mountainborn

Some members of the ORCC, the Off Road Camping Club, will be at Lake Greeson. Here is a couple of pix of Alan & Chris's cool camping set up. > > > Yup, with a set up like that, they can shore nuff' camp off road ! Note the nifty tube, with the yellow plugs in the ends, on the passenger's side of the expedition rack. It can store fly rods, sun room poles, ect.. We just gotta' do that for our trip to Colorado for the Summer of 09'.

Sherry & Paul, we wish you could be there too !

Battery ? Out on the road, most of us have a habit of making sure that our portable electronics are in the charge mode before turning in for the night. A swift kick in the battery ( charge up ), keeps us in touch with loved ones and business associates as well as wide ranging friends. More and more items charge from a USB outlet, and away from home that can limit charging opportunitys. Many plug into their laptop, accepting the loss of battery time for computer operations. When we found these outlets on eBay, and saw their price, it really grabbed us by the charger ! Click photo for larger view. Solar panels keep up the Ollie's batterys and the batterys supply power to this USB/power outlet. At $1. each, we asked them to combine shipping and bought three, bringing the total delivered to the house, $8. ! A handy indicator light lets you know when power is there.

In our current work year, we will have wage earnings in three different states. Since we will be retired, we would like to recover as much of the paid in taxes as is possible. He, he, converting it into gasoline money ? Our Ollie will be our Office where will handle correspondence, pay bills, do banking, do paperwork associated with the campground, and just on and on. Then we will make arrangements to rendezvous at our next job in another State. All from this office. My question is this: Anybody writing the office costs off of their taxes ? Can that extend out to include Cost of solar Panels, propane, sun room and other camping items ?

Clever, very clever ! Buddy, you do good work ! What if the plug was made of plastic and had a "o"ring to seal and hold it in place, and a magnet in the cap to keep it silent and from wearing the gel coat ? Maybe another magnet in the battery box to hold it in the storage position ?

With just two working days left to finish up a thirty five year carrer, and Betty already retired, we have a couple of seasonal jobs lined up. Each are hundreds of miles from home and hundreds of miles apart. We will be living in our Oliver for about half of the year on just those two jobs. Should we Winter up in the Rio Grande river Valley, along the Mexican Border, we may well be living in our Ollie for two thirds of a year. My question is, since our work is seasonal and catch as catch can, will we be Migrant Workers ? Are there any benefits associated with that ?

Mountainborn, Our intention is to be there for some yet to be determined portion of the fun! It would not be in our nature nor the spirit of the event to try to be precise at this point. An AGENDA would not help. Thanks for doing this. Meanderthal Great ! Tom & Karen make six Ollies so far ! Folks, as bad as i hate this because it smacks horribly of a Official list, you know, the one we ain't got, here is what I gleaned from the four pages of postings to this thread: Mountainborn & Butcherknife Tumbleweed & EarthDancer ScubaRX' & Tali Bugeyedriver & Oscar DougI & Geneva Meanderthall & Karen jtrew Three from ORCC Disclaimer: This list is not an official list, we don't got none ! He, he, please let me know if I have overlooked any one. The last time I talked to buffalo Bob, he and Butterknife had plans to make it, that would make seven Ollies ! Holey toledo ! I smell a record gathering in the making here ! Start the cameras to running and break out the champagne !

Well, in the spirit of not keeping track, or having an actual count, a wild guess at this point is five or six Ollies and three or four from the Off Road camping Club. Pot luck "kind of" happens, but is a impromptu, catch as catch can thing. Since the focus is on fishing, the mornings catch will determine if breakfast is at 8:30 or 9:30, but, honeybuns and coffee are in order while picking up the jugs/fish right at daylight. Napping and geocaching events are just like wildfire, they just "kind of break out", and suddenly you will realize that someone has pirated your favorite recliner and is snoreing ! ( left it by the campfire ? ) Fish frys happen in the afternoons as needed, folks is jest' nachurly' "fish hungry" in the Spring of the year. Domino matches break out at random intervals, but never interfere with the evening cast of the jugs, because the focus is on them catfish ! In amongst all of that other stuff, some of these things occour: Repair jug lines that have been damaged by large catfish. Run/move, put out, the bait traps. Check with the neighbors to see what they are catching them on. Dry out things after one of those wonderful Spring time thunder storms. Make a run in to the store for some item that was forgotten. Visit with the duty Ranger as he/she makes their rounds. He/She always knows what they are biting on ! Gather firewood, ( we dominoed' too late last nite and used up all of the firewood !) Cruise down the Lake to sight see places like chimney rock, ect.. Plan/execute a geocaching forray. Check NOAA weather radio because another little Spring time front is coming through and we will adjust the casting or pick up of the jugs to avoid the weather. ( another cup of coffee maybe ? ) . As you can see this thing is very loosely organized and is a celebration of being back in the outdoors again after a long Winter. The main ingredient is totaly relaxing in the Springtime outdoors with friends and family. Everything else will just naturally fall in place or somehow take care of it's self !

Good report Aubrey ! The nest egg crew out on the natchez trace n' rollin'. Man, oh, man dem' mud bugs soundes' good ! Don't worry about being in remedial suction cups, version 95, you will soon break out and be in suction cups for dummies Version 98, with the rest of us ! The seadawgz, Paul n' Sherry, have taken suction cups to a whole new level and are experimenting on the cutting edge of suction cupology, beyond suction cup 2000. A review of some of those posts on these forums might accelerate the suction cup learning curve ! We hope to see you at the Lake Greeson Jug fishing Extravaganza.

Steve, We recently replaced our anode, getting ready for the Spring Campout and Jug Fishing Extravaganza at Lake Greeson. All of your observations are correct: The anode only needs to be there, suspended in the tank's water, to do it's job. The threads are tapered so that they will "swedge fit" tightly. Teflon tape or "pipe dope" facilitate sealing so far as no leak is concerned, but keep the threads from seizing up, making the next change out of the anode easier. Looks like you "gotter' done" ! Just check to verify that there is no leak when you fill the water system and you are "ready to roll' !

Welcome to the Oliver Forums adtexas !!

Update ! Update ! We need a photo update ! Hope you have as much fun in your new Oliver as we have ! We hope to see you out there on the road some where.

Twas' a green day all right !

Welcome to the Oliver Forums shoeboxman007 !!

Welcome to the Oliver Forums Jim !!

Welcome to the Oliver Forums SimpleSong !!

Welcome to the Oliver Forums 12ladyblue !!

Has your blog ever under gone a change ? I notice that the technomadia's site has been redesigned. Boy, ours sure has ! In the past, there was little that I could write about that occoured during the normal work day. Most of the things I was involved in as a Police Chief were someone's personal business. So I wrote about huntin', fishin' and other mountain life style things. Now, however, I am within five days of retireing and have began to write, kind of in a spotty way, of getting ready to leave America's work force. And of our new camp hosting job up in the Rocky Mountains. http://mountainborn.blogspot.com/

As we replaced the lights we realized that we had another light that we wanted to replace the bulb in, the bathroom, for a total of five LED replacements. At $13,99 each, it was a total of $69.95 for the five, delivered to the house. The great thing about it is that we could burn all five LEDs at the same time, and still be using three watts less than burning one halogen bulb ! Now, this savings, with no electricity while camped out in the Rocky Mountains, means that if we want to watch a movie on direct tv, we will have extra battery to do it with ! The direct tv reciever draws 27 watts of power and we have a small 100 watt inverter to power it. This inverter is aproximately 90 % plus efficent in it's conversion of 12 volts direct current to 120 volts alternating current, so we don't pay too high of a price in battery capacity. The new 120 lumen LEDs are quite a bit brighter and might not suit some, but we just love the extra light on way less battery consumption !

When you approach Kirby Landing on US Highway 70, you will find the turn off clearly marked with a sign, here is a look:

As the time draws nearer for our rendezvous at Lake Greeson, Kirby Landing, Arkansas, we couldn't stand it, we just had to drive over for a look. Here is a video we took that will give you a look also. It has been resized a couple of times and wound up a bit short on the end to get it to upload to photobucket. Need more ?, just call me at 479.243.5450. Just click the photo to start the video:

Well done Doug !

Welcome to the Oliver Forums King Ying !!

Betty and I are wondering if one of the brighter 120 lumen LEDs might work well in the bathroom since the light is so diffused ?

I talked today with Wayne at ledwholesalers.com this morning. They are located in Burlingame California. The conversation was about current draw and being able to dim or brighten the reading light after converting it to LED. http://www.ledwholesalers.com is where I have been eBaying the replacements for our halogen puck light bulbs. Though is was a bit before regular office hours, Wayne quickly answered the phone and was most helpful. Knowlegable about his products, from memory he quickly quoted dimensions and current draw. He told me that the 120 lumen, ten LED replacement, G4 base bulb, is a first generation bulb and he looks for more applications to be coming down the line in the future. The G4 base might be reshaped to work in the reading light, but the variable intensity function could be lost, becoming instead a on / off function only. We will most likely leave our reading lights as they currently are with the G4 base Halogen bulb, we like the variable intensity feature. In the photo below, the halogen bulb is dimmed to give contrast for the photo. Here is a look at the light and the LED: A different look: