Checklist for SportDog Tek 2

Checklist for SportDog Tek 2

 

1. Charge handle; charge collar with cradle

2. AT DESKTOP: Check to see if there are updates; if so, connect devices on at a time; if updates are available and current version on the device is not the latest, update

3. Go outside, install antenna and turn handheld on; Selected COMPASS, Settings, Calibrate until devise vibrates;

4. Continue to watch hand-held until satellite connection reads 3D

5. MY COLLARS: Make sure Red Collar #1 is Active; then PAIR with collar until amber line goes off and green light blinks (connection) one or two blinks (no connection)

6. MY DOGS: Make sure Donner shows up

7.  TRACKING. Donner should appear on screen in red icon and information displayed below as first line item.

8. When done, turn off handheld and

 

In vehicle, Compass Setting, Vehicle Mode (but do I need that with car antenna?)

Friday, July 29, 2016; Departure: Close

I just updated my ToTake list.  (1155 words, 7 pages.) That means I am getting close, except for one thing, below.

Here are the finished and coming chores:

Advance planning and preparing:  Eight weeks; DONE

Get Defender ready to go: Weeks; DONE

Get Donner ready to go: Weeks; DONE(?)

Get myse;f ready to go: Seven months: DONE(?)

Do everything that needs to be done at home before I leave: Four days; DONE

Revise ToTake List: Hours; DONE

Set up packing stations: Hours

Pack: One day

Redo itinerary: Hours

Last Minute Supplies: Hours

Last Minute desk work: Hours

Prepare Defender: Hours

Load Defender: Hours

Check Out: Hours

On the Road

The one thing that could throw a monkey wrench into my departure, if not the entire trip, is Donner’s allergy-induced (or so I have been told) skin-infection.  Every day it gets worse, even after numerous trips to the vet and medication for five months.  He does not seem to be scrathing himself any more than he ever did, which was not but several times a day, probably because he has had this for years and it was untreated, so he has adjusted to it. But it is weighing heavily on my mind.  I will take hm swimming tomorrow so I can give him a good bath afterwards, and then continue packing. A new portable shower arrived today, so that will help.  But before I load the Defender, I will make a decision.  I cannot find myself 5900 miles and at least 15 days from home and then decide that it was a mistake taking the trip in his condition.  At least I know now that I have to do something extreme when I return, although I am not confident anyone knows what that is. Poor dog. This will not be the first time, though, that I have had to cancel or cut short one of these trips because of my dogs' situations I did so in 2003 (Erde), 2004 (Leben), and 2011 and 2012 (Leben again).  These thing happen. At least I know I did all I could do.  But I simply cannot believe that after four months of treatment, the vet checked him out two weeks ago and gave him a clean bill of health. Now, today, his problem shows up in about 60 places on his body.

One more thing.  My weight pretty mush stays the same, within a pound or two. But in the last four weeks, in getting ready for the trio, I lost 15 pounds. And if the trip goes off as planned, I can expect to lose another 20 at least. I think that's one of the 40 or so reasons I take these trips.

ED

Wednesday, July 27th...getting close

This morning, I finished everything I needed to do at home before I go, most of all it paperwork that has accumulated for months.  I am ready to devote full time to doing the final planning, preparing and packing to get on the road.  It should take me no more than five days from here. Let's see how good I am at predicting that. Most of my preparing these last several weeks, besides my physical therapy, the Defender and Donner, has been trying to get in the frame of mind for this long, long trip.

The sign that I am close is that I ordered the satellite phone today.  No sense paying $5.00 a day for it to sit at home. That's always the last thing I order.

Tomorrow, I get my last haircut until who knows when.  The only barber I trust with cutting what hair I have on the road is a guy named Henry in Port Hardy, Vancouver Island.  I'll probably take a detour of 500 miles or so just to have him cut my hair.  Across the street from him just so happens to be one of the top four bakeries I have come across in North America, the Market Street Café, or something like that.

Donner's skin infection from his allergy exploded all over his body despite the medication he is on.  He is not scratching himself, probably because he has lived with it untreated for so much of his life. My rule will be to get on the road, and if affects him, turn around and come home to start more serious treatment. In the meantime, I ordered a new Big Kahuna portable shower to wash him once a week until the weather turns cold. I bought my original one in 2013 for Leben, who had a similar problem. It takes up space almost one cubic foot of space in the Defender, precious space, meaning something else will have to go, but that's not the biggest problem I have to deal with.

