June 26- July 30, 2008

Thursday, June 26, 2008 - Jackie’s sister Mary Ann died this morning after fighting cancer for about 9 months or so. She was in so much pain…

We drove south to Santa Clara to the Silicon Valley to visit the Intel Museum. Intel was as good as Microsoft was bad. I really enjoyed learning about the beginning of the silicon semi-conductor chip. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore were two of the eight original developers of Fairchild Semiconductor. But they decided to leave and start their own company in 1969. When Moore told his co-worker, Andrew Grove, that he was leaving to do a start-up Grove wanted to come along. They decided the “Moore-Noyce” (noise) wouldn’t be a good name so the used NM but quickly decided they needed a better name. All of the ones they could come up with were already taken so they ended up buying the Intel name for $15,000.

In 1965 Gordon Moore made the prediction that the number of transistors on a chip will double every two years. This has become known and Moore’s law and it seems as though it is now treated as an absolute rule rather than the prediction that it started out as. However, Intel has kept up that pace for 40 years…

Basically, silicon starts out as sand but becomes a liquid. A “seed” is dipped into the liquid and grows into a big cylindrical shape. That is then sliced into wafers. They started out with wafers 2” in diameter, moved up to 3” and now use 12”. A transistor is like a “switch” that either allows electrical current through (1 in the binary code) or it doesn’t (0 in the binary code). The chip is actually an accumulation of transistors with different pathways to carry a signal that opens or closes the transistor. There are lots of layers, each with a different property, on the chip that are laid down and then some sections are removed to make the transistors and the pathways. There are LOTS of chips on each silicon wafer and they are all made at the same time with the different layers. When they are totally finished they are tested and cut apart either by a laser or a diamond saw OR the wafer is scored and broken into little chips called “dies”. The die must be “packaged” in order to be used. The package is what we often see. We very seldom see the chip itself.

The actual “layering” of the wafers is done in “clean rooms” of “fabs” where there is ONE dust particle per cubic foot. The average hospital operating room has about 1000 dust particles per cubic foot and a regular room has about 1 million. The workers were “bunny suits” to keep all street and body contamination out of the air and contained in the suit. The wafers are transported from place to place in a FOUD that is moved by overhead track. The process takes about 6 to 8 weeks.

In 1994 Intel found a problem with their Pentium chip but determined that it would never pose a problem for most people. This was a HUGE public relations nightmare because no one wanted to have a defective chip in their computer! Intel changed course and said it would replace any defective chips.

In 1991 Intel decided that they needed to advertise their quality directly to the consumer. The came up with the distinctive 5 note jingle and “sounds” that everyone now associates with “Intel Inside”. Intel pays part of the advertising for the companies that use their chips if the company will include the “Intel Inside” and the jingle. It is one of the most recognized brands in the world.

Intel originally used numbers to identify their chips. But then someone else called their chip the “486 chip” also. Intel took them to court but was told that you can’t patent a number. Therefore, when they developed the chip that WOULD have been the 586, the called it the “Pentium” instead because they could patent that name.

Moore and Noyce started out with about 18 employees in 1969. Within two years they had an office in Geneva and a manufacturing plant in Malaysia. In 2007 they had 95 employees, but now they have about 80,000. The plant that we visited today will actually be closed in 4 days and the manufacturing moved to China.

There was so much information and it was all presented in such a good format.

On the drive back to the motor home we got to experience some real California traffic.

Friday, June 27 – Went shopping for groceries for kids. Did paperwork.

Saturday, June 28 – We went into San Francisco. Drove around Golden Gate Park – not so impressive… Drove down Lombard Street and around the Piers. Headed home in ALL of the traffic.

Sunday, June 29 – Left at 6 AM to drive to LA to pick up Brian and Abby and then Rachel. Went to the beach just down the street from the airport.

Monday, June 30 – Went to the La Brea Tar Pits. Really interesting. Tar (oil) seeps through the ground throughout this area (there are lots of oil wells pumping oil nearby) and between 40,000 and 11,000 years ago the mammoths and dire wolves and big cats roamed this area. They would once in a while get stuck in the tar in the tar pit when they came down to the water to drink. About once a decade there was a mass event where the animal who was stuck in the tar was attacked by predators who themselves became trapped in the tar. There are SO many bones in the pit that they have kind of gotten tired of digging them all up! Right now they dig in Pit 91 during the summer when the graduate students come to dig in the tar to see what they can find. They used to look for all of the big bones of the big animals, but now they are particularly interested in finding the tiny little things in the tar. Then we went to the Warner Bros Studio Tour. Most of the time was spent in the “towns” and the sound room. The TV shows are filmed mostly in front of a live audience. Lucy was the first show to be filmed before a live audience because Desi said that Lucy didn’t perform well without an audience to bounce her jokes off of. It was fun, but not as good as I remember the Universal Tour being… Abby particularly liked the museum with the upper floor dedicated to Harry Potter! After we left Warner Bros we took hundreds of pictures of the Hollywood from every different angle!

