All posts by Paul Goldberg

Paul Goldberg Blog

Blue Skies

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After a week of cold (for SoCal) and rain in the high desert we have returned to blue sky and mild temperatures. Carol and I have both had our first Covid inoculations  and things seem to have calmed down some. Even politics seems a bit less roiled than recently. News about who can get a “jab”, where seems to keep changing. Some people going to Petco Stadium in San Diego have been turned away because they are not residents of San Diego County. Many more have not had a problem. Riverside County where we are, was  limiting appointments to over 85 this past week, we will see what the coming weeks bring.  Now we begin the search for our second jabs.

Those who know me will not be surprised that with the telephone project winding down into installation I have taken on a new project that I know even less about. After 30 years our resort has experienced two extended blackouts as a result of Southern California Edison – SCE –  shutting down our area for high wind and fire risk. Our only backup power for the resort is a couple of small portable generators to keep the phones and some office computers going. there is no back up for our well pump or other critical infrastructure. The Board created a special committee and most of the qualified, knowledgeable people signed up, but none would agree to take the chair. As I told the committee at our first virtual meeting my only qualification is I can start the generator on my motorhome AND I do know how to chair a committee. 

We have had our first two meetings and with any luck we will have a completed project in one or two more meetings. It is wonderful when there are knowledgeable, dedicated committee people willing to actually do the work and all I have to do is coordinate. 

Literally as I was writing the above I got a call that the the old phone system lost access to 2/3 of the park and is beyond restoring. We almost made it. People will be a week without internal phone service.

Carol is doing the same with her projects and her art. The fence art keeps changing and so does the site. I will let her speak for herself on http://cgstudio.net if she chooses. 

We have no plans for travel. We have wishes, but no plans, unless you count a trip in Spring 2022. Maybe after we both have our 2nd shots and things settle down further we can take the coach out for a spin. I keep dreaming, but I have so much to do right here that I wouldn’t be traveling for another month or more anyhow. 

Damn, retirement is exhausting 🙂 

 

opinion, Paul Goldberg Blog

Reflection

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I have removed several right wing replies. I do not have any desire to moderate a political forum here with one person taking extreme positions and harassing other participants.

I created this blog in 2003 as a place to post about my travels and occasional thoughts on the passing scene. I love to see comments about travel, food, books, movies or personal successes or difficulties. 

My politics are pretty clear, no labels really apply. I live in a world with people of many backgrounds and beliefs. It is my desire to retain open communication with everyone. I will express my views from time to time, I try not tor rant, unless I label it 🙂 I expect replies to be polite and also not to rant either Left OR Right. It is my space so I will be the only judge.

opinion, Paul Goldberg Blog

New Beginning

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So 2020 continued until December 70th. On January 20 we were once again glued to our television watching the very modified pomp and ceremony associated with a peaceful transition of power. I must admit I held my breath throughout the public ceremony. Carol and were dancing in the coach hugging and cheering as the day progressed. Eventually we joined our friends from Brown Class of ’64 on the east coast for more cheers and the consumption of appropriate beverages in celebration. 

And now we wait and watch to see how the country moves forward with actual leadership, committed to science and truth. It is with pleasure that I can listen to the President without cringing at what is being said and the whining, demanding way in which it is said. I have watched and listened to our Vice President present herself with poise and grace. And OMG the poet, Amanda Gorman! We saw her in two interviews prior to the inauguration and awaited her reading with anticipation which was well satisfied. 

The nation will not heal overnight. We have a long history of hate and divisiveness. It predates the founding of the Union. It is said that politics is the “art of the compromise” but there were compromises that were anathema to us to this day – The Missouri Compromise 3/5ths of an enslaved person is counted for representation in the House of Representatives when Missouri was admitted to the Union in 1820, repealed in 1854. The Ku Klux Klan founded in 1865 continues to parade its hate to this day, maybe not as predominantly as in the recent past, but it exists. It is joined by the Proud Boys, and every militia group that roams the west in their camo painted pickup trucks with White Supremacist banners flying. 

Some time in the 1990s or maybe earlier a friend introduced me to stormfront.org. You may want to open that in an incognito page. There is really no need to read beyond the introductory paragraph. This page has had to be recreated more than once as the Southern Poverty Law Center has defeated the underlying organization in law suits and brought it to bankruptcy. There is no new hate here. The biggest difference between then and now is the megaphone given to the cause which I hope has been muted if not silenced by the new administration.

Many years ago I spoke to Golda Meir during a reception and expressed my belief that we needed Israel because the possibility of rising Anti Semitism made me feel we needed a refuge. She called me paranoid, in a good way. I won’t get into Israeli politics here, I’m not sure I would feel safer there.

I look forward to 2021 being a better year than 2020. we are both healthy. I will get my first shot on Monday. We will have to get Carol in soon, next week, I hope. Our place is safe and remote enough to not feel involved in any large community. We can drive off into the mountains for the heck of it and we can pickup supplies as needed. Out neighbors are mostly as concerned for their own safety as for others so it is a mostly quiet life, reading watching movies. We saw “White Tiger”  last night, you can take this as a recommendation. and here I am writing because I want to.

 

Jojoba Hills, opinion, Paul Goldberg Blog

An Unplanned Adventure

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It was an otherwise quiet Saturday with me on the computer after putting some finishing touches on the new enclosure for our golf cart. Before

Finished – It was a definite fun Erector Set task. If I had avoided a cross thread happening which destroyed a screw and nut, it would have been done in under two hours.

Carol was making cookies and discovered she was using the last of our eggs. We decided to stop nearby at a small store in another RV resort.  As we were leaving thinking about taking a ride up to Anza and beyond we were passing the beginning of a Jeep road up to Palomar Mountain. In the past there has always been a closed gate about a mile up the road. Last Saturday while waiting in line at the Post Office I had heard that the gate was open.  Carol thought it would be a fun off road drive. Here is the route we took.

It starts on CA 79 and returns to CA 79. The 1 hour 15 min on the map is optimistic. It took us just about 2 hours to cover the 14.7 miles. When we encountered Palomar Mountain Truck Road we turned left which brought us back to 79. A right turn would have taken us up to the observatory and left us coming down the west side of the mountain with an hour drive on highways to return home. 

All of this activity served to take our minds off the horror show that is the current state of our government. We cannot pickup our phones, open a computer, speak to a friend without being confronted with the tragedy that is playing out in Washington DC. I spoke with a good friend who worked in DC for many years in the 60’s and 70’s. He has walked the corridors of the Capitol building as an employee. He has been very shaken by the events, if possible even more so than me, I have only visited and revered the building. 

Yet as we settled in to prepare for dinner I could not refrain from turning on PBS News Hour, like poking a sore tooth with your tongue, to see what the latest is. Is there more awfulness, is there any healing, is there some hope that in the midst of the pandemic and a leader who has convinced tens of millions of voters that the election was stolen that we can find a away back to a functional economy in a functional government so we can find peace among ourselves. 

I will stop at this point for now. If I don’t I may not be able to sleep.

Paul Goldberg Blog

2020 in Hindsight

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Everything I am reading today is a review of the year just past. Call it a dumpster fire, a year best forgotten, a horror show that cannot end soon enough. Yet another year we have lived through and experienced. 

We started off in grand style in the Sahara Desert with our family and a couple of girl friends. we had a stop over in Tel Aviv which was cold and wet for 4 days, then on to Ethiopia for a strange religious event with our friends the Poleshuks. We witnessed a parade of Arks of the Holy Covenant through the city of Lalibela. Yes that is plural and yes throughout the country there are many more than the 12 we saw and yes they are ALL believed to be the original. Little did we know in January that the country would become part of the dumpster fire of 2020 as the government and dissidents  took their disagreements to the streets and to military action. Once again Carol and I have visited a region about to be torn apart by hatred. 

February we recuperated in Jojoba Hills SKP Resort preparing to return to Panama and then Colombia to complete a trip we had been forced to return from early in 2019 for medical reasons. 6 days into this trip we received notification that we  needed to pack to get out of Panama before the airport closed to all travel as part of an attempt to prevent the spread of Covid -19 there. We returned to Jojoba Hills to quarantine for two weeks and decide what to do next. And there we sat into May. 