I spent hours yesterday trying to get Donner's Sport Dog Tek-2 radio collar up and running, probably bringing the total to 10 hours. I got through the labyrinth of steps one has to go through and got to the last and most critical step, track Donner (within 10 miles) but he did not appear on the screen.  See my below email to sport Dog to see what I figured out

I also did something for the first time.  All of the music I take on my iPad is from my iTunes library that I uploaded myself from DVDs. Today I downloaded five songs (all Oldies) not already on my iPad. (One can go broke doing that, I figured.) I had no idea how easy it was and only for $7.00 .  The songs?  Country Road (John Denver), Sounds of Silence, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, and I am a Rock (Simon and Garfunkel), and North to Alaska (Johnny Horton).  The last song I will play if and when I get to Kitwanga BC and the intersection of Highway 16 (Highway of Tears) and the Dease Lake Highway (37).  There's a sign at that intersection that reads, North to Alaska.  Go look it up and Google Earth for yourself, street level. (See coordinates below.) It only seems fitting, therefore, to play that song then.

Tonight I have to decide if it is time to upgrade my iPad since I only have 33 gb on it and my music takes up quite a bit.  I need to make sure I have enough space for photos and videos, all of Donner.

Back to my chores.

ED

From: ed mulrenin
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2016 1:37 PM
To: SPORTDOG
Subject: Where's Donner?

Below is a Google map that shows in the black box roughly what appeared on my TEK-2 tracking screen.  I am in that red box marked ED in the Georgetown Waterfront Park.  Donner (dog) with his collar on and paired was about 20 yards away from me (to the left) in the spot marked D.  (My home is the spot a few blocks to the right marked with M.)  I saw on the screen a whole line of red rectangles, which I put in below. 

Here's what I think.  I think that because that river is on the take-off and landing path for planes at National Airport, and because the White house is just a few blocks from me, I think those red rectangles on my screen are radio frequency jammers and are preventing my Tek-2 from working in downtown DC. Fortunately, I hope I'll never have to use it here.

Sunday, July 24, 2016, Estimated Departure Date: Within a week

My last estimated date of departure was July 23rd, but I missed it. I had to wait around for a final medical appointment for my back, but beyond that I am delayed because of some last minute work on the Defender and having to deal with some of the very things I look forward to escape from by taking the trips in the first place.  But soon, I will start the formidable task of packing 13 different “rooms” (containers) and from there it will be four days before I can hit the road.  Anyway, with temperatures near 100 in DC, even if I had been ready to go yesterday, I probably would have postponed my departure because of the heat.  In a day or so, I will assess what damage was done to my itinerary and plan accordingly.  And I will leave only when I am ready to leave.

Donner’s allergy is breaking out pretty badly despite his medication.  Fortunately, he’s not scratching himself so I will try to manage his situation on the road with showers.  With luck, perhaps we will not be driving through anything that triggers his allergy, although we might have to trade that for flies in Labrador and mosquitoes in Alaska. Back in 2011, I decided to cut short the trip at Thunder Bay, Ontario, because of Leben’s allergy, and if I have to do that again on this trip, so be it. 

I have been monitoring Donner’s handling of road trips by way of our weekly trips to his swimming in Middleburg, especially in this oppressive heat.  He seems to be tolerating it well, and alternates between his front seat with the AC and his rear seat. He has more room in the Defender than I do, and my two AC vents are closed off to give him twice the cool he would get otherwise. I wonder if he realizes what a good deal he has compared to those two LA backyards he was relegated to on a chain for his first four years. Frankly, I don’t care if he does or not.

Took the Defender in for installation of the great new Badger II roof this past week and I have been testing it out since, trying to figure how I can make it work with our setup.  I think I got it.  Both sides from the driver’s/passenger’s windows on back and the rear roll up nicely, letting lots of fresh air in as we drive.  To make sure noting flies out, including Donner, as he did in March when he saw a dog he wanted to play with, nearly getting himself killed, I took apart a large dog cage and installed the several cage-panels into the sides and rear of the Defender.  There is a gap of about six inches on each side of the rear cage, enough room for Donner to squeeze through, so after trying four options, I found a solution to close those gaps with netting. Watch for photos along the way.

Tomorrow I will order the satellite phone, which means I am getting close to leaving.  I prefer the Iridium although it does not send emails with the latitude and longitude coordinates of my location, at least not that I know of. Whenever I am in a really remote location, which is not a lot, I will sat-phone the coordinates from my Garmin to my home voice mail announcement message.  “Hi, this is Ed,” my message will say. “ I am at 50.044153N-89.095224W. Leave a message. Thanks for calling.” That, by that way, means:

This, by the way, was an actual remote location we stumbled upon on during OTR4 in 2011, and I do mean remote. But the lousy sat-phone I rented from Rent-Cell (Atlanta)  failed, so no one knew where I was.  Fortunately, nothing happened except that I never rented from Rent-Cell again when he no only refused to refund anything for this loss of service, but also cheated me out of my deposit.  Of all my road trips, this was the only negative personnel experience.

