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Sometimes you just can't help knowing what's going on in your bit of the world, even tho you've no interest in it. I do not follow football (soccer). I don't know the rules of football. No-one in our house watches football on TV, or goes to see a match.
If you live in Edinburgh it's pretty inescapable however that there are two big football clubs. One called Hibernian (Hibs), and the other Heart of Midlothian (Hearts). They are huge rivals. I know where the two big football stadiums are, but I'm not sure which belongs to which club. Nor could I tell you the colour of their football strips.
But thanks to the notice in the window of a pub in Broughton Street, I am now informed that Hibs is looking for a new manager.
(edited to say that football evidently confuses me so much that I forgot to put a title to this post.)

Symposium - Day 1

The American Trails Symposium opened yesterday afternoon. Rode my bike to the afternoon session.
The afternoon was visiting at the exhibitor booths. Several booths had not been set up yet. A couple were not manned. Anyway, checked out the exhibit hall. Picked up some information.
In the evening there was the Opening reception. Thanks to Lewis & Clark Outfitters for the food!
During this session, I talked with Scott Linnenburger of IMBA. I had met Scott in Rapid City for Black Hill Fat Tire Festival. We talked about THOR plans, and desires. Later, I met Mary Hanson from National Parks (out of Omaha) Did some networking there.
Ended the evening with a drive to the Big Dam Bridge to take photos. Got some good shots. (Sure was raw out up on the bridge.)

Two Much Fun

These Salvias grow at my friend Mindy’s house, scene of last Saturday’s project for the Divas of the Dirt. We Divas are a group of Austin women who work together on each other’s garden projects. I joined the group in January .., making this my seventh season as one of the seven Divas. On Saturday we were eight, when Mindy’s houseguest, also a gardener, joined us for great food, interactions with nature, and conversations. The Divas worked on one short project and one very long one, and as we left, Mindy shared some extra Salvia greggii and a few pots of Barbados Cherry seedlings. By the time my friend Sophia dropped me at home just before 8 PM, I looked so wrecked that a family member handed over the bottle of Ibuprofen and pointed to the shower. But any day spent with seven wonderful gardeners is a good one, even if exhausting.
Sunday was shared with a different group of seven gardeners - all of them write about gardening and are informally known as the Austin Garden Bloggers. Two April days, each spent with a distinct group of seven other gardeners – what could be more fun? Pam/Digging, R.Sorrell/The Great Experiment, Julie/The Human Flower Project, Vivé/Something About Blooming and Butterflies, Susan/South of the River, Dawn/Suburban Wildlife Garden, and MSS/Zanthan Gardens and I carpooled around the city, stopping to wander around six gardens with some delicious finger-food in one hand and a glass in the other, talking nonstop.
Certain familiar plants were seen in almost every garden, while others were unknown to all but the owner. We have may have trees that are still saplings, or venerable trees that have survived generations of Texas weather. Some of us garden where the land is flat, others with slopes. The houses vary in ages, types and designs, and the gardens used so many plants and contained so many ideas that my head is spinning now as I think about the exhilarating day. But unlike Susan and MSS, I didn’t like awake and think about it last night – for the first time in weeks, I was too tired to think, and fell asleep immediately.
It’s ridiculous how pleased I can be by a single flower. Near the back fence there’s an area planted with red flowers to entice hummingbirds in summer, and a few months ago, I planted some Anemone coronaria ‘The Governor’ to add a little red in spring. Out of 20 corms, only 2 came up, each making a few flowers - this one was gracious enough to be open when the Garden Bloggers were here. One anemone would be lost among the hundreds of flowers in the lush and established gardens I saw yesterday, but one anemone had to be enough in this otherwise green bed.
Although its bud was visible on Sunday, the Siberian iris waited until today to unfold, refusing to perform for the guests. While it’s true that Siberian Iris don’t grow well here – and this single flower took three seasons to appear – it wasn’t a foolish choice ordered from a catalog, but a passalong from my friend Barb in Illinois. We used to trade starts of Siberian iris when I lived up there, much as Pam/Digging and I have traded Iris here. I like to see passalong plants blooming, celebrating our friendships and standing as the emblem of garden friends everywhere who like to plant things just to see what will happen.

