This picture is stolen from my mom’s website. It was taken while I was home for Christmas, and I think she rendered it using Adobe Photoshop. Anyway, it looks cool, and I didn’t have any other pictures to post here.

Thursday I’ll be attending a workshop in Gainesville on biofuels. After my experience in Maine with freezing diesel fuel, I’m now considering making biodiesel instead of using straight waste vegetable oil. I have this worry of my fuel not getting through the filters. If I can find a little cargo trailer, I could mount all the equipment in it, and use it as a portable shed. Stay tuned!

Well, I guess only a dog can do this. I took this picture in the dark, and didn’t know Anna was licking the top of her nose! The new camera does a very nice job taking nighttime photos. So far I’m very happy with it.

Well, since today was a day off for me, I decided to go find the geocache closest to my Gainesville home. This particular geocache is located very close to the local coffee house, “The Living Room.” It was an easy find, and it contained a travel bug (my first). I plan to transport Moma Roo to NC next week on my trip.

By the way, I took these photos with my new Sony DSC-W5 camera. I just got it today, and I’ve been out playing with it. It has more resolution than my older Olympus Stylus 300, which I will be putting up for sale soon.

Well, I “bit the bullet” tonight and purchased a broadband plan through Verizon Wireless. It’s a bit pricy at $59.99/month, but it lets me connect anywhere there is cellular service, at any time. The speed seems decent in the Gainesville area. I’m anxious to try it out around the country. They have a 15 day return policy, so if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just return it. Next week I’m flying to RTP, NC for EPA Precursor Gas training, so I’ll have a chance to test it in some airports and in NC.

Well, I didn’t actually plan on anything this year, but new years eve turned out to be really fun. I was out walking the pups in the experimental forest in Parsons, WV, and met a lady who recommended the Purple Fiddler up in Thomas, WV. So, we drove up through the mountains and snow and heard some great bluegrass music and drank some not-so-bad IPA. There were lots of folks there, and I met up with 6 other “tourists” and had a really fun time.

P.S. isn’t it fun that you can drive around the country in a school bus, and still stay connected enough to scan your ticket and post it in a blog?

Here’s an image from our hike along the Western Maryland Rail Trail. There was a big brown sign along I-68 for the trail, so I decided to stop and take the pups for a walk. I called Richard and got coordinates for a geocache located ~ 0.7 miles up the trail, and had no problem finding it. Thanks for the help Richard!

Well, this morning I started up early and drove to the Goodnow Mountain trailhead. It is in the Adirondak Mountains, in the Huntington Wildlife Forest. The land is owned and managed by the State University of NY (SUNY). The hike was about 2 miles each way, and the dogs did a great job with it. Anna stayed on the leash since she can’t be trusted in such an open environment, but Oscar walked on his own and kept a good pace. It was 20 degF at the bottom, and very cold and windy at the top. I actually could not open the cache because it was frozen into its little cave. The view and hike were worth more than the treasure.

You can see the actual geocaching post at: Geocaching.com

I’m planning to create some html pages for my geocache links. Stay tuned for a new link in the sidebar.

Who knows? But here’s where Bryan spent the night!

Well, today was my last full day in Maine. Mom drove out to my cabin with me, and we swapped out charge controllers on my solar-electric system. I plan to use the fancier one in my bus, since that is where I spend most of my time lately. We got there, built a fire in the cookstove, and then walked up the hill to Oma und Opa’s new house. It was very cold and rainy. Gramma babysat the pups while we returned to the cozy cabin to perform the swap. When we were finished, we rounded up the pups and the pie Oma made for me, and drove back to Augusta. Tomorrow morning I’ll get everything ready and head for Upstate New York.