One of the thing slowing my preparations down is trying to integrate the new stuff I bought to reduce the trip’s irritations into my gear.  I have to be careful not to take the old stuff as a backup as I am limited by space and weight.  In fact, anything new I take along means that something has to go.  One thing I know will go for sure is my library, since I don’t think on any trip I even finished one book, but dragged along many.  I’ll probably waste a couple of hours trying to decide which book to take. But that’s better than lugging along a dozen books that will go unread. Maybe I’ll take along two books, a Russian novel and my Russian dictionary. After all, one rule for the trip is to try to take things that serve at least two purposes.

One time-consuming task I just about finished is setting up Donner’s radio-collar in case, God forbid, he gets lost.  I probably spent six hours on this, and I am still not there yet.  Of course, despite this task, I pray that he does not get lost, but if he does, I pray that he has the r-collar on, that it is turned on and fully charged, and that the hand-held device to track him is fully charged.  This will be a priority in my daily charging tasks.

Speaking of daily charging tasks, in 2000, during OTR-1 with Sonntag, I took nothing that needed charging, no cell phone, no computer, nothing and the trip was a roaring success.  Now, there are 16 things I have to charge, many daily.  I had to make up a checklist to make sure I forget nothing.  This is probably going to add 30 minutes a day to my chores, and sometimes I wonder if it is worth it, or what having these devices is doing to our brains. Here’s the checklist.

I just discovered today that my portable vehicle battery charger is not recharging. Oops. I should have tested this weeks ago. Had to order a new one today, for arrival Tuesday.

That’s it for now. Now, back to my chores here so I can get on the road.

ED

July 19th, Departure date: Unknown, but soon

Here are some random notes for today, this last week, really, since I have neglected this blog for that long.

 

Not too sure when I will get on the road, but it will probably be within the next week.  My PT and epidural shots delayed it somewhat, but I have also been pulled into the very kinds of stuff I try to escape from, mostly condo board stuff.  I actually enjoy seeing the pettiness and other such things in a minority of people because it makes me appreciate the mostly good people with whom I associate and, of course, my time on the road. 

 

My home is beginning to look like the Everest Base Camp as stuff I ordered to reduce past irritations arrives in the mail and I pull the rest of my gear from storage.  Soon I will set up a dozen stations around my home, one for each of the “rooms” (containers) I will take and start the formidable task of packing, packing so that I take everything I need and nothing more.

 

Donner was cleared last week by his vet for his allergy-triggered skin infection, but it is returning.  I will just have to manage it on the road, including taking the Kahuna portable shower I bought several years ago for Leben for the same purpose.  Space is at a premium in the Defender, so something else will have to give. Fortunately, the Kahuna doubles as a storage bin for my dog’s stuff, so it means just rearranging things.

 

I have learned how to use my new Garmin GPS fairly well, although I decided to relegate it to the status of backup, backup to my brain.   I can see where these things can turn your brain into mush, destroy your innate navigational skills, and pose a danger to your driving, and with it your life, but it will come in handy for navigating the streets in strange cites and to avoiding wrong turns on unmarked roads that cost me dearly in daylight hours and gas three times.  I can count fewer than nine times on all seven of my prior trips when I could have used a GPS. The problem is, you don’t think you need you need it until after your mistakes are made.  And speaking of backup, I added a backup camera to it, which will earn the Garmin’s keep.  With the Deferrer loaded down with gear, side and rear visibility while backing up is not that great, so I will activate it only on an as needed basis. In the meantime, the first coordinates I will program into it will be   and see where it takes me; after that, I will program into it the coordinates  and see where that takes me.

 

I took the Defender into EuroSport last week to get the new Badger II roof put on it.  It will be an improvement over the Badger I, which I bought 14 years ago, but I still have some learning to do.  I have to test everything out before I go rather than doing so on the road and losing valuable time.  I won’t describe in detail what it is I have to learn about my new roof because most people wouldn’t understand, unless you own a Defender.  For instance, with the new roof, I can turn it into a surrey top by rolling up he side panels and rear panel.  But with my dog cage sides in the side and rear windows, there is a gap of about six inches that I have to full in with cargo nets to prevent things from blowing out of the Defender on the go..  I have tried four different options and still have not found the perfect solution, but I have run out of time.  Did anyone understand what I just wrote? 

 

Another purchase I am trying to learn quickly is the new radio collar for Donner.  Although the probability of him escaping and not returning is so low, the consequences are so high that I had to invest one than $700 in a SportDog radio collar that will track him within 10 miles.  My only hopes are that he does not run away, but if he does, that the collar is on him, turned on and with battery power. One of my pre-trip rules is to test and try out everything before I go, and thank God I did with this because I ran into a little snag, or maybe it was not so little. It seems that the on-off button on my handheld device does not work.  Not good. Jamie, from Sport Dog, has been wonderful in walking me through the set up and making certain that I get a new handheld before I leave.