Solo

An early-blooming Pacific coast iris.

Plant Tour: Where Tiffin Motorhomes Are Born

Monday, 18 February (Part II)
Camp Tiffin — Red Bay, Alabama

I started writing about our day and the tour in the previous post … if you haven’t read it, it’s worth taking a peek to check out the photos of a ‘76 Allegro, one of the early motorhomes built at the plant.

Now for the plant tour. We joined four other people to see how a motorhome is born at Tiffin’s main assembly plant. We started out in the cabinetry area, which is located in what used to be the cotton warehouse for the gin operated by the Tiffins. As Harold put it, “they didn’t tear down the buildings, they just re-purposed them.”

I would like to have given you a step-by-step tour of the process, but that’s not how the two-hour tour went. That was a tiny bit disappointing. Nonetheless, it was interesting to see the work that goes into building a house on wheels. So my photos will pretty much be in the order in which we walked through the huge facility.

Assembled coaches lined up and ready to go to the paint plant in Belmont, Mississippi.

On the positive side, we were right there with the workers, not kept at a distance. There were Phaetons and Allegro Busses on the production lines today. And we saw one Zephyr, too. Breezes were being manufactured on a separate line. Each coach is assigned a number, and all the bits and pieces for that coach carry that same identifying number, including all the cabling that goes into the coach. This ensures the installation of the right parts in a motorhome — especially important when specific options are exercised, thus changing the standard build.

From what Harold told us, it takes three weeks to get a coach ready for shipment — 5 days at the main assembly plant, 5 days at the paint plant, and 5 days in final finishing. (I am not positive of the last five days, so if someone knows otherwise, let me know.) That time frame changes to 3½-days x 3 for the Breeze. If you order a Tiffin, you will have your coach in two months from when you place the order. Another tidbit — the production rate has been brought up from about 3/day (during the recent economic downturn) to 12/day. That’s a lot of coaches going out the door!

(You can click any of the photos to see bigger versions in the online gallery. There are some additional photos in the gallery that I did not post here.)

Some of the 1,500 Tiffin employees are skilled carpenters responsible for building the cabinetry
used in the motorhomes. On the left is the “Galley Cell” where the kitchen units are built.
On the right is where they prepare wood panels by gluing together strips of hardwood.

The “overhead cell” (left) builds the cabinets that are attached to the ceiling.
Pre-routed trim pieces come to this shop to be cut out and prepared for staining.

In addition to using Ford, Freightliner, and Spartanburg chassis, Tiffin manufactures the
PowerGlide chassis. Only a few of these chassis are built because of the demand of production.

Prepping a Cummins engine for installation.

A closer look at a Cummins engine installed in a chassis.

All tricked out, these chassis are ready to placed into the manufacturing line.

Dropped in place, the plywood flooring is secured to the frame.

The foam insulation for the roof is bonded to luan paneling and grooves and niches
for wiring and aluminum frame pieces are cut out using a computer-operated router.

The top photo shows the luan paneling with the foam underneath it.
Bottom left is a Phaeton 40QTH roof with the wiring and aluminum frame in place.
Bottom Right is a roof with the skin placed over the insulation; the dome satellite,
AC units, antenna, and fans are already installed.

The tile flooring is in place; the lavatory is next to go in.
interesting to see that most of the interior elements are mounted
before the shell of the motorhome is put in place.

The shell is in place; lots more work to do!

One of the bedroom slides is ready to be installed, and we get to see it being swung into place.

The face cap … outside and inside.

One of the things not manufactured by Tiffin is the windshield.
They are made in Turkey, which has a big bus manufacturing industry
and the technology to curve the edges of these big windshields.

