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This is the second of a series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Colorado here.

Day 1: Travel
We were out the door about 10:30am to get to the airport. Most of the packing was done the night before, and we had basic checklists for everyone. The main thing was that everyone had a carryon-size luggage plus a small backpack, so we had no checked luggage.

No pictures of the flight, which was unremarkable, which is a good thing. My headphones didn’t work, so I took one of the free headphones compliments of Delta. I chose to watch Uncharted, which finished about 5 minutes before landing, so that was a perfectly-timed movie.

The shuttle bus from Denver airport to the car rental facility seemed to take forever (how big is this airport grounds?), but we eventually made it there. It took them a long while to find our minivan, while we waited in the thin and very hot air. They drove it out to us, soaking wet as they just washed it, and we loaded up and headed out. Traffic was fine, and we made it to Colorado Springs with no trouble.

Here is a shot from the van, our first view of the mountains.

First stop was Costco for much of our food for the week, plus dinner for half the family. The other half of us got dinner from Noodles which was just around the corner from Costco. That was the exit for our rental house, so we drove a few miles to the other side of town and unloaded everything.

After eating and somewhat settling in, we had to go to the local Safeway for the rest of our groceries. Thanks to the convenient pick-up option, I pulled in and someone brought me the groceries. She was from New Jersey, which I learned because she was excited to see Pennsylvania license plates. I burst her bubble when I said it was a rental and we were from Michigan. But she moved to CO about 15 years ago and just loves it.

We got back to the house and the boys made themselves at home. Because the house had a fenced-in yard, the trees had low branches (deer nibble away our branches). So Delta was glad to have a tree he could climb.

Everyone went to bed at a decent time because of jet lag. Then it was evening then morning, the next day.

Day 2:

We had 3 main events planned for this first day, which started early. First up, seeing what Garden of the Gods was about.

GOGVC : Garden of the Gods Visitor Center

The rental house was conveniently located just a few minutes from GoG, so we swung by there to see the main view and to grab some brochures and figure out what trails we wanted to hit later in the week. The visitor center has a nice overlook of the main features.

And here is a closer look at the one rock formation.

Then we left and headed straight to our next event.

USOPM : United State Olympic and Paralympic Museum

The USOPM required us to buy tickets in advance, for a specific time. I chose the opening time, 10am, because I knew we’d be mostly on Michigan time so early stuff wouldn’t feel so early.

They have quite the process down at the USOPM. You get lanyards as your ticket, and it has an RFID unique to you. You can choose to enter your info to the system, so the various stations can greet you by name, or not enter info, in which each station will greet you by your lanyard number.

One of the first things you get to see is a collection of torches from the various Olympics. Those were interesting.

They had a number of interactive items – an archery simulator, a luge simulator, a couple other simulators. Plus a track simulator – it was just a short section of track but they time you and you can compare your statistics to various Olympians. Beta and Delta raced, and they fell a bit short of Jesse Owens’ times.

The architecture of the museum is such that all the exhibit spaces surround a central atrium. You start by going up the elevator to the top (3 or 4 stories up), then you wind your way down to the bottom in a spiral. There aren’t specific floors, everything just flows down gradually via ramps. Anyway, there are various places that are basically little balconies to look into the atrium. And one wall of the atrium is a very tall screen that displays various Olympians.

Near the end of the tour, they had a display covering what happened to the Israeli delegation during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

After that was a wall of medals from each Olympics, then the tour ended at a movie theater, where they showed a 10-minute film about the hopes and dreams and work that goes into becoming an Olympian. Up until going into the movie theater, we were free to walk wherever, go back and forth between exhibits. But the movie theater is the end of the line. Once you go in there, the exit takes you into the gift shop and then you’re back in the atrium and you’re done.

That took us about 2 hours, so it was noon and we were ready for lunch. I should note that I parked in a parking garage more in downtown. It was a few blocks away from the museum but closer to restaurants. Here is the view from the parking garage. That’s the Pioneer Museum in the background.

We didn’t have a plan, other than let’s walk through downtown and see what restaurant looks good. That did not work so well, as people were hungry and it was hot. So we had to stop and look at our phones to see what restaurant we should aim for. Alpha found a breakfast place, and it had some other things around it, so we headed there.

It looked a bit pricey, and didn’t have a bunch of options, and a wait to be seated, so I checked out the deli next door. Just about as pricey, but a lot of options and no wait. So we went there.