 

Loud thunder and streaks of lightning are performing outside now, and the rain starting to fall.  If there is one scenario I look forward to most on the trip is just that, as long as I am in the tent and in a safe location.  Will someone remind me to tell the story of my lightning experience in Birds Hill Provincial Park in Winnipeg back in September 2000 on OTR 1 with Sonntag, an experience I will never forget? 

 

In a day or so, I will redo my itinerary to see what damage has been done to it by the delay. Right now, I just think I will only have to forgo the two week respite I was planning and perhaps most of the multi-day stays at one place or another. No big deal.  The pivot of the whole schedule is my visit to Denali, where I have to be on the 15^th. I was able to snag permits for the Denail Road drive on spatter 16^th, 18^th and 19^th thanks to some good planning and good luck, and so the critical path ends there.  As of today, I have 59 days to get there, but I am rapidly running out of time.

 

That’s it for now. From here on, every minute I spend on this big before I go means one mile on the road I have to make up.

 

ED, off he road

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ED

 

Monday, July 11, 2016 (ETD July 13th)

I have not had the time to post anything in the last few days, not because I had nothing to report, but because I have not been able to take time away from my hectic pace of preparing for the trip.

The first thing I have to report is the change in the estimated date of departure.  I had to move it again to July 23^rd for the same reason I moved if from June 27^th to July 6^th, then to July 11^th, and then to July 17th.  The reason involves a tradeoff, a reasonable one at that, of safety vs. schedule.  Let me explain. Since last May, I have been wrestling with one problem or another with my right leg, brought on, I’m sure, by my daily jogging since I was 17. (You can tell who we early-lie joggers are – we are the ones limping today,)  Actually, I first noticed the problem during my first road trip to Alaska in 2000 when my right leg would cramp up after driving for an hour. It really wasn’t a cramp, though, but something deeper and more sinister.  Fast forward to last May when I went to my acupuncturist for two months when my knee started to feel funky, with no success. Then when the problem next showed up in October in my back, I visited my chiropractor for two months. I abandoned that, too, after no success, but then, when I found myself in mid-December unable to walk, put on my shoes or pants, or get into my vehicle, I knew it was time for action.  Since then I have had x-rays of my right knee, back and hip, MRIs of my knee and back, an arthroscopic operation on my right knee to repair a torn meniscus, and 19 sessions one physical therapist and then 15 more (with four more to go) with another, shots of cortisone and three injections of Euflexa in my knee, as well as two epidural shots in my L-5 spinal area. I think finally I am final seeing the light of day on solving this to set a departure date with confidence.  My spinal doctor convinced me to return for the third epidural shot in two weeks, and to stay off the road for two days afterwards, and I agreed with her, so I moved he departure date to July 23^rd.  I still have not looked at the itinerary yet to see what damage to it this will do, if any, but I still think the entire trip is doable, especially if I stay in most campsites for one night each.  Incidentally, when I have to move on every day when I am on the road, when I get up in the morning, I just convince myself that I have been in that spot for a few days, and it works. So, for now, July 23rd is the new departure date.

I spend my days in this narrowing window of time before the trip doing only three things: the essential quotidian chores that must get done every day (e.g., walk Donner, workout, therapy, etc.); things I must do before I leave for the trip (e.g., pay bills, redo my will, etc.); and prepare ready for the trip.  This is the one time each year that my To-do lists becomes an essential daily chore first thing in the morning. I still have not merged the marginal To-do or To-Take lists in my head with the prior trip’s, which I will soon, but I am pretty confident that I have been spending time on the things I need to get done without running out of time to do them at the last minute or delay the trip further, although but I am getting close to critical point.

Probably 80 percent of my trip prep work over the last 10 days had been buying things for the trip, things that are targeted at reducing the irritations I experienced on prior trips, but postponed doing anything about. I get two or three deliveries every day, and Zack, the UPS guy who drops my packages off at my front door, knocks on my door even if he has no deliveries for me just to hear the status report on the trip.

One of the irritations I was demined to do something about this year was (and yes, you are reading this right) my Defender’s waste basket.  My vehicle is so packed -- but in an organized way -- that a waste basket, an indispensable item in the vehicle, can take up valuable space. But even then, the Defender’s interior can turn into a dump if I am not careful.  I have no idea where the DUD (Defender’s ubiquitous detritus) --mostly coffee cups, juice bottles, and health bar and dog snack wrappings-- comes from sometimes. So, having decided that my requirements were for a small, green, collapsible, waterproof, attractive, hidden wastebasket, I Googled Image (GI) <green+small+collapsible+waterproof+attractive+hidden+wastebasket+1799571> and bought the first one that appeared, and voila,  the perfect wastebasket for my trip was found. (Click here.)  

Incidentally, I have to be very cautious about each and everything I take on these trips because I will have less space in my vehicle and tent that the mound-bound Apollo astronauts had in their space capsule, and they were only on the road for 5 days and 22 hours, whereas I will be on the road for 100 days.

One of the items I bought that I am anxious to get to is Donner’s radio collar.  Although I am taking many precautions to make sure he does not get lost, the consequences to me and him if he does would be so great, I needed to add another measure of safety, and that was a radio collar with a 10-mile range.  That poor guy is going to be loaded down with a backpack, a vehicle safety harness, a regular collar, a choke collar, an e-collar, a prong collar, and now a radio collar.   Sometimes I wonder what he is thinking, like perhaps that life chained to a tree for four years in a depressed LA district wasn’t that bad after all. Or maybe he is thinking that all that stuff is canine bling.

Enough said for tonight.  Until the next time.

ED, from off the road in DC

RE: Wednesday, July 6th, 11 days to go (I hope)

Got to bed at 2:30 this morning, working on trip-related things I have
already forgotten, but presumably they were important. Had to get up early
to take the Defender in for the installation of the back-up camera, although
I decided to make it a rear view camera instead and leave it running all the
time.  The side-rear windows in my new roof are smaller than what I have
now, and side-rear visibility in the Defender was never great to begin with.
 I am tired of getting honked at by cars passing on my right as I try to
pull back into the right lane, so my hope is that this new camera will
eliminate that irritation. This and the GPS are really moving the Defender
into the modern age. On my first road trip in 2000, I had nothing
electronic, not even a cell phone or camera. These days, I carry an entire
attaché case filled with electronic devices and their pesky cables. I prefer
the old days.

The OnTheRoad.camp patches I had made up for our trip arrived today.  I
won't tell you how much time I spent preparing them, but I think it will be
worth it. I tell people they are for the kids I meet along the way, but that
is only a half-truth.  The few adults I gave some to already seem to enjoy
them as much –if not more- than I imagine the kids will.

I have been on a spending spree over the last week, buying things to
eliminate all of the irritations of prior trips that I decided I would no
longer tolerate this year.  The trip will be difficult enough with the
unpredictable but inevitable challenges popping up every day, so the more
irritations I can eliminate before I leave, the better. Most of my shopping
is by way of the internet but it takes hours sometimes to decide on just one
item. For instance, I spent two hours – count them, two hours - looking at
hundreds of, would you believe, waste baskets for the Defender, and the same
for a half dozen other items. But that sure beats driving miles to a Target
or Home Depot or other such outfit in the now-oppressive DC heat. Two or
three deliveries arrive every day…dog food, dog tags, new bandanas, and a
new beach chair that doubles as my in-tent chair as well as a passenger
seat, which I removed back in 2000 for Sonntag's, later Leben's and Erde's,
now Donner's front seat bed. (The dogs get two beds in the Defender, one in
front, and one in the back, and use both, depending upon their whim.)  One
cardinal rule I have for my trips is that everything I take has to serve at
least two purposes, which cuts down on the amount of stuff I have to take.

I went to PT against today, and go back tomorrow, too. Since I am still
experiencing shooting pains in my right leg with almost every step I take, I
decided to go through with the rest of my epidural shots, just in case the
PT doesn't cure it.  It would not be a good thing if I got those shocks
climbing up or down my roof rack ladder. That would ruin my day, to be sure.

Chris Laws of Badger Coachworks in Cape Cod called me today to tell me my
new canvas roof is ready.  It promises to eliminate some very big -and often
cold, wet- irritations of all my prior trips…..easier and faster to close
the plastic rear windows when it rains, and it close up the Defender in cold
weather. Most people reading this bog will not be able to relate to either
of those things, but one of the challenges of owning a Defender is to
reinvent the wheel of vehicular conveniences discovered by Detroit engineers
back in the 50s. Perhaps the most advance bit of technology in a Defender
is the ash tray. By the way, my new roof does not mean the cold or rain will
not get inside, as they will, but those things place insignificant when
compared to the confidence I get in driving the Defender that I will get to
where I want to go and, more important, home again.

My home is turning into a scene of pure chaos as I start pulling things out
of storage or, more likely, simply from where I abandoned them two years ago
after OTR7. Soon I will have at least 12 stations set up around my home, one
for each of the "rooms" (containers) of stuff for the trip.  Until now, if I
could not find something, I would continue to search for it. But as of
today, with time of the essence, if I cannot find something in a reasonable
time or if it is not where I was supposed to put it, I just order a new
one.  I just hope I don't misplace the Defender or, worse, Donner.

Tomorrow I take Donner into the vet to see if he can get a clean bill of
health on is allergy-triggered skin infection.  I really do not need a
100-pound German shepherd scratching himself during the night two feet away
from me in the tent. 

That's it for tonight. Just a bunch of mundane activities. That's the nature
of P&P (planning and preparation). No time to write anything profound.

