Favorite places: 2024.09 FORT BRAGG California

Getting ready
Before anything moves

First, make sure my brother is ready. He is passed away now, but he still comes with me. He loved music, and had an expensive Gibson guitar.


An AI generated video of my brother singing. One of his favorite songs.

My brother Ben


He will always be with me.

Turned on the refrigerator, and put a bag of ice in the freezer section of the refrigerator to give it a head start.
Threw in some junk food, a cantelope, some grapes, potatoes, hot dogs, catchup, dozen eggs...
Checked the four tire pressures, back RV camera, and all signal lights.
FreshWater tank is 45%, Grey is 5%, and Black is empty.
Linda brought in more underwear and clothes for drawers and closets, good for about a week.
Windows closed, hatch open a little.
Several days dog food. RV water dish filled with fresh.


All aboard.
Count two woofers.
GPS set for Yuba City
Ignition.

On our way

The Sizzler in Yuba City. Recessed lighting. Got that in the RV too, but Sizzler lighting probably looks better.

But not true for food...
Food that I prepare in the RV will always taste better; made with my own hands by a lake or ocean beach. Not just taste better; What I make is better for you, health wise. And when you stir, you can not help but stir in a lot of fresh pleasant air! That ingrediant is not mentioned in any cookbook.

We will stay at the Casino tonight. And we should be there in one more day.


We are not going to make it before dark. That is the coastal range, straight ahead, on the horizon, and we need to cross it. Problem is that it is getting dark. Don't like driving at night. We played around way too long. Easy to do if you never grew up. And now, it is probably too late to grow up.


We are outside ClearLake at the Casino. We look small in this big parking lot. But there are a bunch of Carnival trucks. And people walking around. I guess garding all their stuff. And there is a refriguration truck carrying produce thats running a loud engine. And that is a deal breaker; got to get away from this noisy thing.

Both woofers are chomping at the bit to go sniff and pee. But that is fine. It gives me a chance to get the law of the land, and plan a new parking spot. Anywhere, somewhere away from the noise.


Inside temperature is 87.2 degrees. We brought some of the heat with us, all the way from the valley. And the outside temperature is 75.9 degrees. 87 is way too hot for good sleep, but 75 is OK. The bathroom is to the left of these meters, and at the cealing is a fantastic fan. I opened one of the back windows, turned on the fan to medium exhuast. And the cool air came pouring in. In a half hour the inside temperature was about the same as the outside. Dropping fast. And we knew that we would be able to sleep good.


I brought the TMobile GateWay that we use at the house. It has two bars signal strenth, the house has three. For a year or more, RVers have been having free internet on the road with these Gateways. And it works. But it will soon come to a stop. This paticular GateWay and all future GateWays, have a GPS receiver inside. The GateWay knows where it is at. If you are out of your registered area, TMobile can shut off, or throttle down the GateWay. I brought it along on this trip, not to cheat the system, but to see if it would work. I turned on the computer, and lo and behold, the internet works. I can use Google, I can see the YouTube channels. Just like at home. Streaming movies seems to have no problems. All the comforts of home. In fact, we watched for a couple of hours. I do not like camping; This is home.


I put the GateWay in the window and this is what I got. You may be wondering; Why with only two bars do you get such high speeds. It is because there is little noise here. The signal to noise ratio is much better than in Chico. In general, the SNR is more important than signal strength.

A 144MB/s Down is much better than my AT&T. AT&T DSL was only 12MB/s Down at the most. And I was not mobile. And I was paying more. TMobile is only $50/mo unlimited Internet. Verizon is similar, but they had no tower in my area. I am going to enjoy this GateWay "HotSpot" while I can.


Had a restful sleep, and let the woofers pee in a RedWood stand in a park. According to the plack, the park is the Blue Star By Way. Taffie, in white further out, pees a lot when she pees. But only pees infrequently. On the other hand, Callie closer by, pees all the time, but only a little bit. She considers peeing as if delivering mail, and not a necessity. Callie thinks the whole field is mailboxes.

RVing with a SwampMonster at BlueStar ByWay

Fort Bragg

A bee with wore out right wing. This bee has to compensate for asymmetric lift.


Dull and gloomy day. Fog on the ground most of the time. Fog inland for miles. Gulls are bored, and they spend time visiting with people.


In FortBragg, down near the train depot, you can shop and eat near an indoor train. That is my mom down there in red. She is 35 years old. But she is not real. And there is a relection of my Dad in the train window. He is not real either.


They rangers at the park entrance offered us 5 choices. I chose space-73. All were heavily forested overhead.


This is a handicap space, and not too far from the public bathrooms, and several outdoor food prep sinks. I am not enthusiastic about it. It is kind of a minus. We have our own bathroom and shower. I forgot to look to see if the tent campers can charge their phones or use electric shavers inside. An emergency phone would be nice too. I dought that they have it. In all the years that we have been coming here, I may have only seen the inside one time.


There is the truck right outside the kitchen window.


14.4 volts in the Combiner is all that can be gotten before batteries begin to load the panels. Even in the dark morning at only a couple of Solar Percents, the voltage quickly races up around 14 volts. But then it stops climbing. There are too many hungry mouths to feed above 14 volts.


Down here in the shade 12.8 percent solar is the max that I have seen. So, I think the fog has lifted out of the sky. Five percent is the norm. That is about 3 amps max. Which is minimum for even daily living-maintenance and existence, like lights, refrigerator, fans, chargers and water pumps. The coach 12-volt voltage is 12.14 volts. And it ranges between 12.1 and 12.2 no matter the battery voltages, nor the Solar Input. Coach voltage is regulated low, to stop LED degradation, and to increase the efficiency of the floor heating. I believe that I am the RVer that has this. If any other RVers want to have regulation, then you should know of a concern:
Many cheap RV water pumps can not deliver water at factory set water pressures if the voltage is too low. If your setting is too high, like 40 or 50 lbs, the pump will never make this pressure to shut off. It will remain on untill your batteries are completely exhausted. All you will know is that your battery is dead, and you will not know why. It happened to me when the trailer was bran new from the dealer.

It won't happen to me again. Ever! I make a point of stopping stupid stuff. I also have a different type of water system than other RVers. I do not have "Water on Demand". It is stupid. A chattering water pump when you turn on a faucet is stupid. Instead, I store the water and the pressure, just like in a house. And I use a dedicated pressure switch. And it is adjustable: My pressure runs between 1 and 2 atmospheres, which is a Cut-In of 14 lbs, and a Cut-Out of 29 lbs. This is because I don't like camping. I do not feel that I am camping in my RV.


We have no trouble powering all outlets, and using curling irons, shavers, and even a couple of hours of TV per day. However, I don't think we quite making up the difference each day. We are slowly loosing batteries.


Fog is heavy in the tree tops. Its 55 degrees under all the limbs, even in the day. Poor poche; Not much to see.

She is on the table. I don't want Linda to see.


For three days they have been cutting tuna, about 30 feet from our RV. They say tuna fishing has been very good. Everyone is happy with big knives.


In the sun. Solar percent is 55%. All batteries are topped off. Linda and I fell asleep. There is no current draw, for anything. Solar Combiner can not go any higher. Most panels can go no higher than 21 volts Open Circuit.








A fairy talking to Donna




















We are leaving McKerricher today. So, sence early this morning, we left camp and came over here to the lake. Lake Cleone inside the state park. During the day an RV here is OK. There is still fog, but not as bad as tucked away in those cold dark gloomy trees. Wow, the sun does exist!








Breaks my heart to leave the RV, and return later to see someone still waiting at the window.

WWVB
(What happened to FortCollins?)

All MasterClocks can be blanked out, consuming very little current. This MasterClock is located in the RV, and is in the blanked condition. It blinks at the top of the minute to indicate that it has received a perfect copy. It can be manually blanked out by an adjustable pot. And it is blanked out to save battery power. Any coach voltage below 12 volts, or any other chosen voltage, is automatically blanked out, but can be over ridden.


The MasterClock in the RV is one of many, and its number is "15", or "MClock-15". Master Clocks are designed to give timing signals at facilities. In this case, MClock-15 gives time to all the microprocessors controling the RV. All devices in the RV know the Year, Month, Day of the Month, Day of the Week, Hour, Minute, second, SunRise time, and SunSet time. I do not believe, no one device, needs to know all of these parameters. But when I am writing code for any one device, full time options are there, available as part of my repertoire and language.





For years my WWVB clocks have been keeping nearly perfect time, despite minor signal interruptions during the day. As far as I am aware, no other WWVB clocks work like mine. I use a lot of AI to digest the Nist signal. All other clocks, conventional clocks, rely on good local oscillators for time keeping during those periods of corrupted or missing signals. But not me.

On the contrary; I can be way down in the noise, and still gain enough information to at least sync the seconds. A millisecond correction to the seconds every few minutes is all that is required for nearly perfect time during those periods of SO or S1 signals. When I was in Broadcasting, and when I was in the Air Force I had access to spectrum analysers, and I was on them all the time. Now, without one, I am guessing what things look like. I sure miss them.


But anyway, for a couple of months, I have noticed several of my WWVB clocks have not received a "Complete" update. Not for days at a time. Two of the clocks, although struggling, managed to keep perfect time, with full updates during the night. In my mind I blamed it on the new apartments built near by, with a all their new computer noise and crappy LED noise and electronic stuff. Or, sense BadiMire Putin was threatening to nuke everyone, perhaps WWVB was experimenting with "Reduced Power" or other security concerns. The RV was keeping OK-time despite being parked North-South instead of West-East. So I did not know what was going on.


Then during the trip, the RV had a good signal in Clearlake, way out of town away from noise. After being able to move the RV around, from town to town, seems to indicate the problem may be noise. And on the coast at McKerricher, the signal was unbelievable. Of course, not many campers had electronic devises. State Parks are supposed to be rugged and Natural with no hookups. The signal was good even during the day. Better than any place that I have ever seen. Now, THAT looks like noise! We should move to the coast. So I was still confused, thinking maybe noise; Untill I saw this!





Wow, I need do nothing. I was considering building a large antenna for the house. No; Now I just sit tight.