Will by a Warmer River

The 27th of December dawned yesterday with a passing shower and then cleared off to this weather here in Florida. This boat departed from the private docks here on Hutchinson Island at the Coconut Cove Condo's. The pier pole sitting pelican and I watched them quietly depart for either a cruise around the Indian River Estuary and intra coastal waterway or out the cut to the Atlantic Ocean.
     My son and I talked about how much the water calls to him when he is near the ocean. And our time together over on the gulf shore was spent playing in the waves with his children and nephews. We had days of really nice waves for the gulf, with boogie boards and kayaks to surf them. Plenty of sand and water for my son.The Indian River Estuary, here on the Atlantic side of Florida, is a very biological diverse ecosystem that is a reminder of how much I love being near the water, but even more near a river. I love the ocean views, especially when the shore has some bluffs and rocks for the waves to break against. The gulf and the Atlantic are nice here, with great beaches, but they don't call me to go boating like rivers do.
     Here in Central Florida they have started to work on the recovery of the Indian River Estuary, looking at storm water discharges, the health of different fish and turtle populations. Throughout America, just like Salida Colorado, we are embracing our rivers and their health. Building to watch to river, not have it in our back yard, but our front yard. Here they don't have dams to be concerned about, but they do have runoff from huge areas that affect the health of this system. I am a member of Trout Unlimited and so read their magazines about opening up rivers to the sea and know that we are doing better, the success of the salmon returning to the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula after those dams were removed is proof of this. There are many more not so public successes. I suspect those working for the Indian River Estuary will find success also. I think our climate awareness adds to this process, if for no other reason than this feels more local than the ozone and we might be able to make a change. I was encouraged as I watched some YouTube video yesterday to acclimate to what we might do here during our visit, that talked about the work in progress.
   It is warm and lovely here, and with all the weather happening north of us, rain, snow and tornadoes, the scene above seems especially tranquil.
     I love being Will by the river, but in winter, I love that this river is in a warmer climate!

Traveling America

It is December here by the river. Snow has come this week and the cold has settled in. We had plans to spend Christmas in Florida with some children and grandchildren, and so have set off to drive there and that brought us to this river. The Mississippi at Natchez Mississippi. At this point on the Mississippi, the Arkansas that flows past our house has already become part of this flow. It is amazing

to think of water that flows past our house is now flowing here. We have been driving for two days and this morning will see us drive across Mississippi down to Mobile Alabama to Tallahassee to stay with friends. It is nice to drive across America when you can give yourself permission to wander as you want, to pause and look. I find myself always drawn to the water and the Mississippi is such a line for east and west of America. There are stories in the west, about our rivers. Those of us who raft the Arkansas here in Colorado, know stories, the Colorado River is certainly well loved with many tales, John Wesley Powell and such. But the Mississippi, is any river in America more written about? Can one stand by the Mississippi and not think of Mark Twain? It is especially impressive when you drive to it. I have flown a plane that far east and it is neat to turn circles over the Mississippi, but to stand next to it is the only way I can feel the immensity. We drove down a piece of the Natchez Trace to Natchez and I really felt the history of the Indians and the pioneers in the settlement of this part of the country. To then arrive at this river is to feel like you know what they saw.
  We are staying two days at the Miccosukee Land Co-op just east of Tallahassee Florida with friends.  This place is 300 acres of individual homes in the fecund forest and swamp of central Florida near the St Mark River. It is an intentional living community started by young people from an FSU course in the 70's and seems to be a success. Modest homes in the woods and a community center and pool. Our friends have a lovely garden and this time of year is when they do a lot of their gardening, the lemons and oranges are ripening, they just had a big Okra harvest that we enjoyed in gumbo last night.
    Tomorrow we move on down to below Clearwater for our Christmas week with my son Bill and his family from Denver and his Sister in law and family from Chicago.
    It is exciting to be seeing parts of America more intimately than just flying over them or even just driving by on the interstate. To drive America and see America gives hope to our future. It is not as bad as the news would have us believe. A smile will always be returned. A road curtesy acknowledged. A common purpose of life in America felt. I look forward to new experiences as we wander for the next few weeks before we are back and I return to being Will by the River.

Living with an Electric Car

A little over a year ago, this Chevy Volt came to live by the river with us. It was our second electric car, the first being a 1974 Volkswagen Super Beetle that had been converted to all electric. That VW and some solar photovoltaic panels, made it pretty nice to drive by a gas station after years of no choice except who was selling gas the cheapest. We had friend with a Volt we test drove and liked. What we liked about the Volt was that it was all electric drive until the range was depleted and then a gas motor came on to run a generator. There are also simple mode changes that let you save some battery range or share the range with the generator for more electric current when climbing hills. Something you do a lot around here. We have found that unless we leave the valley, we generally have enough electrical range to do what ever we want around here, so the nine gallon gas tank, if we were just around Salida and BV, could last for as much as 1200 miles.
       I have been using google alerts for accumulating articles on electric cars for a number of years. I also have a subscription to Green Car Reports. Between these two sources I have watched the evolution of the electric car industry, lusted after a Tesla, marveled at what BMW has produced in the i3 and the i8. Seen BMW build a state of the art carbon fiber plant in Washington State. Watched the beginnings of Tesla's and Panasonic's giga factory in Nevada. So a lot of what the Volt could do was not a mystery to us. But in my reading it was apparent that the electric car industry as a whole was struggling with selling the cars. Somehow even test drive was not always convincing. But the electric car industry could sell these cars if people had a little time in them and this has been our experience. The Volt is a complex car with a lot of ways you interact with it. The possibilities of regenerating braking becomes clear when you drive US285 to Denver and have only used 2.8 gallons of gas.
      A Boeing F35 strike fighter has something like 7 million lines of computer code. The Chevy Volt has 10 million lines of computer code. So it takes some getting used to the ways you use all the cars features. Chevrolet has struggled, I think, with there marketing of this car. Even so they have the highest approval rating on the Volt of any car they have sold in the history of the company. For us, here by the river, this past year has been one of learning to driver a little differently. Of marveling at the capabilities of the car and being challenged to use as little gas as possible. It is said of Volt drivers that they don't have range anxiety, they have gasoline anxiety!
     It is going to be fun to see what the future will bring in electric cars. There drivability is so much easier than internal combustion engines (ICE) and we prefer to drive our Volt rather than our ICE truck. Just check out Tesla videos on YouTube and you will see what I mean. In the meantime, I think I will go on a long drive in our Volt.
Will by the River