ED

Tuesday, July 5th... 12 days to go

Progress on my To Do list is slow, very slow.  I am still shooting for getting on the road by July 17^th, but it will be tight. If I cannot leave during a Saturday-Monday window, I will have to postpone the departure for a week because on weekends, campsites in the US are impossible to get into on the fly during the summer, and it will take me about four days to get out of the states into Canada.

 

I decided to triple up on my weekly physical therapy sessions because progress on my right leg has stalled, if not taken a step back. Contrary to what I wrote just yesterday, if I was scheduled to leave today, I would be postponing the trip to do more PT.

 

If I accomplished one big To Do task today it was to pick up the hard-copy maps and camping books from AAA and elsewhere.  Required reading (taking, actually) for all my trips are the thick Woodall-AAA camp books, all five of them (see photo), so I dropped by the AAA office today to pick them up, along with a thick pile of maps for states and provinces I know that I will be doing more than just flying through.  Google and other internet-based maps are nice to have access to from time to time, but I would never take a trip without the paper maps.  (Remind me to tell you sometime the story about the maps I picked up for my backpacking trip on Kamchatka in 1997.)  I learned a long time ago that without a map, you are lost, and I stick by that rule religiously. You have to have a map to know here you are headed, unless you are going nowhere. On my trips, my maps get their own “room,” the map room, which might as well be labelled The Crown Jewels because of the respect and treatment they get.

 

Incidentally, notice the Milepost guide (book, really) in the front right of the photo.  Again, required reading.  It is updated each year and someone would have to be foolish to set foot in a vehicle in Alaska and northwestern Canada without this indispensable guide.  I have bought a copy for most years from 2000 to the present and would never dare to use last year’s.

 

Tomorrow, the Defender goes back into the shop for a few more final enhancements, e.g., new headlights, a set of auxiliary lights for setting up camp in the dark, and a backup camera to connect to my Garmin. More on the Garmin, my first GPS ever, in a future posting.

 

Donner’s backup name tags arrived in the mail today just in case he loses his along the way, which has been known to happen. I am taking no chances on this trip that he will get lost, or lost for very long.  If my maps are the crown jewels, that magnificent creature is the crown itself, or maybe the next in line of succession.

 

That’s it for tonight. 

 

Ed, from DC

 

 

 

ED

 

Monday, July 4th, First posting for OTR8

This is the first posting for my upcoming trip, which has been on my mind since the last one, OTR (“On the Road”) 7 with Erde ended in late October 2014.  It was canceled last year, not because of Erde’s condition (she died in her sleep on October 3^rd  at 14.5 year old) but a pesky vision problem that hit me unexpectedly.  And the trip this year (OTR8) with Donner was further threatened until I was able to track down and solve an occasional, 13-year old problem of the Defender’s not starting after a rain storm or washing. The solution to that problem evaded me because after a day or so, the problem cured itself, although this year, after it occurred twice, I could not afford to have this happen on this trip.  I either had to solve the problem, buy a new vehicle or cancel the trip this year. Fortunately, when the problem occurred again on May 14^th, the date I had set for myself to start looking for another vehicle, I had the Defender towed immediately to my mechanic, who tracked down the problem to a faulty distributed cap, which he replaced. That afternoon, the planning and preparation for this trip officially started.

The first planning task was to set out the tentative itinerary, which I posted and have not revised since except to add Yosemite National Park and Donner State Park in Nevada after San Francisco.  The planned route will combine trips to the ends of the roads in the northeast and northwest into one trip, which I planned twice in the past, but had to cancel for various reasons, all related to my dogs’ conditions.  This year, however, I am adding the loop to James Bay – just below Hudson Bay – in Canada, and Yosemite National Park.  If the trip is delayed, I may drop the loop to Inuvik in the Canadian Northwest Territories and wait for the completion of the 70-mile road from there to the Arctic, scheduled for next year. Denali National Park is on the itinerary again because I was lucky – or smart – enough to win three permits to drive the entire Denali Road after the season ends in mid-September. I’ll write more about the Denali loop later except to say here that it is what controls the entire schedule before that.

The next planning task was to set a target estimated date of departure (EDD), which I initially set at June 27, but had to change to July 17^th for reasons explained below  If we get delayed much beyond our current EDD, I will have to start eliminating some loops currently planned.  As of today, though, July 17^th appears doable. If this timetable changes, I will post the new EDD here, explaining the reasons for the delay and what has to change on the itinerary. But because of my rules, I cannot leave until I am ready.

Once the itinerary was set out, the next task was to dedicate the trip.  That was easy and required no thinking.  Please see my dedication page.

In preparing for these trips, beyond the itinerary, there are at least six other critical moving parts requiring my undivided and full attention before we get on the road: my own condition, Donner’s condition, the Defender, the Contingency Plan, the To Do and the To Take lists, that latter three which are still in process as I write this posting, but are built on the lists I have honed over 16 years.  A few words about each of these.