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Tuesday, July 1 – We spent almost the whole day at Venice Beach/Muscle Beach. I think the girls enjoyed the weird people but mostly they enjoyed the beach and the water. Poor Brian was so cold but he stayed in the water with the girls!

Wednesday, July 2 – We left to drive north to San Francisco. We wanted to drive along Route 1 but it was closed north of Morro Bay due to the tremendous number of forest fires – 1400 at one time! We planned on taking two days to drive to SF but ended up making it in one day. Brian was happy to get to the motor home to do his wash and have a day of rest before he had to work again.

Thursday, July 3 - We drove over to Muir Woods to see the redwoods. Mark and I walked the path and Brian and Abby and Rachel took a hike up a path. Rachel had on her “wheelies” and was having a lot of trouble walking up the steep path until Brian wondered why she was so worried about falling. When he saw that she still had the wheels in her shoes, he took them out for her and she had fun after that! The land for Muir Woods was purchased by a man who wanted to save the redwoods from being used for timber. His wife was not happy that he had spent a lot of money to buy and protect trees because she could think of a lot of other things to buy with that money. However, when she saw the area she changed her mind and agreed with her husband. When the government agreed to accept it as a National Park, they suggested naming it after the man who was donating it. He said No, John Muir was the inspiration that prompted him to save this area and he wanted to name it after John Muir.

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Friday, July 4 – Mark drove Brian to Oakland to catch his flights for the next 3 days. Then we closed up the motor home and drove over to Petaluma KOA. Wow, what a spot we had at a super campground! The girls went to the petting zoo, swam in the huge pool, watched movies in the rec hall, did fabric paint of pillow cases that were imprinted with a design and said Happy Camping, went on a hay ride, went to an ice cream social… They loved watching the movies (I Love Lucy) in the back of the motor home on the drive from Vallejo to Petaluma. We went to the Petaluma Fairgrounds for fireworks and dinner. We thought there would be rides and there weren’t. It was a celebration of the 150th birthday of the city of Petaluma. We went way too early. Also, we needed more clothes and blankets, but the fireworks were really great!

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Saturday, July 5 – We just did things around the campground.

Sunday, July 6 – We drove to the Sterling Winery for a cable car ride and a not-so-great tour of the winery. The girls were truly bored. The most interesting thing we learned was that the grapes are crushed with their skin on and the seeds left in to make red wine. However, for white wine the same grapes are used but only the juice of the grape is fermented to make the wine.
We stopped at the Petrified Forest on the way home and that was a little better. Three million years ago a volcano 7 miles to the east erupted and knocked all of the trees down facing away from the blast toward the southwest. Water laden with silicates in the ash seeped down into the gaps left behind by decomposing tree fibers, replacing the wood cell by cell with crystallized silica until the entire tree became stone. In 1871 Charles Evans (Petrified Charlie) found the first stump of petrified wood while leading his cows in the meadow. In 1914 Ollie Bockee purchased the property and developed it charging 50 cents admission. She used the money to pay college students to excavate more trees each summer. They discovered many of the world’s largest petrified trees.
The best part for the girls was the swimming pool when we got back to the campground.