This department prepares the wiring that goes into the motorhomes.
The machine to the left of the woman cuts the wiring at pre-designated lengths.
She then loops them in bundles and places them on carts (one cart per coach).
The plastic jackets on the wiring are stamped with the ID of the coach they are
intended for, as well as the purpose for which they are to be used.

The coils of cables on the rack are laid out on a series of spindles with numbers on the
panel corresponding to specific positions in the coach; the cables are then bundled together.

The protective diamond shield is placed on the front of the coach once it has been
painted. Next, the air bubbles are squeegeed out to present a crystal clear finish.

I understand we could have stayed on after the tour to wander around at will. We didn’t quite get that at the time, and thought Harold meant that we were welcome to go into the finished coaches that were at the various quality control stations, or those parked on what they deem the “yellow brick road” outside. In any event, Mui was anxious to pick up our Phaeton from Bruce Deaton’s paint shop. And I was overwhelmed by the “beehive activity” and noise around me. So, we’ll do self-guided tour the next time … as I am sure there will be a next time.

More training ups and downs

My fortune over the past wee while hasn’t been great. I’m just back to being human after losing just short of 2 weeks in bed with a virus which floored me. Normally with most bugs I just reduce my training a bit and get some work done while I’m ill. This time I couldn’t do anything except lie in bed and shiver.
Not to dwell on the details. But it obviously meant no training was done apart from ab-busting cough workouts. After I finally exited the other side, I was overflowing with eagerness to get going again, so jumped straight back on my board and onto the trails. After three days straight of bouldering and running, I could feel every muscle in my body.
Unfortunately, on the 4th day I was booked to jog up Ben Nevis with Michael for the end of his city to summit race (swim the Forth at Edinburgh, cycle 110m to Glen Coe and then marathon finishing up and down Ben Nevis). On one hand, if it hadn’t been Michael’s race day, I would’ve probably moaned about just going to the kitchen to put the kettle on, never mind putting my running shoes on. On the other, if you can’t run up the Ben with a man who’s just come from Edinburgh under his own steam, it doesn’t look great, even if he is a machine.

So we had a nice jog up and it wasn’t so bad after all. Just inspiring. Over the past few months I have at various points given up on running due to continued ankle pain, only to start again a couple of weeks later. Changing my running gait to account for the ankle damage had caused knock on effects - an annoyed tibialis posterior tendon. It’s a bit of a tale of woe, but I’m beginning to think I could start a little gentle regular running again. Tomorrow I’ll maybe try something a little longer and see how it goes.
At the tail end of my virus I put in some productive days on my book, which inches ever closer to a finished first draft. Just a bit on shoulders and we’re done. Then on Friday I was at the opening of the new ice wall in the Snow Factor in Glasgow. It was pretty weird moving on ice and dry tooling boards. By the end of the day I was quite sad that winter is finally over.
In the coming week, I shall be climbing, running, route setting, book writing and then off for the first climbing trip of the summer. Exciting times!

Autumn Brilliance

With snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow, today I'm choosing to share a photo of what may very well be the last bit of vibrant fall color in Grand Portage for this year. This photo was taken yesterday along the Mt. Josephine grade of Highway 61 overlooking the Susie Islands and Isle Royale National Park. The last 6 miles of Highway 61 approaching Canada still has some nice golden orange color today, but it probably won't last through the weather front that is supposed to be passing through over the next 24 hours. Luckily, we have cameras to record these scenes so we can look back at them and enjoy them whenever we like!

Crow Wing State Park

After my morning ride yesterday, I was a bit hungry. A change of clothes and headed to Coach's for a late lunch. Took the opportunity to process the photos from the bike ride. Now, what to do the rest of the day?
Decided to drive over to Crow Wing State Park. Crow Wing was a fur trading post at the junction of Crow Wing River and Mississippi River. The park is a couple miles South of Brainard on Hwy 371.
Today's photo was taken at the lookout point at the boat ramp. This is the Mississippi River looking upstream.
Drove over the another recommended section of the park. Walked part of the interpretive trail. Took the opportunity to use me new super wide angle lens.
By the time I got to my motel - County Inn Deerwood - I was ready to call it a day. A quick plug - if you come to Cuyuna Country Ride Center, I recommend the Country Inn Deerwood. The owner is one uf us mountain bikers!
More dirt riding at Cuyuna today.