As for my own condition, seven months ago, I developed a somewhat debilitating condition in my right leg that, I have to confess, I saw coming sixteen years ago on my first road trip, but didn’t think serious enough to warrant attention until last May, when I visited my acupuncturist for 10 sessions, and then a chiropractor in November for 10 more, all without relief. Then, in December, when I suddenly could not walk, get dressed or get into my vehicle without extreme pain, I sought medical attention. Now, seven months later, after X-rays and MRIs of my right knee, hip, and back, arthroscopic surgery on my knee to repair a torn meniscus, cortisone shots and a series of Euflexa shots in my knee, an epidural in my back, 19 sessions with one physical therapist who stuck me with an estimated 300 needles, and recently seven sessions with another, with six more planned, today was the first day since December that I can honestly say with confidence that I am or will be ready to make this trip. Thank goodness I did not postpone the start of planning this trip till I had that confidence, or it would never be going off as planned.

Until recently, there were two trip-delaying situations with Donner: an terrible, irrepressible skin infection and his training.  I think I can say, again with confidence, that as of today his allergy-triggered skin infection is under control. As for his training, he has come a very long way from when I rescued the poor guy back in October. He still reacts somewhat enthusiastically when he see another dog, but I have learned to control that, and he obeys accordingly.  My biggest concern, however, is if he gets lost.  Among other precautions, he is microchipped,  has dog tags on him, with backups in case they get lost, and I will take with me a good number of Lost Dog posters just in case. But I also invested in a dog tracking collar so that I can follow my Rule #8, Know where Donner is at all times, as long as he is within 10 miles of me.

As for my Defender 90, that loyal vehicle has served me well for almost 23 years and as long as its problems are solvable, it is here to stay, although I sure wish it would grew into a 110.  Take a look at the Defender’s preparation checklist to see not only the 50-point workout it has just been through but the additions I made to it this year, mostly to be prepared for the unexpected, since we will be in Alaska until late September, and to eliminate some of the irritations I experienced in the past, e.g., difficulty in closing rear windows when it rains or is cold, lack of a good heater (thus, the new heated seats), my getting lost (which I did only seven times on my 100,000-plus miles, etc.  I still have a few more visits to my mechanic before I leave, but the schedule permits that.

My Contingency Planning is an easy one to deal with because since I first went through it in the year 2000, when I listed 100 incidents I wanted to plan and/or prepare for, all I need to do each year is to focus on are new events that might occur.  The two categories of events of main concern to me are, what might happen to me and what might happen to Donner.  Everything else is already prepared for or is replaceable, as sad as that comment makes me feel when I apply it to the Defender.  Although going through this contingency planning exercise delays the departure date sometimes, and burdens the Defender with a few more pounds, it truly has paid off over the years. And when I got back home from all my trips, I never chastised myself for taking more than I needed, and, more important, never recall saying that I wished I had brought something I had not. That Boy Scout motto burned upon my brain decades ago, Be Prepared, still shines today.

The same incremental approach to my contingency planning applies to my To Take and To Do lists.  I still have to transform the OTR7 lists into OTR8’s, which list was an incremental revision of OTR6’ s, which itself was built on OTR5’s, and so on down to OTR4, and OTR3, and OTR2.  OTR1’s was the most difficult one, but I to say that I cannot think of a single thing from that first trip that I recall not having done before I left or having left behind.  All the additions to or subtractions from the list seem to be motivated by the  elimination of irritations in the prior trip, taking advantage of new technology, preparing for new contingency events, or repairing or replacing things that need repairing or replacing or that I cannot find. Thus, I really don’t need to write these lists down, but I will, because I know them so well I can do them in my head. I will post the To Take list here later, and perhaps also the Contingency Plan and To Do list, for those who may be interested in planning a similar trip someday.

There are two other lists that are crucial to the success of these trips, the first is the Rules of the Road. That list also is incrementally based and only grows, does not diminish.  For OTR3 in 2002, there were 38 rules, now there are 52, an addition of about three per trip. I just read a travel article in the New York Times in which the road traveler had a list of 11 rules. Perhaps the differences between his list and mine are that he sleeps in his vehicle, while I sleep in tents, I travel with my dogs, while he travels alone, and he is younger than I, and so more willing to take risks or not prepare for or even anticipate them. You can see my Rules here.  I will not attempt to explain or justify these rules as those who try to lead rules-based lives know those things already.

A couple of other lists I posted include my daily routine on the road, and the checklists I use before checking out of a campsite, servicing the Defender daily, or before getting back on the road after a pit stop (for me and the Defender) or a break stop (for Donner dogs). Again, these lists have served me extremely well over the years, and I don’t even have to refer to them anymore, but I do. Just to be sure.