In early May we received a reminder that our grandson Alexander was turning 21 on May 31. since we were doing nothing and had a full hookup site prepared in their driveway in Virginia we invited ourselves to isolate with them and celebrate the birthday as best we could. We drove across the country in ten days. Once we left Redlands Truck and RV where we had annual service performed, we drove every day except one. We took a day off in Tom Sawyer RV park on the west bank of the Mississippi River.  We arrived in Covesville VA tired and glad to be off the road. we had had no contact with a living sole as we traveled. Well we did shop in one Walmart fully masked and gloved for supplies. We made 6 fuel stops and never got within 10 feet of another person. Pay at the pump and just move on. One relative excoriated us for traveling at all. I think we had less contact with people than if we had stayed still. 

At Dan and Malena’s we settled in for the summer, hoping that our presence was not a problem for them. We did some chores and helped where we could and planned to retreat to our Rochester Apartment by the end of August. Then Carol fell and landed in the hospital. She spent a month before she could return to the coach. During that time the kids sold the house and moved into a beautiful new house with room for their horses – 15 acres- and more house than they really need. I moved the coach and added one more disaster to the year by dropping the right rear tire into the roadside ditch. ENOUGH ALREADY!

We made it to Rochester in late September. Moved into the apartment and moved the coach to Buffalo to repair the damage from the trip into the ditch. I’d like to say that was that, but no. When we went to pick up the coach we found that not all the planned work had been completed. We determined that the coach was usable as is and headed out to the new house in Virginia for a weekend visit and then on to Red Bay AL to complete the work left hanging and to have some other cabinetry repairs and modifications done. While the coach was in the service bay to fix the turn indicator – the part they needed was not available any place in town – they noticed a smell of propane. The regulator was leaking. This is not a big deal to fix if you catch it before something blows up. They fixed it. 

We resumed traveling across the country back to Jojoba Hills and it seems every day I was fixing something minor. When the folding stove cover cracked, again, so did I. Then I bought some 2 part epoxy and repaired it. I think that was in Texas someplace. Once again we were in travel mode only stopping for three nights in Las Cruces to visit with Leora and Stu standing in the cold when they brought us Chanukah Candles  and then on the phone. I did get takeout dinner from La Posta the most popular Mexican restaurant in the area for tourists and locals alike. With three more overnight stops we arrived back at Jojoba Hills to end the year. Naturally the water heater stopped heating water the next morning, Saturday! A call to tech support on Monday yielded the suggestion that we run a sink faucet at the same time as the shower, that worked. I removed one item from the water line that might have restricted flow and we have not had a hot water problem since. 

Our Los Angeles family have all had the virus and so far their cases seem to be the mild variety. The Virginia family have not had it. The youngest, Cory, skidded out in snow and rolled the car into a ditch. He walked away with a scratch on his hand and a new respect for just how slick a road can be. 

It is the 30th. One more day. Put the fire out and lets have a wonderful 2021. We have travel plans for April, I think I will postpone them after the 1st. There is no sense tempting fate.

Isolation, On the Road, opinion, Paul Goldberg Blog

Settling in on the West Coast

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After visiting in Green Valley and staying in Benson we had one more stop, Rio Bend RV and Golf Resort outside of El Centro CA. We stayed here several times in our early years on the road. Our intent was to stay in the desert, but concern about yet another possible problem lead us to book into a campground, just in case. We needn’t have worried.

The next morning we arrived in Jojoba Hills just after noon. And we had time to get the basic setup done before taking lunch. One more hiccup. We woke up Saturday with no hot water. There was no one to call so we put up with it until Monday morning. Tech said “turn on two faucets” that resolved it. I went out and removed a 6 inch hose extension which had a smaller interior diameter than the hose and established sufficient flow to keep the water heater and thus Carol happy.

The park seems less crazed about options for preventing Covid 19 and things seem calmer. We are staying away from common areas and people, masking when away from our site and basically isolating until we get back our tests and/or two weeks have passed. After that we will be able to get our own mail and socialize on patios while keeping distance and masking. 