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Monday, July 7 – Now this was a fun day! We left early to go to San Francisco. First we drove down Lombard Street three times, then the girls and Mark walked down once, then we found a street just as steep but with no curves and we went down that twice! We parked and walked on Fisherman’s Wharf. There were a total of 5 sea lions on the rocks so Mark made sea lion noises so the girls could get the effect! We had shrimp for lunch. Then we walked down to the boat to Alcatraz. It didn’t start off that great… The movie did not run continuously so we would have had to wait 15 minutes for it to start again. Fifteen minutes is an eternity when you are 9 or 10 and waiting for something! The ranger told us that we picked up our audio tours at the top of the hill. The “top of the hill” was 30 stories above where we got off the boat. We walked up the sloping roads to the top, met a lady with an audio tour and asked her where she got it. She said down at the bottom. I said “Where the boat comes in?!” and she said Yes. So, with a lot of grumbling from two little girls AS WELL AS MOM MOM, we walked back down the hill. Then the people told us, No, you get them at the top of the hill. So, with more grumbling we walked back up the thirty stories to find a place at the bottom of the BUILDING where we got our audio tours. However, it was all worth it in the end because the audio tours were great. There were a few prisoners and guards who spend time at Alcatraz doing the narrating. We ALL really enjoyed the tour. Abby was particularly interested in the few people who MAY have escaped. No one knows if they did or not since they were never heard from again.
After Alcatraz we went back to Fisherman’s Wharf and found a great souvenir store with inexpensive souvenirs. Then we drove (with many detours…) to Twin Peaks to look down over the city of San Francisco. It really is a great view – but everyone was freezing with the wind whipping around the top of the mountain.
We drove down the mountain and back into SF to ride the cable cars. The ride was $5 per person one way. Wow. The wait for the return trip was so long that we watched the men turn one of the cars around on the turntable (which isn’t so new to kids anymore since Thomas the Tank Engine does it!) and then took a taxi back to where we left the car. Our driver was Chinese and we asked his opinion of a good, cheap Chinese restaurant for dinner. He took us to one only ½ block from the car. Abby didn’t know what to order because she always goes to a Chinese buffet. Rachel only wanted egg drop soup. We decided on a chicken corn chowder for Abby, PLAIN egg drop soup for Rachel and shrimp fried rice for all of us to share. Mark order his own dish. It turned out that the soups were for 4 people and Rachel’s egg drop soup had other things in it. Actually it was delicious, but I just removed the extra veggies from Rachel’s and she liked it. Everyone ate plenty. We walked uphill to the car and drove back to the campground with 2 very sleepy girls.

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Tuesday, July 8 – We stayed around the campground. The girls went to the craft time and did fabric paint on pillowcases. They were the only two there for awhile and there wasn’t any supervision. But then a mother who is a teacher came with her daughter and they all just painted together. The girls did a good job but Abby wasn’t finished when it was time for dinner. She went back after dinner and finished her pillowcase and then the girls went by themselves to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks on the big screen TV in the rec hall. They loved being by themselves! They had Mark’s cell phone to call us to walk them home when the movie was over, but I went down early with a flashlight because I wanted to check on things… Again, they were the only ones watching the movie so they had a private showing!

Wednesday, July 9 – We had to catch up on the journals, swim, play, eat lunch. Brian and Kathy and Sam were coming in the afternoon to stay with us for the rest of the trip. But, Mark decided we needed to go find this magnetic hill just a few miles away. So we took off to find it. No one near there had heard of it, but they knew another one about 10 miles away. So we took off for that one. We couldn’t find it either. Mark stopped 2 police cars at change of shift and they gave us directions. We still couldn’t find it. Well, it was a nice ride but we were 20 minutes from the campground when Brian called and said they were there! We got back, Sam saw the petting zoo, Andy Icks looked through the motor home, some people went swimming, we had dinner, walked down to the Rec Hall to see Enchanted, came home and went to sleep.

Thursday, July 10 – We left to drive towards Yosemite and our campground outside the park in Groveland. The kids went swimming and Brian and Kathy drove very curvy and hilly Rt 49 to Oakhurst to get their rental car. When they got back we set up the tent and roasted marshmallows over a charcoal fire. We weren’t allowed to burn real wood because of the high fire danger. Note: wood fires make better marshmallows then charcoal fires.

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Friday , July 11 – We drove to Yosemite intending to drive the road to Lee Vining but instead decided to go to the Yosemite Village and Half Dome. Good choice. The girls and Sam were really tired of rocks, mountains, trees, waterfalls, rivers… Boring trees, boring mountains, boring waterfalls. We took the kids and Brian and Kathy did a hike. The kids were less bored when we all stopped for ice cream!

Saturday, July 12 – Brian and Kathy left at 5 AM to drive to the starting point for the hike up Half Dome. They had 4 PBJ sandwiches and 4 bottles of water. There were lots of people on the trail. When they finally go to the point where the chain railing goes up the mountain Kathy decided she had gone far enough. Brian kept going to the top. But, since they were short on water he didn’t take any with him. Boy, was he thirsty when he got back down. They heard a girl say she would be fine if she just had something to eat and since they did not want any more PBJ they traded for a bottle of water. Then they met some folks with a water filter and filled some of their water bottles with filtered water from a stream. They were pretty tired and looking forward to a shower when they got home!


Rachel and Abby and Sam and Mark and I went to Jamestown (Jimtown) to do some gold panning and use the gold sluice. We were all told to put on boots and given a bucket and shovels to go into the stream to dig the dirt that we would pan. The boots didn’t last too long, the water shoes were more to the kids’ liking. It’s a real good thing we had Mark along or none of us would have panned much dirt! There were SO many rocks and big rocks in the river that you couldn’t dig through them to the dirt! Mark finally started throwing rocks out of the way to get a hole to dig in. The man at the site was really good at teaching us how to pan. Even Sam got into it. Put dirt in your pan, face the ridges away from you, swish the pan in the water 1-2-3 times and then shake the pan. Swish it again in the river 1-2-3 times. This SHOULD get rid of almost all of the dirt in the pan. Actually, we were all so paranoid about losing a piece of gold that we really had to swish our pans 4 or 5 times before we looked for the specks of gold. Everyone found a speck of gold in their pans. Rachel found three. The man panned for gold for himself when there were no paying customers and he had found about $60 worth that morning. Mark dug us some more dirt and we moved downriver to where he set up a sluice for us. The sluice is supposed to do all of the work that the panner does with a pan. You just take handfuls of the dirt and drop it on the top end of the sluice and the running water from the river does the “sifting”. The sluice is much smaller than I expected – about 3’ long and the body was about 1’ wide with a wider mouth at the top. There is a piece of carpet lining the bottom of the sluice with wooden ridges running across. The specks of gold are caught in the carpet by the ridges. Then the carpet is removed from the sluice. The material is put into a gold pan and the contents are panned for gold. We have quite a few specks of gold in our sluice –about $15 worth. No bad, for the $165 fee we got $15 in gold! We all poured a lot of dirt into our sluice but the kids lost interest and had much more fun playing in the river and pouring water on themselves!

We all went to the local ice cream store for ice cream and a milkshake. The kids really liked that!

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Sunday, July 13 – Brian and Kathy and Abby and Rachel left to go horseback riding. They actually rode MULES and were not pleased when they had to be behind Brian’s mule. Apparently it had quite a problem with gas… But they had a good time! Sam and Mark and I left to take the road to Lee Vining. Sam had his book on tape and his transformer and fell asleep not too far down the road. Good thing, he wouldn’t have really enjoyed the boring trees, boring mountains and boring rivers that Mark and I really enjoyed! The ride was really magnificent. Again, Sam’s favorite part of the day was the stop for ice cream!

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Monday, July 14 – We packed up the motor home and Brian and Kathy left in their rental car to drive through Yosemite to the Mariposa Grove of redwood trees. Kathy didn’t get to go to Muir Woods and we all wanted her to see the redwoods.
Since the road was not good for the motor home, we took a longer but less mountainous route with the kids. Again they had a great time laying in the back bed watching I Love Lucy, Robin Hood and Rin Tin Tin! They got to watch about 8 ½ hour movies! For a treat we stopped at a McDonald’s with a playground for lunch so that they could run around for a bit.
We were heading to our “primitive” campground in the mountains. Island Park is run by the Army Corps of Engineers and has no sewer, no water and no electric. I thought it would be fun anyway because our campsite was right next to the reservouir/lake… Well, it would have been right next to it if the water level had been about 50’ higher!! The hike down to the water was a long one, and there really wasn’t any place to swim. We opened all of the windows to let the air into the motor home and started dinner. We carried all of the food and drink up to the picnic table and sat down to eat AND THEN THE BEES CAME TO EAT WITH US. We were all spending so much time swoshing away the bees and Sam was scared of the bees that we finally picked everything up and carried it into the motor home and ate dinner inside! We played a few games of Uno and then decided to go to sleep. It was about 90 degrees but there was a great breeze blowing. So it was hot, but the breeze was good. Everyone remembered what it was like to grow up without air conditioning and sleep with the breeze blowing over you, no covers-not even the sheet, and turning the pillow over to get the cool side. We are survived the night and even got some sleep!

I had picked a campground as close as possible to the place where we were going to go white water rafting so we wouldn’t have such a long ride to or from the raft trip. The next closest campground with full hook-ups was about 1 ½ hours further away from the raft trip and, as it was, we were still 1 hour away!