The food was good, portions were large, the only drawback was even though there was no wait to be seated, it did take a while for our food to come out. I’m not sure if that’s because we were a party of 6 or if they make everything by hand so it takes a while or what the reason was. But the waitress was attentive and at the end of the meal Delta told them he gave the place 7 stars out of 5.

Then we went back to the house and relaxed for an hour or two before heading over to Some Wife’s cousin’s house.

PPOBR : Pike’s Peak or Bust Rodeo

Our cousin happened to get tickets to the rodeo for our family and his family. So we spent a couple hours at his house, chatting and having dinner, then we went across town to the rodeo.

This was the first night of the rodeo, I think they were there 4 days or so. We got there just as it was starting, so all the official parking was taken and we had to find a neighboorhood and park on the street in front of someone’s house.

We got in, and got settled in our seats. Well, not exactly our seats, as some other people were in our spots. So we sat down nearby and no one ever came to claim them so we stayed there the whole time.

There were several events, from calf roping to bronco riding to barrel racing and finalizing with the bull riding.

Here’s a bucking horse:

And between each event, there was a commercial break. At the rodeo, this means that a couple people ride around the stadium carrying flags of the sponsor.

A big deal was made about the rodeo clown. He was introduced at the beginning of the night and he did a couple of things for entertainment purposes. But he only did his actual rodeo clown deal at the end of the night for the bull riding.

I don’t recall he had to do much, but he was there. He’s like an insurance policy I guess – most of the time you don’t need him but if you do then he had better be there.

It was about 10:00 when we got out of there, so midnight in Michigan, so we went back and slept well.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

To Be Continued…

The story of our summer vacation starts a few months before our summer vacation, because that is when I bought the plane tickets.

We had been planning on going to Colorado for our vacation, but that depended on our ability to fly out there for a decent price. I had been watching the fares go up and down and up again, but they eventually got down to something reasonable.

I informed Some Wife that it was time to buy plane tickets, and she had a brilliant scheme. It so happened that the nearby grocery store chain which also includes gas stations (Kroger, in case you’re wondering) was having a promotion for 4-times the fuel points for any gift cards. And they have Delta gift cards. So if we bought a bunch of gift cards, then turn around and use them to buy what we were going to buy anyway, that’s free money in the form of a discount at the fuel pump.

My target price was under $300 per ticket, and there are 6 of us. I didn’t want to cut it too close and leave some money on the gift cards, since we fly once every few years, so we aimed to buy $1500-worth of gift cards.

I wanted to buy quickly, before the price changed again, so that evening we went to the store and bought all the Delta gift cards they had, which was I think 8 of the $100 cards. That was not quite enough, so the next morning Some Wife went to another location and bought their cards. They had some $250 cards, so she didn’t have to buy as many there – 2 of the $100 and 2 of the $250.

I’m surprised we didn’t get flagged by some fraud system, either at the grocery store or credit card company, because in my understanding gift cards are one of the main ways scams and laundering happen. But no one stopped us, so we ended up with $1500 over 12 Delta gift cards, so that night after putting the kids to bed (about 9pm), I got ready to use the cards.

Here is how that went.

When checking the flight costs, I had been watching the dates we wanted – a Saturday to Saturday. The price is still good on those dates, so I select it and then am presented with an array of flight options. I am dismayed to see that the only flight that was the price I wanted was leaving about midnight. I am not about to sign the whole family up to being awake the whole night, as some get grumpy about their sleep.

I normally would have checked with other airlines at this point, but we are locked into Delta. So I have to find a plan B.

It takes a few iterations with the fare calendar, because they don’t let you filter your results by “reasonable time of day” for the flight, but I eventually find one that is Wednesday to Tuesday, a few days ahead of our original schedule. I confirm with Some Wife that the new dates are good, and then I start booking those tickets. Select the flight, make sure there’s room on the plane (some of the other options that are a good price have only 2 or 3 seats left), select 6 tickets, enter all the info for each passenger, get the total, so far so good, and go to the payment page.

This is where the plan kicks in. I grab the first gift card off the pile, scratch off the thing that hides the PIN, and enter the information. Good, $100 off. Next one. I enter its information, and am presented with an error message.

Uh-oh.

I try another card, same problem. It’s March in Michigan, and after sunset, so it is cold. But I am sweating.

