Summer 2017, Day 2: Batter Up

Posted on July 27, 2017 by Ben

This morning we had some equine neighbors:

Trish caught me chatting with the neighbors on her way back from shopping at “our” Walmart. The horse trailer was being driven by a woman from Grants Pass, Oregon, and the fifth-wheel hitched to the red truck was a family from Dutchess County, New York, about an hour north of our house:

We continued East and visited baseball bat manufacturer BWP Bats for a factory tour:

Their office featured memorabilia from players who use (or used) their bats:

The first step of the process uses a computerized CNC lathe to convert a cylinder of wood, called a billet, into a bat in about 3 minutes:

We learned that baseball bats have a fixed relationship between length and weight (called bad drop) that is determined by whether the bat is used for professional, college, or little league play. We also learned about “cupping”, which is drilling out the end of a bat to make it slightly lighter. The handle end of the bat can be terminated in a variety of shapes depending on the player’s preference:

Once the bat is formed, it’s sanded and the ends are cut off:

Next we went downstairs and saw the painting process which involves dipping the bats into paint one or more times depending on the color scheme. After being hung to dry, the BWP sticker is applied and the bat is dipped multiple times into a clear polyurethane finish before it’s finished:

This machine applies a narrow band of black paint over the seam between two colors added during the dipping process:

We continued east to overnight at the Walmart of Van Wert, Ohio. Getting gas is always a tricky affair when you’re 62 feet long and 13 feet, 6 inches tall:

There were plenty of trucks in the parking lot and it was another loud night as the trucks were running their APUs to power their air conditioners to keep the sleeper units in the trucks cool. It was 75 degrees and 99% humidity, so it was pretty uncomfortable. We decided to put out our generator so we could run the air conditioner overnight. It was no problem, since the trucks were making so much noise that generator just Blended right in:

See the alternating light blue line on the trip map for today’s drive.

Day 809: Real Chocolate at a Fake Factory, with a Side of Alpacas

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Ben

Shabbos at Degel Israel was great. Rabbi Shlomo Horwitz from Jewish Crossroads gave several excellent presentations. After Shabbos the shul had a post-Havdalah bonfire:

Today we visited Hershey’s Chocolate World, a Disney-style ride through a fake chocolate factory. We only came because Trish remembered visiting here as a child:

After the ride, we visited the adjacent retail space:

Before leaving, we watched amateur car racing in the adjacent parking lot:

On the way back to the RV, we stopped at the Eastland Alpaca Farm to see the Alpacas. B found a friendly farm cat:

Yup, alpacas:

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 807: Harley-Davidson Factory Tour

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Ben

This morning, we didn’t really know where we would spend Shabbos. I was surprised to discover that several towns in the area have synagogues, so we called Degel Israel in Lancaster, PA and were invited to come for Shabbos. We drove west to Lancaster and dropped off the RV at the synagogue. We then drove west to York, PA, home of one of Harley-Davidson’s factories:

Tricia’s shoes didn’t pass muster for a factory tour, so we had to drive over to the nearest Walmart to buy a pair of shoes. Now Trish and B have the same shoes:

Before the factory tour, we toured the museum:

In the factory, there are five production lines that the motorcycles pass through as they’re being assembled. This is what the motorcycle looks like at the end of the first line:

…and at the end of the third line:

A variety of models are available for sampling. I’m not a motorcycle guy, but Trish insisted on a photo:

Harley-Davidson doesn’t allow photographs on the tour. We saw huge steel presses that form fenders out of a single sheet of steel, robotic welding machines, the painting area, the road test machines, and the packaging area where fifteen motorcycles are loaded into a semi trailer on specialized steel pallets.

After the tour, we returned to the RV where I helped build the bonfire for the post-Shabbos event the synagogue is having as part of a nationwide program by The Shabbos Project:

I went for a ride this afternoon by the farms around Lancaster:

Ready for Shabbos:

Good Shabbos from Degel Israel in Lancaster, PA! See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 726: Cape Cod

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Ben

We awoke to another humid day at the Walmart of Onset, Massachusetts. We drove east and crossed over the bridge onto Cape Cod. Our first stop was the Cape Cod Canal Museum, a US Army Corps of Engineers museum which interprets the history of the Cape Cod Canal. The museum has on display the canal patrol boat Renier:

The kids struggle to maintain control in stormy seas:

At the flag display, the kids spelled out YOU ARE BEING WATCHED:

Magnetic fishing for laminated paper fish:

Looking from the canal out to sea:

Continuing east, we stopped at the Cape Cod Potato Chip factory to tour the facility:

The tour involves walking down a hallway with interpretive signage and windows that look into the production area. We could see the potato slices being fried and salted, then ride a conveyor belt off to packaging. The tour was self guided and the factory doesn’t allow photographs to be taken:

Next we visited Cape Cod National Seashore. Our first stop was the visitor center:

We visited the Three Sisters of Nauset lighthouses. By the early 1900s, only the center lighthouse still had a beacon:

The Nauset Light replaced the Three Sisters lights in 1923:

We drove north to the Marconi Wireless Station Site, location of the first trans-oceanic radio broadcast:

Fragments of the radio station? Perhaps:

A bit south from the Marconi Site is Marconi Beach. It was crowded, so we didn’t stay:

We returned to the visitor center where the kids handed in their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges:

Overall we found Cape Cod to be very crowded. I’m not sure why people enjoy coming here.

We drove back off the island to overnight again at the Walmart of Onset, Massachusetts. See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Day 658: Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR, NCAR, and Celestial Seasonings

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Ben

Today we visited Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR, which was an Army chemical weapons depot turned superfund site. The refuge video presentation and visitor center were well done:

Sadly, there’s no Junior Ranger program here. We drove the nature drive in the refuge, and spotted several bird species and a pair of bison.

Continuing north to Boulder, we visited the National Center for Atmospheric Research. NCAR is a private-sector non-profit funded almost exclusively by tax dollars via the National Science Foundation:

We attended the noontime tour which was a summary of the various exhibit spaces in the building. After that, we explored the exhibits on our own, which included an exhibit that allows visitors to pass their hand through a “cloud”:

In the basement, we looked at the old supercomputer used for weather simulations. The new system is too large for this facility, and is located in Wyoming:

Another exhibit talked about the architectural design process for the facility:

The other exhibits talked about how the atmosphere and climate work, including the interaction between the Sun and the Earth’s atmosphere:

Our last stop for the day was the factory tour at Celestial Seasonings, the largest boutique tea company in the US. We saw the milling room where the ingredients are ground up, as well as the packaging line from carton assembly to robotic arms that stack filled cartons on pallets. We also visited the sinus-opening peppermint room, where milled peppermint is stacked floor to ceiling, ready to be used as an ingredient in several flavors of tea.

No photography was allowed inside, so you won’t get to see photos of us in hair nets (and a beard net for me!). Here’s the outside of the building: