The Naked Englishman Within the chaos there is a pattern and it is wonderful to behold!

I have just spent the best three months of my life with my mum and my wife.

It sounds like the first couple of lines in a Country Western Song.

“I have just spent the best

three months of my life,

With my mum and my wife….”

Except that, this is just what I have done.

My mum is 85 years old and she still races through life with brave abandon.

Alana, is 32 years old and races through life with brave abandon.

My mum and my wife became best friends, (and me the common enemy having just mentioned their respective ages on line! )

Mum loves to watch TV. Not all day mind you, just “Heart Beat” at 1:00pm and “Midsomers Murders” at 3:00pm and then a “good movie”. And of course, anything educational, interesting or scientific can be watched anytime.

Alana likes this routine as well, of course she would, as mum and her are best friends.

It was during one of these scientific shows that mum rushed into the bedroom to insist with a cup of tea and a biscuit, that I come out to watch TV as “this was really good stuff!”

How could I resist!

The TV show was marvelous. A show about Fractals and Chaos and Patterns.

Mum took pictures on her digital camera of the interesting fractal images on TV.

I am not sure if mum uploaded the pictures to her computer or if she took the camera’s digital memory card to “Boots” to have them printed out on photographic paper but the pictures she took were then put inside her photo album. Nothing like good old fashioned hard copy!!

A few days later and mum comes home with a paperback edition of “Chaos”, a book she found on a Charity Shop expedition with Alana.

The book explains in great detail the formation of fractal formulae’s and how patterns emerge from chaos that look like Fractal images that remind us of the patterns we see in nature in sand dunes or in say the shape of trees or tributaries from space. etc…

Mum spent a few days reading out loud from this book, mostly I dare say when I was trying to watch some rugby of some soccer in TV, which are on the “not approved but tolerated” TV  list

Needless to say I got sucked in, to the Chaos conversation that is, not the Rugby.

I downloaded an application called ChaosPro that renders fractal images on your computer.

I made this picture when I was showing mum how to use the software.

So mum prints it out on A 4 photographic paper at full resolution on her bubble jet printer.

The cost alone in ink would have made many people not try this.

The picture looks amazing printed out. I am sure she will frame it. The Gold between the blue and the black looks like gold leaf!

Mum and I have this picture on our desktops as wallpaper.

We see ourselves repeated though time itself, always similar but never exactly the same. “It just the way we are Darling”

Patterns in the chaos.

OK. I am now on Facebook.
I am looking forward to the day all Star Trek visions are realized. We have the "communicator" and the "Scanner" but I would like to see the "food replicator" and  "Warp" drive sooner rather and later.
And how about society not being "paid" to live and work but simply embodying ones "role" in life and getting on with it without complaint?
But really what I want is the "Transporter" so that I can simply step though a portal and arrive at Williams Birthday Party and get back home in time to feed the dogs, and then go to play video games with Erin in the evening and perhaps ride my bike with Ryan then next morning. Distance is a bummer.
So what really swayed me to sign up is the "Transporter" like quality of Facebook that enables us to "experience" other peoples lives in an almost instantaneous and effortless way.
I hope this decision lives up to my expectations….see y’all in Facebook

My old work colleague and friend Travis, along with his wife Shawna came up on Sunday 11th.

They came with fully equipped bright yellow Polaris. Of Course it is bigger faster and smoother than mine but who keeps a track of these things?

“Where do you want to go?” I inquired. “Wherever you want” replies Travis in his usual pragmatic style. “Do you mind a rocky start?” I ask. “I can keep up with you anywhere” Travis replies. So we left Sand Creek and went up the Great Western trail to the east side of Thousand Lake Mountain.

After an hour or two of rocks and boulders the size of basket balls. The “rocky Start” began the inevitable dialogue of how Englishmen under emphasize the important details like how long a rocky start actually is. Alana quickly reminding me of the “..only 12 mile bike loop” I once took with Beth, that turned out to be 30 miles of sand and pain, only to finish in the chill of night.

To make things right and to turn the rocky start into a brief part of the trip we went all the way to the top of Thousand Lake Mountain and around to the nearly dry reservoir just about Fremont. Most likely a 60 Mile loop all told.

By the time the 40 mile an hour cold winds had sand blasted all exposed skin raw and ragged the Rocky start was all forgotten and forgiven.

We finished the trip with only a short amount of pavement, by taking a little known short cut from Lyman to Bicknell and by  the velvet ridge trail from Bicknell Bottom to Torrey just as the sun was setting. A perfect finish to a great day riding.

Thanks to the Vincent family for making it happen. Thanks to Bridger and Kanyon for letting themselves be baby sat for the day.

See you next year I hope!!!

I have included the best pictures from the trip below, all taken by Alana riding on the back of the ATV. For those that know Alana well let me add she pent 6 hours on this trip without the internet…Enjoy…

Richard is a great guy that lives in his RV full time. This is his second summer at the Sand Creek RV camp site.

This is Richard with his dog Max, that loves to bark at cows from the vantage point of the wing mirror of his owners truck (Richard holds on to him so that he does not fall off). Richard tells me that if Max is not in the truck he will politely ignore the cows. Clearly size matters!

We loaded up the ATV’s on his trailer and we went up to the top of Boulder Mountain.

Richard likes to fish so we went on a section to the Great Western ATV trail

and visited McGath Lake one of his favorite fishing spots.

Now Purple lake is very pretty so we took a side trip to visit this lovely lake as well.

Here we are posing in front of Purple Lake. By the way Max is in a sweater and is linked by carabiner to his master when riding the bike. Very cute.

“Have you ever seen a second world war half track?” asks Richard. “No I haven’t” I replied so he took me to see one. Now you’ve seen one as well.

It might need a little help I guess…

Now it is interesting to me that 1000 Lake Mountain does not have many Lakes at all and Boulder Mountain has many Lakes.

A long time ago a friend told me that the mountains names were transposed by mistake and was never corrected.

This old computer guy was having some technical difficulties with this blog site. Several peoples comments were buried under a TON of spam comments (Like over a thousand).

I imagine this is because naked is in the title but perhaps its normal for this kind of thing.

My “technical wizard wife” or TWW has installed an app to filter spam for me so that valid comments will be more readily visible to me…Thanks Alana!!

Leah, Travis and Richie thanks for your comments. Becky I am calling you today.

Is proving to be be very cold and windy. When we arrived at the Sand Creek RV camp ground in Torrey Utah we were pummeled by 20 mile an hour windows with gust as hard as 30! I know because I used my air speed indicator to measure them!!!This went on relentlessly for two full days and nights.

I did not want to run such a test on the newly created custom canopy however it passed with flying colours (English spelling folks), nary a popped seam or a released press stud. I am much relieved of course but the canopy offers little protection to the cold so come evening the pets all hang out in the main part of the camper.

Meanwhile Alana is working on line as usual.

but before you say anything I want you to know she is also hiking with me every day and is a serious rock hound. Here she has broken open several Calcite geodes.

Back to the cold.

Even though I disconnected the hose and drained it, the remaining water managed to fracture our fancy, flat, and expensive RV water hose. We have switched to internal water only at nights with the plumbing exposed to the interior heat as much as possible. I hope we do not freeze and rupture any water lines, they are hard to reach and fix.

Now the cold is also preventing me from doing as much ATV riding as I wanted, because I am a weenie. I am going to overcome my resistance and go visit my favorite 2000 yr old Bristle Cone pine, tomorrow. Picture forthcoming.

In the meantime we have visited with Ray and Kath, and Julie. They are all doing very well I am glad to say.

Saturday I hope to go for an ATV ride with my buddy from CRC Health who I helped hire to fill in my job I created in Utah several years ago. (Ironic? Maybe. I am happy not to be working for those idiots anymore so he is welcome to the JOB). Travis is a good guy we will just ride hard and not talk about “work”

Vikki and Don are looking awesome. They still run the Country Cafe in Loa and the Breakfast Burrito is as good as ever thanks to Evan the cook. (In the old days they did all the cooking as well so I am thrilled they finally have good help. Talking of which, Shelly the waitress is still with them.)

Here is the current view of the Country Cafe interior.

