NY Department of Motor Vehicles

Today's Photo - A Tufted Titmouse

















It has been an interesting day.  I decided to visit our local DMV to check which documents I need to register my trailer.  After waiting in line for 45 minutes, I finally reached the counter.  I explained what I wanted to do - register the trailer once I received the paperwork from the manufacturer, and take the plate to Chilliwack, BC with me.  Everything went well with the paperwork the manufacturer plans to send me  until the DMV stated I needed an import form CBP 7501 that I will receive when I cross the border from Canada into the US.  Only problem is I'm doing this 3000 miles from Oswego.  Since I plan to stay in the west for a couple of months, I'm not sure a temporary plate would be a solution (or even possible).

According to them there is no solution - I have to either bring in the form (not sure how I get the trailer from the west to NY without a plate) or mail the form to them, they will mail back paperwork, I mail it back to them & then they mail me the plate.  I'd only have to stay in one location for about a month for that to work!

I can't believe there is no other solution, but again, this is dealing with New York State. Sigh...

XM Radio

Oswego Harborfest Fireworks, 2008















Oswego has had a summer festival called Harborfest for many years - my oldest tee shirt is dated 1990. On the Saturday of the festival one of the local nuclear plant owners (Entergy) sponsors a 23 minute "Fireworks by Grucci" show.  Photos from some of the festivals & fireworks start in 2006 here.

I picked up an inexpensive XM Radio receiver yesterday.  I have an XM receiver built into my RAV4, but I want to be able to listen in both the RAV & my trailer.  According to their web page, I should be able to transfer my subscription from the RAV's radio to the portable version, purchase an extra antenna for the trailer, and be able to move it between the two.  It would be nice if they would let me use the same account for both radios, but they don't. From what I've read and from personal experience, nothing goes right when dealing with XM Radio's customer service, but I'm up for a challenge!

My cold has just about run its course; I feel like I'll live.  We are currently being nailed by a heavy, wet snow that has dumped 6" so far & it is still coming down.  I do think we have had enough winter and I'm looking forward to spring.

Cough, Cough!

Today's Photo - a fern "Fiddlehead" taken early spring at Oswego's Rice Creek Field Station, Oswego, NY.






















Well, our electricity came back on around noon on the 19th.  Not as bad as during an ice storm a few years ago.  Ice storms are rare in Oswego - trees were falling left & right; we had one do $2,000.00 worth of damage to the house, and power was out for almost a week.  For the first two days it was impossible to drive more than 1/4" mile from the house - downed trees blocked the road in both directions. So, things could have been much worse!

Now I'm getting a cold.  I don't get very many - usually one every couple of years, so I shouldn't complain, but still, I could do without it!

Although it was nice to get a couple of days of warm weather (it hit 55°F) things are back to normal; 12:55PM & it's 13°.  The good thing is I only had to shovel 2" of snow from the driveway this morning.

Well enough rambling.  I can't wait until I head west to pick up the trailer.  I'm sure this is just about as boring to read as it is to type!

Till next time...

A Windy Day

Today's Photo - Chimney Bluffs State Park, NY
















Although not a destination state park (no campground, etc) Chimney Bluffs is interesting because of the structures the wind & waves have left along the shoreline of Lake Ontario.  An interesting stop along the Seaway Trail.


I'm posting this under generator power.  Yesterday it hit 55°F, but by evening it was down to the 30°'s and the wind started to pick up.  The power went off around 1:30AM, and is still out as I type (10:04AM).  Since it is now down to 20° and the wind is a steady 15mph gusting to 40+, I'm glad for both the wood stove & generator.  


We put in a 15 Kilowatt stand by generator a couple of years ago - My wife was on an oxygen concentrator for the last couple of years of her life, and National Grid was/is not the most reliable utility in the country.  According to their outage map, the power will be back on at 8:15AM! A recheck of the map now says 11:30AM.


It is larger than I actually needed - the supplier made me a deal I couldn't refuse on going to a whole house system rather than the typical installation where only a couple of circuits are on the generator.  It runs on natural gas, so there isn't the problem I had with stale gas in my previous generator.


Stay warm!

Trailer Parts

Today's Photo - Letchworth State Park, NY














This is a Kodachrome of the lower falls taken in 1994. I went back in July, 2009 with a digital camera. Letchworth is a beautiful park with three large waterfalls, 66 miles of hiking trails, 82 cabins & 258 campsites, some with 50 amp services.

This week I sent Reace at Escape Trailer Industries the parts for the cell phone system.  They are going to mount an external antenna on the rear driver's side of the trailer, and run it to an amplifier inside. The inside amplifier is connected to a ice cream sandwich sized antenna that produces an amplified signal 2'-4' around its location.  It will cover the front table area & the front cabinets where the cell data transceiver will be located.  It should improve both cell phone & data connections.  Since I plan to update both my blog & my Lakeshore Images web pages while on the road, and plan to often be on the edge of cell coverage, I hope the system will help.

I also sent the back up camera & cabling.  Although it is not absolutely necessary, while traveling alone having an extra "eye" will be handy while driving & parking the trailer.

I did run into an interesting problem - Canadian customs is going to charge duty to import the stuff.  You would think there would be some kind of exemption since I bought the parts to install in my own trailer, but according to my phone call to customs, the duty must be paid!