Morro Bay and SLOBG

Morro Bay is so beautiful. We visited the museum - right across the street from the State Park. They have the best views. Just down the road ... we took a drive out to another nearby park - Montaña de Oro Spectacular. One problem though. Dogs are NOT ALLOWED on any of the trails. boo hoo. But, actually I wasn't too dissappointed. I saw SO much poison oak all along the roadway, that I didn't think I was up to a hike anyway. Although, I really do want to get out on those dunes one of these days and I think this is the best access except maybe for kayaking across the bay. One way or another, leaving Odie home and going for a hike, or paddling in the cold and wind, we'll get to those dunes before we leave. One of the best days in my memory was spent on those dunes in 1982. Daydreaming. Just down the road from our camp is "The Inn at Morro Bay" where, by pure coincidence, the Annual Dinner of the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden (SLO BG) was being held last night. SLOBG is Liz's job and her passion these days, so, she got us tickets to attend the dinner. We *even* got dressed! We actually knew a few people from dinners the last couple weeks. And, Jim makes friends SO easily! The lady in red here is Mary Ann. She is Liz' friend who joined us for the Picasa lesson. She liked it so much she scheduled a class at her house and has 5 or 6 people coming! She is what you call a 'mover and shaker'. And a fun lady too! The crowd in attendance for this annual dinner was really impressive. What a cool project. Not just a garden, but a world-class attraction, is what they have in mind. Visit the Monterey Aquarium, then a little further south to Hearst Castle, then a little further south to the Botanical Garden. The master plan calls for complete experiences of all 5 mediterranean climate zones: California, Chile, Australia, South Africa and Mediterranian. There is a major visitor center, all built with sustainable technologies. A beautiful dream. They really need a name better than SLOBG though dontcha think? Just not very inspiring. Something like the Eden Project in England. Work on it Lizzie! This morning we grabbed a cup of coffee at The Rock Espresso Bar. They had 3 computers in this little shop that patrons could use, or bring your laptop and use the WiFi. The owner said lots of folks call it their 'Coffice'. We took our coffe and braved the cold to let Odie run on the beach down by the Rock. What Joy! There were actually people braving the cold (low 50s) and taking their surfboards into the ocean! brrrrrrrr Aaaaaahhhh to be young and foolish! But wait, what's this? Old and foolish ... even better!

Hot, Cold, and Poison Oak

Last week in SLO we had a heatwave. It was sometimes over 80 degrees. Yesterday it was in the low 50s. We woke up to 39 this morning in Morro Bay. We're currently staying at Morro Bay State Park. It's really beautiful. We hope to go paddling in the bay, but I'm not sure if I can brave the cold. Here's our site. At least we're back in the trees a little and blocked from the wicked wind on the beach. Yesterday, we drove to the north side of Morro Bay, to Morro Strand State park. We went there because we knew that "Firedude" was there. aka Tony, Firedude is the moderator of the fulltimers forum on RV.net. Everyone who RV's or is even thinking about RVing should check out these forums. Lots of good information and good people. It's so cool to meet people in person that you've only known on the web. We didn't get to chat for very long though cuz it was c-c-c-c o l d!! If it had been this cold all along, I probably would not have the case of Poision Oak that I do. I assume it was because I wore shorts on a couple of our hikes last week. I won't do that again. I wrote in a previous post that I have a healthy respect for this dangerous plant. Well, I thought I did a real good at avoiding it, and I watched Odie too. I never saw him get close to it. I think just taking a photo of it makes me break out! Jim had some Cortaid that I tried, but it didn't help much. Luckily, I have the Internet and Google to tell me how to handle it. Google helped me find a website that taught me to use hot water to ease the itching. I would be too uncomfortable to even type this post if I hadn't read about this. The itching, and need to scratch, takes over your whole being. You can't do anything except think about the itch and try to keep yourself from scratching. It woke me up in the middle of the night and I couldn't go back to sleep. I figured I'd try the hot water treatment. I got in the shower and ran VERY hot water over the rash area for just a few minutes. The hot water felt like the most satisfying scratch! That was at 4am. It's 11am now and the itch still has not returned. Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh

Valentine's Day

We did one more hill hike - up Islay hill - where there were supposed to be a couple of geocaches. For the first time in a while, we were skunked in our efforts to find the geocache. I think it's just not there! For Valentine's day, we decided to have a nice lunch in town. Liz' house is close enough to downtown that we could walk. Even 'hiking' around the city streets was beautiful. Running thru the middle of town is a creek with a walkway ... not quite Riverwalk, but very pleasant. We had lunch at Chow Novo, a gourmet restaurant with the best Bisque I have ever tasted. A salmon bisque. I'd only had lobster bisque. Salmon worked deliciously. The local wine was pretty good too! Then we walked back: Happy Valentine's Day

Google's Picasa2 Makes us Photo Monsters!