Afternoon Sun

Afternoon Sun, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

The wildflower bloom is nearly over here in Southern California. I took this photo back in April on a remote road near Cayucos. The lupines were much thicker than this in some places - we found one patch of the flowers the length of a football field.

Positano Bites Deep

As our boat made its way
through the azure waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea towards Positano Bay, I inhaled
the warm breeze and gave gratitude for this blessing.



There, like a crown jewel amidst the steep rocky cliff of Italy’s Amalfi Coast laid
Positano, a place so enchantingly beautiful that its memory remains etched upon
my heart. Sun drenched homes built on a series of cliffside ledges cascaded
down to the shore in a panorama of pastel hues, ocher, and vermilion. The gold
and green mosaic dome of the legendary Church of Santa Maria Assunta glistened
underneath a crystal blue sky. Tropical flowers and lemon and olives groves
beautifully displayed in harmonious union. A landscape so romantic it has
inspired painters and photographers the world over.
Ever
since watching the romantic comedy “Only You” I have dreamed of visiting
Positano and its renowned hotel - Le Sirenuse - a Moorish Baroque 18th century
villa with spectacular views of the sea and the famed Costiera Amalfitana. Once
the summer residence of the Marchesi Serale family, members of which still
manage this luxury property, it is now the place where dreams are made. And on
this special day they happened to be mine.

The
moment you enter the glass doors of Le Sirenuse you are enveloped in a world of
understated elegance and serenity. The impeccable grounds boast white washed
walls, arched and vaulted ceilings and gleaming handmade ceramic tiles. Antique
paintings and prints framed in handsome mouldings hang on the walls, while a
stylish combination of traditional and contemporary furnishings decorate the
interiors and rooms.

A
handwritten welcome note, fresh fruit and nuts, and a bottle of Champagne
awaited our arrival. Frette bed linens of the finest quality were perfumed with
lavender. The bathroom was made of prestigious marbles with a Jacuzzi tub fit
for two. Luxurious Eau d'Italie bath and body products imbue their lovely scent
throughout. The terrace, with its glorious views, was the perfect place to sit,
sip Champagne and relish this moment.

The
pool, perhaps my favourite space on the exclusive grounds, was surrounded by
lemon trees and breathtaking vistas. Our days were spent relaxing poolside
enjoying our favourite Italian aperitivo “Aperol Spritz” and marvelling at the
beauty that surrounded us. This small corner of paradise was the perfect place
to bask in the final days of summer.

Everywhere
staff greeted us by name. This special touch provided a sense of being among
family and friends, and maybe it was in this spirit of home that on our first
evening we decided to dine on our terrace. Positano glowed under the night sky,
a vision so heavenly I wished time could stand still.

The
following evening we enjoyed fresh oysters and a glass of champagne millésimé
on the candlelit terrace of the Champagne & Oyster Bar. The soft music and
balmy summer night lulled me into a state of utter relaxation before heading
for dinner at La Sponda, the hotel’s Michelin star restaurant.

What
an unforgettable experience and atmosphere dinner provided! The space was lit
by four hundred candles as musicians played old Neapolitan love songs. We dined
on a selection of Mediterranean inspired dishes and sipped wine. It was one of
those rare moments when everything in the universe seemed to conspire to remind
me of the infinite beauty of life and love. It was a moment to be savoured
slowly, passionately, and with every ounce of my being.

John
Steinbeck said it best, “Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn't
quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have
gone.” And as the memories of Positano permeate my soul, I am filled with
nothing but thankfulness for the unforgettable memories.