I’ve had discussions with friends online about the priorities for the vaccine and feel a bit conflicted. Although we are in the elderly group (oy) and have comorbidities we are able to take care of ourselves and need not worry about employment which might force us to be in contact with many people. Should we really be ahead of younger people whose work is not “essential” to society but is to their financial and mental wellbeing. I would argue for those living in congregate living settings as much to protect the caretakers as to protect them.  Why are hospital administrators among the early recipients? They can isolate in their offices or even work from home.  I have no real answers, just questions. I for one will accept the very first opportunity i have to be vaccinated and ask my questions afterward.

I must admit I am holding my breath through the next 4 weeks. Will the government be shut down by a fit of pique from the incumbent bent on ruining everything since he can’t be the president again? Will he need to be wheeled out of the office on the 20th? Will we have some peace of mind or will the tumult continue? I think Brexit may have come to a sort of appropriate conclusion and Israel is continuing to practice serial elections.

You may want to turn the sound down a bit.

On the Road, Paul Goldberg Blog

On the Move

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Since my last post leaving Red Bay with a long list of repairs completed, we have traveled across Tennessee , Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico. Well we are in Las Cruces which is near the Texas border but also almost halfway across the state. Unlike past trips we are moving with purpose, that is not deviating from a relatively direct course, but taking our time. At Carol’s request we have dropped our “normal” day from 6 hours to closer to 4. That means we can sleep in a bit and have time to gather our wits or just enjoy the parks we are in and not need to feel rushed.

Most of our stops have been familiar places or places I have heard about or read about in the past and couldn’t get in for one reason or another. Rocky Springs on the Natchez Trace Parkway is a place we have stopped several times. We always expect a quiet hide away in the woods and usually find noisy company, mostly Boy Scouts out for a camping trip. This time it was an older trailer with a noisy contractor generator that they kept running until it ran out of fuel at 4 AM. Rude! Next up was Betty’s in Abbeville LA. This is a very highly rated and popular spot with a limited number of campsites. Its popularity derives from Betty’s warm welcome, a patio for happy hour with an open mike approach for musicians and general camaraderie. We were the only rig in the place which had been torn up by two hurricanes and was just recovering. Gathering and playing music on the patio would be out in any case so what we had was a very warm welcome to a small campground on relatively level gravel.  I hope we can make it back in livelier times. Our first stop in Texas was Rainbows End SKP Park where we picked up our mail and just moved on to On the Beach RV Park in Port Aransas TX where we stayed for 3 nights. It is a small park with very tight sites right on the beach. Our site fronted on the dunes and it was a short walk on to the beach itself. If there had been any safe activities to participate in we might have stayed longer. We stayed there many years ago.

After that luxury we stopped overnight in Amistad San Pedro Camping area. It is part of the National Parks System and with our Senior Pass it cost us $3. There are no amenities, just a small shelter over a picnic table and plenty of sand to coat everything with dust. This was our second time stopping at this campground. Back to luxury at Lost Alaskan in Alpine Texas. Somehow the closest we have  come to staying here in the past was parking across the street to use their WiFi many years ago. We prefer to stay in Marfa, but Tumble In was booked solid. 

Driving US 90 is our preferred route across the south, especially  Texas. We can run at our preferred speed (62 mph) with limited traffic and lovely sights along the way. Eventually the route, which starts on the Atlantic coast in Florida, peters out and joins I 10 in Van Horne Texas. We pressed on across Texas to Las Cruces NM just a few miles in to New Mexico. There we stopped at Siesta RV where we have stayed many times, probably 10 or more. We love to visit our friends Stu and Leora as we are passing through. This time we had a brief visit and they gave us a box of Chanukah candles because we had run out. Most of us have too many boxes because we are always thinking we don’t have enough and just pick up another one, besides we might need extra should we have visitors who want to light their own. 

We roll again in the morning, December 15, knowing that the Electoral College has done its thing and we are one step closer to inaugurating a new President. The plan is to stop in Benson Arizona at Butterfield RV, a place we stayed on our first cross country trip in 2002 and have not returned to since.  We plan to visit Ellen and Lonnie who moved from Jojoba since we left last May. After 2 or 3 nights there, we will head into the desert for a night or two to put us close to Jojoba Hills SKP Resort so we can arrive by mid afternoon. There are no plans to move on from there . . .  yet!

On the Road, Paul Goldberg Blog

A Myriad of Small Repairs

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This will be mainly of interest to Rvers and others who follow my Perils of Paul series. With any property one is inclined to accumulate minor failures which are more aggravation than serious failures, what I call show stoppers. This will also function as a reminder to me of what has been done that I can take off my list.

We left Colton RV rather dissatisfied with the way work was not completed on a timely basis and some jobs were missed altogether. Given that and other needs we determined to spend some time in Red Bay AL where our motorhome was built. Not only is there a factory service center, but there are many vendors who have worked in the factory and have set up their own repair and modification shops in the area. The ecosystem for Tiffin built RVs is deep and strong.

We arrived on Tuesday before Thanksgiving and found the place almost deserted. Many people from the Northeast make a pilgrimage to Red Bay on their way to Florida. During the “migration” it is hard to get a place to stay and the wait for first-come-first served access to service can be weeks. Nobody, well very few people, wanted to spend four days in a campground with all the service facilities closed. We planned on that. The first surprise was on arrival on Tuesday I called Chris Berry, cabinet maker, to let him know we were in town and he showed up to get the work done within two hours. He got most of the work of replacing worn latches in what I thought was an unreachable space done in 30 minutes and carted off a drawer that needed resurrecting. When he returned with the drawer I mentioned that the design of the cabinet with the trash pail was a nuisance, first one had to open the door then reach in and pull out the slide holding the pail. Two actions where one should be sufficient. Within 15 minutes he had dismounted the door and mounted it to the front of the slideout with the pail. It is taking us some getting used to having it be so simple now.

Next up was the service bay, with no advance notice they called for us to get the coach into a service bay “now”. It was a scramble but we got there and the step cover switch was replaced and the paperwork for mechanical service was forwarded to a different bay for service on Monday. They start work at 7 AM so we were ready for the call when it came at 8. Oops and oops. They noted propane leaking from the regulator so I had to return to see them demonstrate the leak and authorize the replacement. Next the turn signal mechanism needed to be replaced but they didn’t have that specific part anyplace in Red Bay. I drove the coach back to the campsite with no turn signals. It is a small town and everyone knows where you are going anyhow. The defroster now also works.

But there is more! That night the temperature was headed into the low 20’s and we knew we would be dependent on the propane furnaces to keep us warm and the water system from freezing. It was working fine when we went to sleep. At 3 AM I noted it was getting cold. The furnace was running but blowing cold air. I turned on the gas range to see that there was propane flowing. . . there wasn’t. The tank gauge showed half a tank. We learned in the morning when we returned to the bay that the gauge was stuck. I should have noticed that it had not changed in a week, but we had not been using the furnaces. Anyhow I filled the tank and still could not get things to light. Back to the bay again. During his diagnosis Jesse had loosened a connection and had failed to tighten it. Now with heat and hot water we parked next to the bay to wait for the delivery of our turn signal mechanism which arrived as promised and works as promised and we happily headed back to Red Bay Acres to wait a day to have four new slide toppers installed. These awnings have been exposed to the elements for 8 years and were looking really shabby.

When we had a house we had similar failures, water heaters, furnaces, garage doors all failed, but no one took that amiss. When similar things happen to RVs some people think it is really terrible. Carol and I just think it is part of the lifestyle we love and enjoy. Even the failed furnaces resulted in comfy snuggling until it was time to crawl out of bed. We have learned to smile in acceptance and get on with our lives.

As I post this we have stopped for the night in Rocky Springs Campground on the Natchez Trace Parkway for the night and moved on to Abbeville LA and Betty’s RV Park Where we will be for 2 or 3 nights.

On the Road, Paul Goldberg Blog

The Plan So Far

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Our travels have been mostly uneventful. Our departure from Colton RV in North Tonawanda was delayed because they “forgot” to install the new leveling jack we had been waiting for. Then when they did install it they discovered they needed another part! It arrived the next day – our departure day – and Tiffin had shipped the wrong part (or Colton Parts ordered the wrong part).  We left, determined not to use the affected jack until we got to Red Bay. 

We had a delightful stay with Malena and Dan and dinner at Con Mole (outdoors) Saturday night. Unfortunately Dan could not be with us as he had mounted Tivoly bareback pretty much to everyone’s surprise, particularly Tivoly’s. Dan’s “dismount” left him flat on the ground in some pain. He spent the next 16 hours in ER where he was “imaged” to determine that there was no serious damage and sent home, arriving at 5 AM.  

We left on Monday as planned. Dan was stiff and sore but otherwise in good spirits. Our trip was mostly uneventful save one crazed FedEx driver who forced me onto the shoulder and the usual car drivers who are unable to see a motorhome in their path. We stopped at Racoon Valley RV park a SKP park near Knoxville TN before continuing on to Red Bay AL., known to Tiffin owners as “The Mother Ship”.  

It was Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the campgrounds were at less than 50% and so was the Service Center. The normal arrival ritual is a visit by Norris to determine what services are needed and to estimate how many weeks to expect to wait. We had contacted Chris Berry, an outside vendor, to repair a cabinet. We expected to see  him no earlier than Wednesday, more likely next week and were surprised when he called to let us know he was on the way. The main cabinet work was completed  within an hour and he took off with a drawer that needs to be rebuilt.

Wednesday we were awaiting a visit by Norris when the phone rang at about 1:30 with instructions to bring the coach over to Bay 10!!!! Since we had set up for the long weekend, we had to do a rush preparation for sudden departure. I think it took us 15 minutes to get underway. There was more than the usual rattling of pots and pans as we rolled down the road with Carol following in the Jeep.  (check Ann Carol’s FaceBook page for a picture of what we found on our return) The coach was in the service bay no more than 45 minutes when a call came to come and get it. One of four minor fixes had been completed and the rest needed a different service bay, besides it was 2:45, closing time. Now we wait for a call to go to a mechanical bay on Monday any time after 7 AM.  Guess we will get up early and prepare to move the coach early. I don’t expect the work to take more than a couple of hours so we will be back on the site to receive our drawer and a cleaning crew  who we have contacted to deep clean the interior.  I still need to consider what other work I may want done while we are here.

Not sure when I will post again. the plan from here at this moment is to drive the Natchez Trace Parkway again, one of our favorite roads.  For a story from 2003 about the Trace click on this link and scroll down https://goldberg-online.net/journals-blogs-whatever/cross-country-2003-xc2003/

In Rochester, Paul Goldberg Blog

Rolling Cross Country in a Time of Covid, Again

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We are doing it again, driving cross country to southern California, only we are 8 months into the pandemic and trying to get away from Rochester winter. In the past we said good by to friends and family, “we’ll see you next summer.” The big difference is we will see many of them as regularly as we have while in Rochester and on the same glassy screen as all our interactions have been. 

Over the years as we would arrive in a town we would call the people we knew there to say hi or plan  a get together. Somehow we seldom called from across the country if it wasn’t family or really close friends.  Today we are checking in with Rochester people even though we will be no further away even if 3,000 miles intervene.  Times are indeed strange, will we ever resume relaxed actual gatherings? Is the Escapee hug a thing of the past? Even family hugs are limited and based on sharing a bubble. I attended a funeral in NJ. Interesting, if not for the live feed I doubt we would have driven to NJ for the father of a friend. Our nephew, the rabbi, is doing funerals and Bar Mitzvahs on zoom and in small group and socially distanced events. Shiva is a zoom gathering and the Bar Mitzvah party is too. 

Our initial plan is to pick up the coach in Niagara Falls on Wednesday and return to Rochester where we will finish loading the food for departure on Thursday. The plan is to arrive in Charlottesville on Friday and depart on Monday for a two day drive to Red Bay Alabama. I hope to have some minor cabinetry work done and leave by Dec 1. That departure will be set by the availability of the woodworker. The work shouldn’t take more than an hour since he has the tools and worked on building these coaches.

This feels like planning a Jazz Fest evening of concerts. We have a plan and will be able to report on what actually takes place, after the fact. Last year our run down the Natchez Trace Parkway got short circuited by what turned out to be minor failure. This year we will try it again.