Tuesday, July 15 – Brian, Kathy, Sam, Abby and Rachel all packed up their suitcases so that they could leave right from the rafting trip to head to Los Angeles. Their flight is at 8 AM so they have to be there tonight. We figured we would leave early to swim in the river and eat lunch before the trip. We were supposed to be there at 11:30 but we arrived about 10:30. We walked to the raft pull-out area and the kids swam a bit. The water was not cold at all! It had rained the night before in the high country and the water was now hitting the river so it made the river warmer. We had lunch – Sam was again afraid of the bees. Then we waited and waited and waited for the safety talk and the bus to the starting place. We finally got on the bus at 1 PM. I think they tell you to be there ½ hour early because no one thinks it could possibly take as long as it does to get to the place. We rode in the bus about ½ hour to get to the put-in point. After another little safety talk we got into our rafts, practiced a few things and began paddling to our first rapids! Rebecca, our guide, was very good and kept the kids changing places from the middle to the front of the raft. She let them take turns riding the bow with their legs hanging on the outside. Sometimes they rode the rapids that way – just like riding a bronco! There were SO many rapids and the river was flowing so quickly that we didn’t have to paddle much at all. There was never any time to get bored. We all did a “high five” with our paddles after a good rapids run. We got out of the boat to jump off a rock into the river and we also swam in a circular eddy that kept us going around in a big circle. The kids and Brian were shocked when I jumped in to swim in the eddy too! But that was something I had never done before so I wasn’t going to miss that chance! The last rapid of the ride was the Rooster Tail and it was great! Mark almost flipped out of the boat! They take pictures of you in this rapid and they were so good that Brian and I just bought the whole CD! Then, Sam started screaming and crying. It seems that a bee stung him. He is so afraid of bees that Kathy wasn’t sure if he was really stung or just scared, but we think he did get stung.

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With that ending everyone headed back to the cars to change our of their bathing suits for the trip to LA. Mark and I drove back to the motor home, got showers, decided that we really didn’t need to spend another night without air conditioning and closed up the motor home and headed for the nearest campground with full hook-ups, Visalia, about 1 ½ hours away!

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Wednesday, July 16 – We figured since we were so close we probably should go to the Sequoia National Forest. More twisty, turny roads. We drove to the lodge for a tea and coffee and while we were inside it started to pour and thunder and lightning and then it started to hail. We had to wait about ½ hour before Mark could run out to get the car! We drove through the southern part of the park and walked the hike down hill to the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree in the world. It was very well marked, the hike was nice. The tree was certainly big, but when there are so many big trees it is hard to get a sense of something just a little bigger than something near by!

Thursday, July 17 – Everyone made the flight to Houston. Kathy drove Rachel half-way to meet Heather. We drove on to Bakersfield to get our mail and FedEx package for the sale of Unit 6 at Home Port.

Friday, July 18 – I worked on the mail all day. Mark went to get some motor home supplies.

Saturday, July 19 – We left Bakersfield to head to Las Vegas. There really wasn’t anything we wanted to see in southern California that we hadn’t already seen on previous trips. We figured we would just take our time getting to Las Vegas and stop and see things along the way. We stayed at the KOA in Yermo, just 4 miles north of Dagget where Vance worked on the solar one project. We saw the Borax mine off to the north and a sign for a visitor’s center and took the exit to go to it. However, when we got there it looked like we were not supposed to enter so we turned right and headed into the town of Boron. We visited the Twenty Mule Team Museum in Boron. It had some good displays but didn’t give enough information about the mining of borax which was the whole reason the town existed. The lady there suggested that the Visitor Center at the Borax Mine was a good place to visit. We unhooked the car and took the car back up to the Mine and this time we went in anyway. They did have a Visitor’s Center built way up the hill on a mountain of overburden removed from the mine. They charge $2.00 per auto to enter and donate all of that money to local charities and a scholarship fund for the Boron High School. Very good idea. The Visitor’s Center was all we hoped it would be. The was in introductory movie, then the drapes in the back of the room opened to allow you to look out on the mine and see all of the activity. The displays inside were very informative and answered all of our questions. The borax is always in combination with some other stone. When it comes out of the ground it first goes to a crusher that grinds it into 6” stones. Then it is carried on a conveyor belt to a secondary crusher that grinds it into gravel size. Then it goes into something like a centrifuge that mixes the gravel with water. The borax is dissolved out of the rock and floats on top of the water. The leftover rock falls to the bottom and is carried away on another conveyor belt. The borax is then carried on a mesh-like conveyor belt that blows air down through it to start the drying process. Then the borax goes into dryers much like our home dryers (but much bigger) and is dried to almost a powder. That is it. It is ready to either be put into bags to be shipped or loaded into rail cars to go to ships to be bulk loaded. Borax is used in hundreds of things from making ceramics fire better, to computer chips, to laundry detergent, to wall insulation, to fiberglass, to plastics, to lowering the temperature of gold so it can be worked easier, to making Corning glass products able to withstand temperature changes. About ½ of this plants production is used in the US and ½ is exported.

