A new recipe to try!

We had gotten beef marrow bones when we were at the farm late last year, and they have been in the freezer since then. It was going to be a little cool for a day or so while we were here at Morgan Hill, so we decided it was a good time to make beef bone broth and to try making French Onion Soup.

It came out really good!

It was more work than we anticipated -- we had made the broth over the two preceding days, and that was not too much work. But, caramelizing 5 pounds of onions... well... that was a long smelly job! Actually making the soup wasn't that difficult... just the onions!

A trip down memory lane

We had planned for Wednesday to be a trip down memory lane for both of us (in different ways).

We drove to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, with a plan to see information about the past for computers... only to find that it is used for special events during the week and open to visitors only on the weekends! Bummer!!! Maybe we'll visit on the weekend, but it is a bit of a drive...

We looked around the area for other places that we might find interesting and nothing struck our fancy, so we headed back south, stopping at a couple of IBM places where I taught classes when I was in the IBM education group back in the 1980s and 90s...

There was an exhibit outside Lowe's and AutoZone stores - a gazebo with some displays about the IBM Cottle Road Campus, and specifically IBM Building 025. I neglected to get pictures of the area - you can see other pictures here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/ibm-building-025 

I figure some of my former IBM colleagues might find some of the information interesting. The striping on the pictures is due to the trellis that was alternatively shading and providing sunshine on the information:

I couldn't figure out what building it might be referencing... from the article I linked above, I guess it might be the brick walls and steel trellises that made up the exhibit area.

Text: IBM got its start in San Jose in 1943 at this unassuming punch card manufacturing plant at 16th and St. John Streets.

Text: This aerial view shows the manufacturing facilities at the Cottle Road Campus in 1958. The company cafeteria is the low, cross-shaped building at the center of the photo. Building 025 would have been to the right of the photo.

The text says: The company cafeteria was centrally-located on the campus. It was an early innovation in employee amenities that is now commonly found on industrial campuses.

I don't recall the cafeteria at all, though I'm almost certain we would have eaten there during classes.

Text: An original sign from the entrance of Building 025, c. 1960s.

 

I doubt we ever taught in Building 025, as I suspect that was for the hardware division, and we would have either taught in software division areas, or, I more remember that we taught in the customer center, which was at one end of the campus.

I knew nothing about the tile mosaics...

The sun reflecting on the glass over the picture makes it hard to see... but... I guess that's the mosaic that was supposed to be reminiscent of computer punch cards...

So... the display is in the parking lot between Lowe's and AutoZone... and they have emulated the "computer punch card" mosaic at the roof line of their buildings...

The pattern is easier to see at AutoZone -- Carl and I can't see computer punch cards...

The entrance to the "Indoor Lumber Yard" at Lowe's has the mosaic pattern at the roof too...

It is hard to imagine that whole campus is gone, but... I guess the property became more valuable than the buildings, and the buildings were probably outdated for what was needed in the 90s.

From there, we drove to what I had known as the Santa Teresa Lab, but which later became known as the Silicon Valley Lab (SVL). I had thought that we might be able to go into the lobby, and maybe there would be some history about that location provided too, but, there was only a badge entry into the parking lot (no one in the guard shack), and I decided not to try to use the intercom to gain entrance. It appeared that very few people were there (the second entrance to the campus was totally closed off).

We headed back to the campground via a windy mountainous road. I was glad we traversed that route in the Jeep as that is the one that the Garmin, the one that knows how big our RV is, recommended we take to come to the campground last Monday and the route by which it is recommending we leave! Evidently the easier route has a commercial weight restriction on the roads, but.. as we did on our way in to the campground, we're going to ignore the weight restriction and take the more easier route to get back onto Hwy 101 when we leave on Monday.

Installations

We had an order come to an Amazon Locker in Morgan Hill and picked it up on Monday. It included a new fan for Carl's laptop. The old fan had been getting louder and louder and we figured it was eventually going to give out. Tuesday was the day to do the fan replacement.

Carl had read that it should be a 20 minute job... so we figured it would take about 2 hours...

Bottom of laptop opened up - old fan is still in place, new fan in its plastic bag on top of the DVD/CD drive.

New fan in place -- it required careful access to small components

Here's a picture of Carl plugging in the new fan... this was actually during a debugging phase - it initially appeared that the new fan was not working, but he figured out that it was getting power and coming on momentarily, but then figuring out that no cooling was required and turning off.

Closing up the bottom...

All the screws neatly laid out on a paper towel with relative locations reflecting the area of the bottom of laptop where they needed to go back.

The replacement of the fan actually only took about 20 minutes, but when Carl got it all back together, his Windows operating system would no longer connect to our MiFi (internet) device. He ran various check programs, booted a Linux operating system, ran some more checks, and eventually booted Windows again (several hours later) and it connected to the MiFi with no problem. He thinks that running Linux may have reset the hardware -- he is just happy it is working now. His laptop is SO quiet - we had not realized how loud the fan had gotten!

We also went to the Walmart in Gilroy to look for bins to use to complete our "far side of the wet bay" project. If you remember when I last blogged on this...

This was the way that the bay looked with the shelves in place and our old / substitute boxes in place.

We were able to find two different sizes of the same design baskets at Walmart (they look like they are woven, but they are plastic so easy to clean if needed). We weren't really looking for a "good look" to the bay, but they do look nice!

Just a couple of more "bay" projects to complete, and then I think we can take time off from bay improvements!

Getting some things done and a move

We wrapped up our stay at San Benito Thousand Trails by getting a couple of projects done...

A few months ago, Carl had installed the water softener into the far side of the wet bay (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/01/getting-stuff-done.html) -- at the time we knew we wanted to do something to better organize the bottles, cans, etc. -- we had gotten wood for building shelves a week or so before (in Lancaster/Palmdale), so Saturday was the day to work on it. This is a "before" picture.