Yeah, that is how it has always looked. If you happen to know Vikki and Don you may spot them in the two chair photos.

What else…Oh yes the views are fantastic. I love the land here, I just never want to live here again. 10 year was enough.

If you look carefully you can see the truck and camper on the right a white spec in the grand scheme of things. This was at our last campsite before entering Utah. The shot is looking down on Rabbit valley just outside of Grand Junction, CO.

Here are some photos from today’s hike in Torrey UT.

Did I mention that the cool air is great for hiking and as you can see the sun is shining and skies are blue.

Cut and pasted from an email to Mum. (Sorry Mum)

“"…Subsequent to the cat vanishing, he currently firmly wedged in to the mattress that is folded in half in the trailer. We have tried many things and he has decided that the only place he will travel is squished into the pocket caused by the fold in the mattress.

Needless to say we are on the road to Utah. Day 2 actually. Alana is purchasing some supplies from Wal-Mart and I am comfortable sitting at my desk in the camper.

During the shopping break I have removed cleaned and reinstalled the air filter in the overhead ceiling vent/fan, swept the floor, filed my weekly unemployment claim, balanced the bank account and written a reply to my Mum via email. (Oh and posted this blog)

We stayed last night at a Wayside stop in the State of Wisconsin. There was not a “do not stay overnight sign” and it was well concealed from the road and deserted. That was a free night! LOL

All is good, on the road to Utah…

My buddy John, the same guy that kindly welded the stabilizing scissor jacks onto the camper, brought over a small lamb skin complete with 2 inches of wool and asked me to make him a custom seat cover for his Harley.

Well 6 hours later, seven carefully forged panels and some skillful heavy duty sewing and presto a beautifully custom crafted Harley Davidson Lambs Wool Seat Cover.

Good trade if you ask me.

The custom canopy is finished.

I started out by making the roof and proceeded to make measurements from this point much like draping fabric for a dress over a mannequin and pinning and tacking the fit.

I am laying out the roof on a large brown tarpaulin in the grass outside of my temporary shop which you can just see in the background.

All the roof seams were made by gluing a 1 and 1/2” overlap. here is a close up of the double weld at the point where the roof attaches to the camper. There is a 1/4” rod of nylon in the sea that is pulled through a complimentary channel attached to the camper.

I have clamped the roof to the frame and Alana is sitting under it and attempting to imagine life after the canopy is finished.

For all the seamsters out there here are some close-ups of the stitching attaching the mosquito netting windows.

Here the canopy sides and front are on. It still needs a lot of finishing work from here including adding a zip in double door

It is done!

I added an access panel so that i can reach the outdoor shower. His Lordship, Junior figures its his personal entry way to his private resting tent and uses it as a cat door. He loves the new canopy and has not left it since it went up.

Finally the whole tent packs down poles and all into the lockbox I recently added to the front of the camper.

I must say i am pleased with the fruits of my labor. It rained last night and I confidently left my laptop out. It is very stable and does flap or leak (the canopy tent that is, not the laptop)

Alana loves it and it adds a whole extra dimension to the camper.

I had some distractions during the making of the canopy. I discovered some rotting wood in the flooring, made a Lambs wool custom seat cover for a Harley Davidson, finished the electronics shelf, added a new sliding shelf, finished the the fold away solid Oak cutting board, and installed an under the shelf toaster oven and coffee maker…

Being unemployed is proving to be a very busy experience!!!

All the materials have been ordered on line! Hooray!!!

I have spent around $700 on tools including the walking foot sewing machine and around $800 on materials. I should also have a generous amount of surplus as I have other smaller projects I would like to do.

I had a lock box from the truck that I can not use on the truck as I am adding the In Truck Camper at some point, so I have installed the lock box on the front of the Camper and it will make a terrific location to store and transport the Canopy when it is not in use.

I like the look of the result and I have also upgraded the Battery installation  putting the battery in the lock box and cradling it in heavy rubber. I think this will reduce air temperature and vibration issues.

Here are some pictures:

Here Alana has taken some pictures of me assembling the Canopy Frame:

Hey Jaz, What do you think?