Joshua Tree Again

With Joshua Tree National Monument so close to the Inland Empire, it is easy to ride through the park two or three times a year. A good 260-mile excuse for a group to ride for a few hours.

This time the group met in San Bernardino, rode I-10 to Palm Springs, then to Hutchins Route 62 Cafe via Indian Avenue. The wind through the San Gorgonio Pass was relatively still, barely turning the blades of hundreds of white wind generators. The air is rarely calm through the pass.   

The bush in the foreground of the above photo was a type we hadn't seen in bloom on other rides through Joshua Tree. We looked at the blooms. Even Mike Harmon, who often knows such things, couldn't identify it. The blooms and pods are shown in the photo below.

A bit of research turned up the plant, Isomeris Arborea. The common name for the plant is Bladder Pod. I wouldn't hang a name like that on it. It doesn't seem to fit the appearance of the blooming plant, and though it does have pods, they simply resemble short pea pods. I'd name it Desert Pea. A closer crop of the above photo is below.  

After a series of late January rainstorms, plant life in the desert takes advantage of  the extra moisture. The Ocotillo, in particular flourshes after periods of rainfall, first sprouting leaves on its skeletal stalk-like trunks, then blooming. A ocotillo plant is shown below.

A closer look at the leaves sprouting on the ocotillo a week after rainfall.

There is much to explore in the park and if you're a rock climber, nearby campsites provide a base for a weekend of it. The boulder shown in the following two photos has a conveniently located camping area at its base.

  

Below, a black and chrome Road Star belonging to Danny Underwood sits poised to get back on the road.

January Grasshopper

I assume it is a grasshopper, anyway. This creature spent some time on the back of a wooden chair on the patio. These photos illustrate the limit of my lens, an AF-S Nikkor 18-105mm, for macro work. I focus at the minimum point at 18mm, then move the camera slightly toward/away from the subject.

Model A

I happened to make the photos in this post due to my son Aaron, who drove past this scene a half-hour before. He phoned to report that there were a number of old cars parked in front of the Fox Theatre. The cars were Model A Fords.

The Fox Theatre is a Riverside landmark and was the scene of the premier of Gone With The Wind. Nearing the end of a recent renovation, the Fox is due to be opened on January 22 with a concert by Sheryl Crow.

This photo illustrates where the car term "trunk" came from.

The powerplant, a water-cooled L-head four cylinder displaced 201 cubic inches. This engine gave the Model A 40 horsepower.

The Model A was the first car to have a windshield of safety glass.

New Year's Day Photographs

There was no reason for it. There wasn't even a badly-thought-out policy. But the photographs from New Year's Day languished unnattended in a directory in my computer for a dozen days.

I went on two hikes that day; on Mount Rubidoux around sunrise, and in Sycamore Canyon Park in the afternoon. The first four photos are views from Mount Rubidoux.

The last two are western views from Sycamore Canyon. The canyon area provides a 200 degree panorama that includes Mount San Gorgonio in the San Bernardino Mountains to the north, Mount Rubidoux and Mount Baldy in the Angeles Mountains to the west, and the Santa Ana River valley and the Cleveland National Forest to the south. On a good day (a day with interesting cloud formations), there are multiple landscape scenes to photograph.

A Manifold Adventure

The central character in this post, shown below, is the intake manifold for a 1999 Road Star.

In November Mike Harmon and I decided to ride down to the Salton Sea to photograph the hundreds of egrets that winter there.

Near the PalmSprings exit on the I-10, my Road Star's carburator "blipped" a couple times. It reminded me of the way that carbs act when a bead of water passes through it. It was something I had experience with decades ago, since water in the tanks at filling stations was more common when I began driving than it is now.

We turned onto the long sweeping ramp that transitions to Route 62, then quickly east onto Dillon Road. The carb blipped again a couple miles down the road. Then again. And again.

We pulled off the road and parked on the shoulder. A quick roadside inspection helped us rule out a fuel leak. I began to suspect the fuel filter was getting gummed up by something, that it was partially clogged. We backtracked to I-10 on Indian Avenue, then rode a few miles down the freeway. The carb kept cutting out briefly at various intervals and we gave up the ride after another 20 minutes, returning to our respective homes.

Figuring that the problem was somewhere upstream of the carburator, I replaced the fuel filter. The problem persisted and a few days later I replaced the fuel pump. The problem did not go away. The bike limped around town for several days, while I thought about the problem.

Eventually, I ordered new gaskets and o-rings for the carburator, then pulled the carb. My son Aaron, who has a vast knowledge of motorcycle carbs, disassembled the carb and I dipped it in carb cleaner and rinsed and dried the parts. A day later Aaron put the carb back together, then we reasessembled the bike.

The bike fired up just fine, and we let it idle for a few minutes to let it warm up. But when I rode it onto the street, it was quickly apparent that the problem had worsened. It was coughing, spitting, blipping, and backfiring simultaneously. I made a U-turn halfway down the block, hoping it would limp into the driveway.

I returned the Road Star to its parking space in the garage, and we gave the situation some thought. We had returned the carburator to its original settings and were certain that the rebuild was correct. There was no certainty about how to preceed.

The next day I phoned Brian Erman of Nopork.com. Several years before I had worked with Brian while on a long contract with the Auto Club. I thought that since he had owned several Road Stars, it was likely that he had knowledge about the problem. I described the symptoms. Brian said he would bet that there was a crack in the intake manifold, since Road Stars tended to develop that problem after 40,000 miles.

After testing the manifold, I drove to the Nopork in Norco for a new one. Brian couldn't find a stock replacement manifold, but did find a ported one. The ported manifold is supposed to give the motorcycle 5 to 6 additional horsepower by refining the air flow from the carburator to the cylinders.

I bought the ported manifold and installed it. When I started the bike, it sounded like it was running fine, but the tone of the exhaust was different. I rode it around the block, and there was no coughing, spitting, or backfiring.

Because of the additional horsepower, the bike feels different. It feels like it could easily take off from under me and leave me behind. It took a few days to get used to it. I've had to learn to be more careful with the throttle.

A Third Tripod

Since the Trek-Tech T-Pod had apparently been shipped to an unknown destination, Becky Owens of Werner Publishing informed me via email that a replacement was shipped on January 6.

The replacement tripod, a Manfrotto 785B arrived in two days. The Manfrotto 785B was designed to be a travel tripod. At 2.2 lbs. I found it light enough to carry on mountain trails when I first used it on 1-9-2010.

I usually carry the camera in an small, inexpensive backpack that wasn't designed specifically as a camera carrier. I found it at a Target store a couple years ago. It doesn't have any padding to protect the camera, so I'm quite careful with it. With the camera in the small pack, there isn't enough room for the Manfrotto, but I can easily carry it in my hand.

Though the Manfrotto is rated to hold up to 2.2 lbs., it seemed stable enough holding my 2.75 lb. camera/lens combination. The only downside to the tripod is instability in wind, but that is not a valid criticism, since it was out of the scope of the travel tripod design. It has simple controls, which is a good feature when standing in the darkness, setting up for a sunrise. The pistol grip-controlled ballhead is intuitive, and fairly easy to pan. Fully extended, it will reach a height of 59.2", and since the legs can be adjusted to 3 different angles, it can be configured as a tabletop tripod with a height as low as 6.9".

As it turned out, the journey of the Trek-Tech T-Pod into the void was a good thing. The Manfrotto is much better suited to my uses.

Early 2010 Photos

These photos were made around sunrise on January 6 and 7 from Mt. Rubidoux.

The honey bee colony was a quick "snapshot" taken on the 7th while the air temperature was still cool, so the bees were not active. I intend to return to the colony during the middle of the day for more photos when there are more bees in flight and on the combs.

The colony, sheltered on the east side of a substantial boulder, is well off the secondary dirt trails in an area with very little foot traffic, which explains why it is still intact. The mountain park has the usual amount of vandalism. Those damn Vandals. Good thing the Visigoths don't also use the park...

Two Tripods, Continued

Day 136. The Werner Publishing SNAFU continues.

Since "Becky Owens, Marketing Coordinator" was unresponsive to my inquiry about the tripod I had allegedly won 119 days previously, I wrote an email to the Editors at Werner Publishing on 12-17-2009. The email is shown below.
























Though my contact information consisting of my two telephone numbers and email address does not appear on the email graphic here, they were included in the email.

As of this writing, it has been 17 days since I sent the message to the Editors.

I have received no response from the editors (a response from one would have been enough).

So the employees of Werner that I have so far contacted regarding this matter are consistent. From my viewpoint, unresponsiveness appears to be a corporate policy.


I have a new tagline and subtext for Werner Publishing:

"The Customer King is dead. You are all peasants."
(We'll take your money quickly, but don't expect us to act responsibly, honor our promises, or even respond to your legitimate inquiries.)

The Other Tripod
After several months of doing without a small tripod due to the liar and the other unresponsive staff members at Werner Publishing, I recently received the Joby tripod as a present from my wife Lisa. She's not a liar.

The Joby SLR-Zoom is pictured below, supporting my Nikon. The Joby works very well for my purpose: It is small, light, and due to the flexible legs, provides adequate support on uneven boulder surfaces. Since it is also relatively inexpensive, I will recommend it to anyone who asks about small tripods for their DSLR.