The twenty mule team became the symbol for Borax. Borax was discovered in the Harmony Mine area, Furnace Creek in Death Valley, in 1881. Mr. William T. Coleman was a salesman for the Borax King, Francis Smith, and Mr. Coleman quickly purchased the entire area to mine Borax. However, the mine was 162 miles from the nearest railroad in Mojave. In order to get the borax to the railroad to be transported around the world, Mr. Coleman and Ed Stiles, a mule team driver, came up with the idea to hitch a 12 mule team and an 8 mule team together. The term “20 mule team” is somewhat misleading because actually the two animals closest to the wagons are almost always horses. The other 18 are mules. But everyone says “20 mule team” anyway. John W. S. Perry, superintendent of the Harmony Borax Co., designed and had built the wagons needed to transport the borax. They were 16’ long, 4’ wide, 6’ deep, weighted 7,800 pounds. The front wheels were 5’ tall and the rear wheels were 7’ tall. Each wheel had a steel tire 8” wide and 1” thick. A train consisted of two wagons and a water wagon holding 1,200 gallons of water for a total weight of 30 tons. The mule team was hitched to single trees and double trees that hooked into an 80’ chain which ran the length of the team and fastened directly to the wagon. The “skinner” (driver) held onto a 120’ “jerk line” that he would jerk to make the mules go right and a give a steady pull to make the team go left. The mules had to be able to respond to their name and shouted orders. In order to turn a corner, the closest 3 pairs of mules to the driver actually stepped over the chain and pulled at an angle to the direction of travel to keep the chain pulling the wagon going straight and not allowing the wagon to tip over or go off the road. This is called the Dance of the Mules. The route was 162 miles with absolutely NO house or shack or anything along the way. The temperature in the summer was between 136 and 150 degrees. One stretch went 60 miles without water. The 20 mule team could cover 16-18 miles per day. The mine workers went out to “build a road” and set up steel water containers a day’s drive apart. They couldn’t use wooden tanks because when they were dry they would just separate and become unusable. The drivers would use the water on their way over the trail with the borax. Then after they dropped off the borax at the railroad they would fill up with water and food and hay and drop some off at each stop on the way back to the mine. That way the driver and team always knew that there would be water and food at certain locations. The Twenty Mule Teams only transported the Borax this way for five years before the railroad came to the mine. Mr. Coleman’s Harmony Mine eventually went bankrupt and Francis “Borax” Smith purchased the company.

In the 1920’s the deposit of borax near Boron was discovered. It was so rich in borax that the company closed all of the other mines to work this mine. They tunneled into the mine to remove the borax until 1957. Then the company made the decision to turn the mine into an open pit mine. That way they wouldn’t have to leave so much borax behind to hold up the ceilings of the mines. The pit is not 2 ½ by 1 ½ miles and they have supplies of borax down to 1400’. There is plenty of borax to keep mining for years and years.

A VERY interesting stop!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?UV=384906752447_895013283603&collid=71978771503.397106382603.1219466219463&page=1&sort_order=1&navfolderid=0&folderid=0&ownerid=0

Sunday, July 20 – Mark went to church. Then we went to the Dagget Museum – which apparently has not been open for the past 4 years since someone broke in and stole their stuff. Vance’s picture used to be in there explaining the procedures at Luz’s Solar One solar plant. We drove past Solar One and the big tower is still there but the plant hasn’t worked in the past 5 years. We also saw Solar Two but we couldn’t tell if it was still working or not. Then we drove back down Hwy 58 to Kramer Junction to see the currently working FPL Solar Collectors. We couldn’t get in but we did get some photos. Mark and I were both surprised at how large the reflectors are. It was cloudy and rainy (in the desert!!) while we were driving around so the reflectors were all facing down. We tried to follow the electric wires to see where the energy produced went into the grid. The only thing we found was a large transformer station near the intersection of the only two roads for miles. We went through rain and the desert absorbed the rain for a while. Then it started to pool up on top of the dirt. We didn’t see any water in the Mojave River yet…

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