I'm still evangelizing for Picasa! And, I'm creating monsters. Yesterday, I gave my little Picasa seminar for Liz and her friend Mary Ann. They had never seen it before. Our training session was from 4 to almost 6pm. At 11:30pm Mary Ann was still exploring her photos! I think Liz lasted till 10. Cool. As for me, Picasa has given me access to all those thousands of photos we've taken since we hit the road 2 years ago. I've been putting keywords on them anytime I notice a picture I like. So, now, when I think of a photo of Odie that I liked, I just type in 'Odie' in the search field and there they all are - instantly! So, I'm thinking of different ways to use the pictures other than just in chronological order in my Blog. Then I think of ways to play with them to express myself. Before you think that Picasa can add that text, I need to tell you I did that with Fireworks. But I credit Picasa with giving me access to all my photos, and getting me to play with them. I don't want Picasa to add all those other features that I need Fireworks for. The beauty of Picasa is it's speed and ease of use for doing 90% of the things that you want to do with photos. It's not bogged down with the other 10%. There are so many ways to use your photos with web-based services now. I found a website - Zazzle.com where you can make your own custom stamps. These are real stamps. I've used them to mail a couple things. You don't want to use them for everyday mailing cuz they're expensive. A set of 20 .39 stamps will set you back $17 which works out to .85 per stamp. But, is this cool or what? This is a photo of my actual sheet of stamps. I used a sunset photo that I took in Ocala National Forest in Florida, and I added the text: www.jimandchris.com. I think I'll do another one with a photo of the motorhome on the road. And, just in case you'd like to have some jimandchris.com stamps of your very own ... you can do that. Just go to http://www.zazzle.com/chrisguld . You will see the picture. Click on that and you can purchase the stamps. We will get a percentage of the sale, as will Zazzle - thus the 85 cents! The other site I've discovered is lulu.com for publishing ebooks and calendars. Using Picasa, I tagged all the photos I might like to use for a calendar. When I filtered to just those photos it made it easy to pick one from each month. In case you haven't gotten a 2006 calendar yet check out "A Year of Living on the Road". The cost is $18.95 which includes, once again, a percentage to me and to LuLu. Just click here, and then click on the link to "A Year of Living on the Road". Here's the photos included. Notice that there are 13 of them - it goes thru January 2007. This is the first time I've done anything like this - used websites to create and sell stuff. Any questions, comments please email me and let me know. A link to our email is in the sidebar just under RV and Personal Links.

Reflecting on Time, Money and Living on the Road

Doesn't life always seem to fluctuate between having time and having money? When you have one, you don't have the other. A major reason that we quit jobs, sold the house and took to the road 2 years ago was to have more time. Simplify, simplify, simplify. That's what I wanted for my life, and Jim agreed wholeheartedly. We are both very good at using time to smell the roses, see the sights, and simply enjoy life. That's what we wanted to do. But, how to support ourselves, that was the question. When we sold the house we cleared $90,000. We bought our 'new' house (1998 Safari motorhome) on eBay for $30,000. The remaining $60,000 made us feel comfortable enough to hit the road without any real plan. We were confident our computer skills would prove income-producing somehow, and we invested $6,000 in the Datastorm 2-way Internet satellite dish so we would have Internet everywhere. I could do website work and continue to support database clients remotely. Jim hooked up with Coach Connect, and figured he could do some work here and there for them. But, we had no commitments, no known income. It didn't take me long to start freaking out. Check out this weblog post from May, 2004. "Gee, wouldn't it be nice if we had some kind of regular job (and income) we could do from the road?" Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it! If you've been reading this Blog, you know that we ended up working more and more for Coach Connect. I've written quite a bit about the seminars we did in the member parks. We loved that! We met so many wonderful people. Learned SO much about WiFi. Traveled to interesting places (like Minot, ND) that would never have been on our list otherwise. But, the job grew to the point that we had no time anymore. In addition to the seminars, we did work that required being on the phone or on the computer a lot. Since I believe that time is our most precious possession, we quit the job with Coach Connect. We still love the company, and hope to do piecemeal work with them, but the 'regular' job is over. That was about a month ago, and I made a list of all the things I wanted to get done during our 'catch-up' month here in SLO. I haven't gotten very far. It seems that I still don't have enough time. I keep getting rid of obligations that take up my time, and I still don't have enough time. hmmmmm - could it be me?! Living on the road takes up time. Even when you're not driving. We average 4 nights staying in any one spot. When we do drive, we rarely drive more that 4 hours in one day. So, we're talking maybe 8 hours/week for actual travel - not enough to account for my lack of time. And, sometimes, like right now, we plan to stay in one area for a month. I think it's the fact that we're never 'settled'. Y'know how, when you move to a new house and all your stuff is in boxes, you're not ready to take on commitments/jobs/friends until you've gotten 'settled'. Some people empty those boxes and get their new home all set up in a matter of days. Some others (moi?) are still living out of the boxes even months later. Once again, you gotta be careful what you wish for! I *wanted* a life where I never knew what the next day would bring. I don't like structure, I don't like routine. I got my wish! I love the spontaneity of this lifestyle. I love the lure of the unknown. So, I'd better learn to deal with this feeling of being 'unsettled'. Little things could help. When we drive there are certain things that must be stowed. I think I could be better about re-setting things up when we park. The quicker and more completely I get the motorhome into the 'living' configuration, the more 'settled' I'll feel. The other thing is simply to realize that we *are* settled! We are settled into the RVing lifestyle. It's been over 2 years and, although I have my anxious moments, I have no desire to live in a home without wheels. So now, back to worrying about money! It is so easy to panic and think we need to stop and get a job. I fear that our savings will run out, and we won't find another way to support ourselves. I fear that one of us will get sick, we won't be able to continue RVing and we won't be able to afford a house. Yes, we have good health insurance AND long-term care insurance. In fact, that's why we need to make more income - so we can afford the premiums!! I learned long ago that we are motivated either by fear, or by love. Let my fear of being poor drive me and I'll be unhappy and unproductive. Let my love of this lifestyle, my family, and my computer work drive me and I'll be happy and productive. The following proverb, I think says it best: An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me ... it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. the same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too. " They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied..." The one you feed."