Steve and Judy's Travels!

 

While we were there, I was looking at these switch boxes and transformers for the campground.

 

They’re mounted well up off the ground; on top of sturdy concrete to protect them from hurricanes and flooding.  That looks smart.

 

But I’m wondering about the amount of electrical power that must go through them.  How does that work?  This is the only wire I can find going in or out of the switch boxes and transformers.  You can see the conduit for it in the photo above.

 

I know the electrical system works because we stayed there in the campground hooked into 50 amp shore power.  The park was full, and everything worked just fine for everyone, but that doesn’t look like a wire that’s going to carry the load for fifty camping spaces.  What am I missing?  Is the real power flow buried underground and this is just enough power coming up to run some switches?  Are those big boxes behind the switchboxes not transformers?

 

If only we knew someone who understood electricity…

 

 

 

He eats all he can, then he sits on the fence and watches the feeders.  He chases off anyone else that tries to eat; house sparrows, the little orange-crowned warbler, the cardinals, the big golden-fronted woodpecker, the thrasher; and thrashers are badass.  He even chases off the much bigger green jays; and who chases away a jay!

 

We searched for a solution.  How can all the other birds feed in peace?  We watched the mockingbird to see what he was eating, when he stopped long enough to eat.  Suet.  Mostly he was eating suet out of the suet cage, so we moved that fifteen feed away, and closer to the fence the mockingbird perches on.  That did it!  The mockingbird protects the suet and all the other birds feed in peace on the seed feeder.

 

Did we just outsmart a mockingbird?

 

 

 

How much fun does this cone look?

Reminds me of the neck brace I had to wear after my surgery, but at least I could still scratch myself!

 

The incision looks fine.  Of course we’re supposed to keep her quiet for a week; no running, jumping or playing with Henry.  We kept them apart all night, but what’s the first thing they do this morning when we open the door between them?  Blastoff!  Tearing through the house as fast as they can go, growling and wrestling at a full run.

 

 

 

On a seldom used trail, at an old abandoned water cistern, someone had set out three things.  The rock… I think it’s just a rock.  The bottle… it’s old, but probably just a bottle.  The skull… that’s different.  I don’t recognize it.  That’s an odd-looking skull.  It’s not a rat or rabbit.  It’s not a bird.  Not a dog, cat, fox, or coyote.  I was stumped.

 

I turned the skull over to expose the teeth.

 

Nice row of molars, but still nothing.  I showed the pictures to Judy when I got home, and she named the critter she thought it was right away.  I googled it and came up with this.

 

 

Looks just like it.  9 banded armadillo!  Of course.  There are plenty of armadillos here.

 

 

That was one of our clients when I worked with Pete, Marwick, Mitchell in Seattle in the early seventies.  It was called the Alyeska Pipeline then, and they hadn’t started building it yet.

 

Judy and I learned a little more about the pipeline while we were in Alaska.  We visited the northernmost point of it briefly at Prudhoe Bay, and we got a good view of it from the air, as we flew from Anchorage to Prudhoe Bay, then to Barrow.  We drove alongside the pipeline for much of our drive from Fairbanks to the Arctic Circle one day.  The pipeline goes above ground and below ground, depending on the local soil and permafrost conditions.  It is heated or cooled, depending on requirements, and zig-zagged for stability in earthquake zones.  The southern end of the pipeline is in Valdez the most northerly ice-free port in America.  That’s where the oil is loaded onto tankers, and home of the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe.  There has been a general environmental recovery around Valdez since then, but there are still pockets of contaminated unhabitable coves along the shoreline all these years later. 

 

The pipeline was completed in 1977.  It was designed to last 35 years.  It’s now been in service for 43 years and they’re not through with it yet.  Even though flow is way down from its peak in the late 80s; it’s about a quarter of that now; they’re still finding and pumping oil on the North Slope and just got an additional 30-year lease for the pipeline route from the Interior Department.  30 more years, 70 total, on a system designed to last 35?  That’s impressive that they could make the pipeline last so much longer than originally designed and scary that they could make the pipeline last so much longer than originally designed.