Finally, this year, instead of writing down the name of the name of my blog for people I meet along that way, I made up some patches to give to them instead, with the name of my blog on it.  You can see my mock-up of the patches by clicking here.  If I met you on the road and forgot to give you a patch, send me an email and I will send you one when I get back home.  

One final comment.  I do not expect to have the time to compose a posting of this length every day, either before I leave or on the road, if history is any guide.  I will not have time to compose anything more than the day’s passings, in first-draft, often unproofed form. On top of that, my postings are often in stream of consciousness (and sometimes fight-of-ideas) style without the benefit of a hundred visions and revisions, with apologies to T.S. Eliot.  And on top of all this, the iPad has a wonderful spell check, but a lousy IQ-check. And so, if anything in any of my blog postings doesn’t seem to make sense or fit, please write it off to these externalities and not to my losing lucidity as I lose contact with humanity and bond more with my dog, nature, the road and solitude..

Incidentally, I often revise some of my postings. When I do, I usually add the revision date, if it was material, and bold the revisions..

That’s it for today.  Check back tomorrow or whenever for another posting.

ED, from DC

On The Road patch

Below is a mock-up of the 3.5 inch patch I had made up for this road-camping trip, which is actually planned to be a retracing of most of  my previous seven trips with my dogs. .

The dog house over DC is home, our starting and end points.

The icons of the yellow tents are only some of our hoped-for  camping destinations, although even i recognize that it may be too ambitious a plan, but we will try.

The two ship symbols represent the ferries or cargo ships that we will take or have taken in Labrador and in Alaska.

The white patch represents the snow we have experienced or surely will experience in Alaska and the Yukon, as well as other places.

The green and back streaks in the left upper corner of North America represent the Northern Lights which we have seen, may see, or most certainly will sleep under..

The sun setting in the west represents the more than 400 settings of the sun we will have seen in almostvas many different locations. I could just as well placed a rising sun in the east too.

The Latin inscription at the bottom stands for Dogs, Nature, the Road, Solitude, for reasons that will be obvious to readers of my blogs at  www.OnTheRoad.camp.

This Latin slogan really should end with Populusque, "and People," because on all my trips i have met some of kindest, nicest people i have ever met on this planet. But those people know who they all are so they do not have to be reminded that they are in my thoughts on these trips.

This trip is planned to take us more than 16,000 miles over some of the most beautiful land on this planet as well as some of this continent's roughest roads.

If you think you deserved a patch by listening to my stories, send me your name and address at my email.  But tell me where I met you so I can recall and not end up sending patches to somevI never met but wants one of these sure-to-be-coveted patches to sell on eBay.

Check Lists

Check lists are as crucial to the success of these trips as they are to airline pilots. I swear by them, although by the end of the trip they are imprinted on my brain.  There are three of them:

1- a checklist for breaking camp

2- A checklist for when I make a pit stop or take a break on the road

3- A checklist fort servicing the Defender on the road. (See other checklist for servicing the Defender before I leave)

For the most part, overlooking something on the checklist may lead to an irritation or inconvenience, but in some cases that can lead to a disaster.  Fortunately, no disaster has happened as the result of a failure to go through a checklist, and in more than 300 campsites, I have left behind or lost only two things, a spoon and a pewter wine glass.

Here is an image of these three checklists:

Defender Prep Check List

Below is the checklist I use for the Defender.  In addition, my serviceman is told to replace or repair anything he sees that needs repair or replacement.  I also take with my some spares for things that may go wrong on the trip. Also, this year, here are some of the things I replaced or added:

Repaired long-standing problem with Defender not starting after rain storm
Roof repaired, then replaced it after I did not like the repair
Added new battery
Replaced front brakes
Added front differential lock
Added back up camera
Added GPS
Added additional lights for camp at night and lightless off-road trails
Added new heated driver's seat
Added new bright headlights

Here's the check list:

                            Defender 50-Point Prep For On the Road

Item	Action? Take spare?
Exterior
Headlights
Blinker/Fog lights
Side lights front/rear
Rear lights
Emergency Flasher
Winch
Gas cap
Windshield wipers
Windshield wipers pump
Tires: rotate? air? replace?
Tire Hood: air? replace?
Tires Rear: air? replace?
Roof
Door liners
UNDER HOOD
Antifreeze
Oil
Gear Oil (Gurling)
Belts
Hoses
AC
Battery
Spark plugs
Distributor
Wires
Water pump
Windshield wiper fluid
IN CAB
Air Locker compressor
Front/Rear differential lock
Gear shift H/L (+Light)
Gear Shift 5 speed
AC Controls
Cigarette lighters 2
Control panels meters
Rear View Mirror
Interior light
Shocks/springs
OTHER
Transmission/Differential
Fuel tank (and gas cap)
Brakes
Hand break
Roof rack Bolts and ring pins
Door Locks
Ignition
Starter
Fuses
Relays
Driver’s seat
Passenger seat