Our RV Adventures

After the busy day yesterday, today was a good bit quieter. I worked on a few things around the rig, while Jan read her Kindle. Like I said, quiet.

I bought some Reflectix foil shield the other day to help keep some of the heat out. We’ve got our solar screen up but they need some help. The way we’re parked we get sun in though the windshield all day, and with it supposed to hit 99 degrees on Monday, I’d like to give the AC’s some rest.

Jan and I headed out about 3pm for some errands and dinner. Our first stop was a nearby Home Depot for a few project things, and a spring clamp for Miss Terry. It seems like every day it’s either Wal-Mart or Home Depot.

Or both.

Our next stop was CVS, and while Jan shopped, I sat in the Pharmacy waiting area and read a Kindle book on my phone. You gotta love modern technology.

Jan had been wanting to get her Red Robin fix, so that was our next stop. Jan got her usual Cheddar-Mushroom Burger while I went for my usual Burnin’ Love Burger, with fried jalapeno slices, pepper-jack cheese, and a cayenne-seasoned burger. But I spiced things up a little more by sprinkling on some ground dried Ghost Chili salt. Really good. And hot.

After we finished at Red Robin I used Gas Buddy to find the nearest, cheapest place for unleaded and filled up. $3.45 a gallon was good since I paid $3.59 a couple of weeks ago. Then I used Gas Buddy to track down and check out a couple of places to get diesel on our way to Las Vegas next Wednesday. Looks like a CircleK one block off the freeway will fill the bill, and the price right now is only $3.45 a gallon. Unusual for unleaded and diesel to be the same price.

A while after we got home we headed out for our walk around the park. It’s really evident that the northern migration of the Snowbirds is in full flight. Every time we walk there are fewer and fewer rigs, and now even park models are being closed up and summerized.

Sure seems like it’s going to paraphrase that old adage, “Will the last RV’er to leave Apache Junction for the summer, please turn out the lights.”

Landon’s Aunt Sherry is up in South Carolina, visiting daughter Grace and her husband, and getting her first chance to hold her new granddaughter Zoe.

All that hair makes her look older than just a couple of weeks. I know Sherry is happy to get to see her.

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Thought for the Day:

Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel. – Leonardo da Vinci

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Since we had a busy day planned, Jan and I headed out about 10am for our visit to the da Vinci exhibit. But our first stop was another visit to Over Easy, a really good local breakfast place.

Jan had her usual eggs, bacon, and toast, but with their delicious brioche toast. But I switched off to a bacon, sausage, cheese, and jalapeno omelet, also with the brioche toast. But I tried something a little different – sweet potato tater tots. And they’re really good.

After breakfast I went to the restroom to wash my hands, and then stood there waving my hands at a box on the wall, silently cursing that it wouldn’t give me a paper towel to dry my hands.

It took me longer than I would like to admit before I realized that I was supposed to just stick my hand up and pulled a towel out of the dispenser.

A manual towel dispenser? What are they thinking? This is the 21st century.

Leaving Over Easy, it was about 30 minutes to the Arizona Science Center where the Da Vinci – The Genius was on view.

Parking in the garage across the street, we encountered these unused Electric Vehicle Charging Stations conveniently close to the elevators.

I thought about just parking here – conveniently close to the elevators – and just sticking the charging cable under the hood.

I mean, surely someone makes an electric truck, don’t’ they?

Getting across the street we first encountered about a million screaming kids. Apparently we picked Kid’s Science Day to see the Da Vinci exhibit. But luckily for us they were there for the many hands-on science exhibits in other parts of the the center.

Entering the exhibit area, we quickly realized that this da Vinci exhibit was located in the same area of the center where we saw the Body Worlds exhibit in 2007.

What I really found interesting were that they had recreated many of the drawings and inventions that sprung from da Vinci’s imagination.

This first one is a diving suit, designed to allow soldiers to attack enemy ships in the harbor.

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These are several of da Vinci’s war weapons, a steam-powered cannon, and small scale model of the first visualization of today’s military tanks.

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Here’s his idea for a glider.

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This one is a ornithopter, a flying machine that flies by flapping the wings.

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And here’s da Vinci’s other take on a vertical ornithopter.

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Here’s da Vinci’s Air Screw, his idea of a helicopter.

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Discovered in the 1970’s, the drawing of a prototype bicycle was first attributed to da Vinci, but it is now thought to be a hoax, though it is not known who the perpetrator was.

The last part of the exhibit was about what Leonardo da Vinci is probably best known for.

The Mona Lisa.

Here’s what the Mona Lisa looks like today.

In October 2004, French engineer Pascal Cotte, founder of Lumiere Technology, was allowed to scan the painting with a 240-megapixel Multi-spectral Imaging Camera he invented, which uses 13 wavelengths from ultraviolet light to infrared. The resulting images peel away centuries of varnish and other alterations, shedding light on how the artist brought the painted figure to life and how she appeared to da Vinci and his contemporaries.

The photo below shows the many different layers of the Mona Lisa’s eyes taken with the Multi-Spectral Camera. And using it they finally found her missing eyebrows and eyelashes.

Art historians over the years have argued about why the Mona Lisa doesn’t have either. Women are known to pluck their eyebrows, but eyelashes?

As it turns out, they were there to start with, but due to a different paint and painting technique, they have faded over the years.

But her eyebrows and eyelashes aren’t the only things that faded. Take a look at what the Multi-Spectral camera shows the Mona Lisa looked like when it was painted.

Quite a difference. And now she’s got eyebrows and eyelashes.

We spent about two hours going through the exhibit and really enjoyed it. The Da Vinci exhibit is here in Phoenix until June 9th, so if you get the chance, check it out before it moves on. It’s worth it.

We got back home about 2pm, and then about 5pm we picked up Nick and Terry and drove over to Los Gringos Locos to meet up with Ed and Alice Allard, and their son Mike.

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On another note, if you thought Assault Weapons are bad,

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Now we’ve got Assault Pressure Cookers to worry about.

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Thought for the Day:

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms… disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. – Thomas Jefferson

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