The Geo Photo Catalog is a project for the Road Fork and Whipple Sections that I have already underway. It involves taking pictures with my smartphone and camera app's locators turned on. What does is it embeds the coordinates of where the picture was taken. The idea, is to take them at every blaze, or where they're supposed to be according to the BTA's maintenance guide lines. Because of the weakness of a smartphone's GPS antenna, they have to be taken when the sky is partly sunny or better. And on Weatherbug, there's a difference between "party cloudy" and "partly sunny."
It's multifaceted program as it's purposes are:
1) provide the Buckeye Trail Association with a visual record of the trail
2) provide pictures for a Vacant Segment Showcase
3) to provide Adventurer's Project and the chapter it may become photos to use on it's website and social media, particularly in the winter.
Adventurer's Project covers the Road Fork and Whipple Sections of the Buckeye Trail (North Country concurrent) in Far SE Ohio, or generally east of I-77 and south of I-70. Those sections are off-road at Caldwell Lake and in the Marietta Unit of the Wayne National Forest.
It's been a rough year. Where to start??? The project had about 5 presentations and the public only showed up at one of them. We have two volunteers ready to go, but with both there's some scheduling difficulties. We might have another?
I live in my motorhome in Woodsfield. In December, I started getting physical therapy on my back. That concluded in February, but my abdominals still need tensioned. What I've learned is that I'm not in as good of condition as I once thought and now I'm unable to make the 13 mile one way trip to the nearest off-road portion by way of bicycle because the hills in this county are too much to handle at this time.
The electric warming hose that I was using for water to my motorhome failed and my hot water tank ruptured in a cold snap in February. I had to get a motel for a couple nights, but this is when my car started acting up, The RPM's were jumping.
In April, I finally saved up to get my car's clutch replaced. I then added two bottles of "Guaranteed to Pass" in two tanks of gasoline to try and get the catalytic converters clean.. After the first one, it started to jump less. But part way through the second, I wasn't satisfied it was doing enough.
Sometime afterwards, I started to replace the entire exhaust because in the year prior, a mechanic told me that I was leaking oil and as it was dripping down the back side of the engine, that it could probably clog one of the catalytic converters? Since the header pipe at the engine was bad and it was all practically welded together by this point anyways, I felt it necessitated a full replacement from "stem to stern."
It didn't alleviate the RPM's jumping. I changed the oil valve gasket along with the exhaust, but that didn't do anything. There's got to be something else? Because then it wouldn't start.
I had it hauled to Hilltop Auto Services just outside of Woodsfield to perform a diagnostic. They came back and said that the timing chain had gone and as a result, the valves were warped and the pistons were probably gone as well?
At that point, there was somebody in town who wanted to make my HHR into a jacked up, four wheel drive "Baby Grave Digger." I paid for the tow truck from Hilltop to his house because it was a heck of a lot better than sending it 30 miles north to a junk yard. But on the other hand, he had a old Chevy conversion van that I bought for $800. It use to be a passenger van, but it's interior is stripped down. I only have two seats in it. And the passenger's side needs a seat belt, which is on order.
So, we're back up and running, but there's a few experiments to run with a rear wheel drive only, top heavy vehicle in The Wayne. Most of its parking opportunities occur in a grass strip on the side of narrow, gravel roads. But there's another reason to run these experiments...
The Buckeye Trail Association's board voted in the affirmative to have a "challenge" over the whole circuit in one weekend. Basically, the BTA needs to be able to park cars every 3 miles or less in order to have hikers cover such distances over the 1,454 mile circuit almost virtually simultaneously at once. Some of those vehicles could be RWD only's? I have to come up with the contingency procedures in case it rains and their wheels sink?
Right now, I have 600 - 800lbs over my rear axle. But I'll also be experimenting with a new arrangement of parking boards and a come-a-long, or hand winch. With FWD, I would just place a board under each tire when I park in these places. When I leave, I have about 2 seconds of thrust, the rest is momentum and that better get me out.
But with a rear wheel drive, the drive wheels are further back. So the experiment is to see if four boards placed perpendicular in front of the boards being parked on would be enough traction to make it out? My conversion van has one disadvantage that the HHR didn't and that's it's wheelbase. The HHR could come out of a road side parking place forward, or back, depending on what was more advantageous? The conversion van's wheel base is likely to be not as generous? It probably has to come out in the forward direction only because of how tight the treeline is to the edge of these grass strips? Without knowing more, that's merely speculation at this point.
We have different grass strips. Some are up hill, down hill and some are on flats. We have to anticipate that these vehicles could be parked over night? If so, will front reflectors be needed? And if so, what color?
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