Meanwhile, one of our rocking chairs had had its stitching for one side of the seat partially give way. It did it while we were at the FMCA Conference in Tucson at the end of March. I had looked up to see if there was any way to replace the fabric (the metal and mechanism are still in great shape) -- I couldn't find any way to get replacement fabric. Carl asked if I could restitch it with some of the UV resistant thread that I had ordered to try to repair our MagneShade -- so I decided that Saturday was a good day to work on that too.

It was not too difficult to sew as the holes that the thread used to go through were still there, so I didn't need to puncture the fabric most of the time. One thing we particularly noticed as I was working on this was how much different the fabric looks on this chair compared to the other one (you can see the other chair in the picture above) -- the other chair's fabric color is very similar to the underside of this chair. Dwayne and I got these chairs in the fall of 2016 (ordered from Camping World: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/6578383400058208161/3618458003569129880). As far as I recall, they have received similar treatment through the years -- I know I had them outside Miss Doozie when I was parked at the International Linguistics Center, which probably gave them more sun damage than they would have had if I had been bringing them in and out. When I was doing research on replacement covers for them, either the manufacturer for these chairs or for the new ones I was considering ordering indicated that they should not be kept outside. Goodness! You wouldn't consider storing outside chairs outside, would you?!?!? I guess we have subjected them to undue hardship!

Meanwhile, Carl was proceeding on cutting boards for the "far side of the wet bay" project.

Shelves completed

"Stuff" back in the bay. It doesn't look a lot more organized yet - we want to get some different bins that will fit the space more effectively. Right now I have a taped-up Oreo box on the top of one shelf and a mishmash of containers on the other shelves -- it is working temporarily! We like having things in containers as it is easier to take things out and it helps to ensure that things don't move around a lot when we are driving.

On Sunday, as we were walking around San Benito campground, I took a picture of an interesting rig down the road from us...

Carl said it had a Mercury emblem on the front -- he figures it is some kind of homegrown conversion, maybe off of a previous limo.

On Monday, after spending a week at San Benito, we checked out -- heading north to Morgan Hill. One of the slightly scary things about San Benito was that a single lane (a quite narrow single lane) bridge had to be crossed to enter the campground area (within the campground, beyond the ranger station) - there were two options - this was the better one. There were no signs indicating a weight limit, but we hoped that they had accounted for big rigs needing to cross it! It stayed up for us to cross it both ways (coming in and leaving)... for which we were grateful!

We liked San Benito -- pros were that it was a pretty campground, the sites weren't *too* close together (back-in sites were more spacious than the pull-thru buddy sites). There was quite a bit of wildlife to see - though the ground squirrels were so numerous that they seem to be digging up all of the ground in the campground. One of our neighbors who has had a seasonal site there for a few years said that there used to be bobcats and feral cats and the squirrels were not so numerous. Evidently, there was an effort to eradicate the feral cats, and now the squirrels are not being "naturally" controlled.

We often say that each time we move to a new location, there are things we need to "budget" because they are in short supply. At San Benito, we had full hookups -- 50A power, water, sewer -- the "short supply" item was internet -- our devices indicated that they had plenty of "bars", but once everyone was in their campers in the evening, the speeds would slow to abysmal. It was acceptable during the week, but on the weekend, it was unusable. 

This week in Morgan Hill, we have 50A power, water, good internet, but no sewer hookup, so we need to "budget" our use of our grey and black tanks (no more long showers, be careful about how much water I use washing dishes, and need to think about whether we can do a load of laundry or not).

But, that keeps our brains active and young, right?

Pinnacles National Park - part 3

In my last installment ()https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/04/pinnacles-national-park-part-2.html, we had just gotten out of the Bear Gulch Cave...

We continued along the trail on our way to the Bear Gulch Reservoir.

We had a few more cave-like areas to traverse, and then a set of steps to climb...

Climbing the steps...

Carl continuing up the steps...

... until we got to Bear Creek Reservoir.

There were a few other people there, but it was mostly quiet and peaceful.

The overcast skies from earlier in the day had disappeared.

I was heading across the dam area.

Obligatory selfie while we were on the dam

I looked up information about the reservoir:

One of Pinnacle's most iconic sights, the dam creating Bear Gulch Reservoir was completed in 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Created to prevent flooding down stream but mainly for its aesthetic value, the reservoir is still a highlight for visitors, surrounded by Pinnacle's rock formations. This is a great spot to have lunch or watch the sunset. To get there, hike one mile up the Moses Spring trail from the Moses Spring Trailhead. Depending on the time of year, you can go through another park highlight, the Bear Gulch caves, on your way. Make this hike a loop by returning on the Rim Trail. The reservoir is important habitat for the red legged frog, a threatened species in California.(https://www.nps.gov/places/bear-gulch-reservoir.htm)

We had planned to make a loop by returning on the Rim Trail to the Bear Gulch parking area so we were happy to find this trail marker for Rim Trail and Bear Gulch area.

Some views along the Rim Trail...

It is amazing how the sunshine changes the view...

Just beautiful scenery...

Valleys and rocks...

This shrub had such brilliant flowers...

Pinks and purples and blues.

Some more views on the way down...

We did a better job of taking pictures on the way down, both because we had not been on this trail previously, and because there were other hikers for whom we would stop and allow to pass us, so we were stopping more, even though we were heading downhill.

Just a couple of last pictures...

The last picture from our visit to Pinnacles National Park.

For not knowing anything about the park before we arrived in this area to doing some research and then making our day there, we found that Pinnacles National Park is very enjoyable, but... you have to get out of the car and hike. You're not going to see much driving on the roads in the park, and, at least from what we saw on the east side, there aren't locations where you can pull off the road and see views immediately.