too bad while we were
there, in the 70s I think.

We left Haswell and headed south with the list of museums I had
compiled. It didn't take long to realize that we'd come too
early. None of them were open! My list, if I had read it
carefully, did state the hours and days they were open. I noted
the days, but not the dates. They all open next week.

We went to Vogel Canyon which is an off shoot of the Purgatoir
River Canyon. It is a shallow canyon and has a couple of easy
walks so we did the rim walk and that was nice. There is no
campground there, but camping in the parking lot is allowed and
since we were the only people there, we did that. The Picket Wire
Canyon (so called because it was easier to pronounce than
Pergatoir) is more dramatic, but the walk into it is hard. The
reward though is great. There are pictographs and dinosaur
tracks; the largest collection of tracks in the world. They are
in all sizes, from very small to very large.

We stopped at the National Historic Site of Boggsville.
Boggsville was the home of Kit Carson and his home is there. It
is a small collection of buildings. Of course we couldn't go in,
because it wasn't open, but we peeked in the windows.

Our last stop was John Martin Reservoir and the Hasty Lake
Campground. The reservoir is VERY low and the campground at
the west end of the reservoir was closed, but the campground
at Hasty lake which is a lake made from the outflow from
the John Martin dam was open. We bought an annual State Park
pass. It was $35...the last time we looked into it the
price was $60. Perhaps the 35 is the senior rate; in any
case we were told the price was going up July 1 to $60.00.
I assume that means the senior rate is going to disappear,
as did the senior real estate tax break.

The campground had many trees so each site was well shaded,
which was good because the weather had turned hot. We arrived
late afternoon and took out folding chairs out and sat in
the shade and read. After dinner we walked around the
campground, met a couple from Charleston, SC who are "doing"
Colorado for the next month. They were headed next to
Colorado Springs.

We drove home from John Martin (between Las Animas and Lamar)
yesterday. We were stopped for about 30 minutes south east
of Hugo for road repairs. And as we arrived in Hugo where
we had lunch a blustery thunderstorm hit. Lots of rain and
lightning, but no damage to us or the VAN.


May 27, 2011

Finally, we are up and running again. It turned out our modem
was zapped. We now have a new, speedier modem and all is working
again. We decided to lease a modem from Qwest for $5.00/month
because it is then covered. If it is zapped again or just
quits Qwest will replace it. We also gave up our independent
ISP, Indra's Net and are totally with Qwest. I feel badly
about that, but we are saving $24.00/month by doing that.