I start looking around the FAQs and Help Center and forums and anything else that can give me info about how to use Delta gift cards. I get one definite answer (limit 5 gift cards per transaction) and one suggestion (enter the gift card info at the gift card page of the website, not on the payment page).

The limit of 5 gift cards per transaction is not good news. I cancel the purchase of my 6 tickets, hoping that the system really did release them so A) the flight would be just as open and B) the price wouldn’t increase due to a seemingly suddenly popular flight.

This time, I start in a way that seems backwards. I enter the first card’s info in the part of the website for redeeming gift cards. I half expect that it will tell me I already used that one, but I’m glad to see it takes it, and the next, and the next. I’m doing 4 gift cars per transaction to even them out.

I get the 4 gift cards entered, and I have the expected credit, so I move on to applying that to a flight. I find the same flight for the same price, and I book 2 tickets – Some Wife and the youngest child, don’t want both parents on one flight in case I can’t get the kids on the same flight. There’s about a $50 shortfall, which is good as I don’t want anything left on the gift cards. I put that on the credit card, and the booking is completed.

One pair of tickets down, two to go. My sweating has subsided, but I realize I should have opened and scratched off all the gift cards before starting the purchasing process.

Next 4 cards, same flight, me and Gamma. The older two kids are 16 and 18 so they can handle being on a separate flight if need be.

Final 4 cards, and Alpha and Beta get on the same flight too.

At this point, it is midnight. Three hours just to buy some airplane tickets. But I got everyone on the same flight and for the right price, so it was okay.

The plan did work – we got 6000 fuel points, which meant $1 off per gallon for our next 6 fill-ups. At about 15 gallons per fill-up, that’s $90 total we saved by going through the hassle.

To Be Continued…

This is a guide for how to play the game Guillotine. I normally like to link to the official game website, but in this case I could not find a publisher that admits to owning the game, so the best I could do is the rules.

It is a simple game, really. A smidgen of strategy, but more luck of the cards, so you can just play the game. But it is still fun.

Summer is in full swing in Michigan, which for me means two things: black raspberries and fireflies.

First: Black Raspberries

The black raspberries that I associate with summer are the wild type. I don’t know that I’ve had a cultivated variety of black raspberry. But the kind that grow like weeds around here are what I grew up with.

The only problem with them is that they’re small and it takes a lot of picking to get not much of a serving.

But it is the taste of summer.

And second: Fireflies

The fireflies that I associate with summer are the wild type. I don’t know that I’ve seen a tamed variety of firefly. But the kind that grow around here are what I grew up with.

Even though they’re not tame, they don’t really care about people, so you can easily catch them.

But after a couple of seconds, they realize need to be flying again so they take off.

And here are some shots of fireflies in action. I couldn’t persuade my iPhone to keep the shutter open longer, so I had to click whenever I saw a firefly start to glow. Look for the brighter streaks in each photo, streaks because fireflies like to move upwards while they’re glowing.

Both good things, but it seems that the peak of black raspberry and firefly season is also the peak of mosquito season.

With all the hubbub around the falling cost of solar power, I thought I’d look into it. Since there are hidden cost structures for those places that will install systems and rent it to you or no upfront cost but it gets incorporated into you electric bill or whatever other sleight-of-finances they think up, I’m doing this investigation on parts purchase alone.

And this is for the system I would want – full battery so it will work when the grid is down (yes, there are solar power setups that stop working when the grid is down, check that before signing up), no connection to the grid (avoids billing and meter issues, plus simpler and safer), and enough to power the fridge and freezer so we don’t lose any food (not trying to power the whole house).

Load Requirements
We have 3 different fridge/freezer appliances, and I added up the draw on each and the result was 600 watts.

Assuming each might run for about 8 hours a day: 600 watts * 8 hours = 4800 Wh, or 4.8kWh per day.

That’s the draw requirements, now on to solar panel sizing.

Panel Sizing
I need 4800 Wh per day. We don’t have the sunniest location, so I’m being generous by saying I expect 6 hours of sun a day. That’s to keep cost down, not for a decent buffer of solar power. This is going to be a minimally-sized system.

4800 Wh / 6 hours of sun = 800 watts. So I need solar panels that will output 800 watts.

That’s the panel requirements, now on to battery sizing.

Battery Sizing
There’s a balance between battery voltage and inverter availability and there are a few different ways to go here.

In general, 12-volt batteries are cheapest and easiest to obtain. And 12-volt power inverters are cheapest and easiest to obtain.

But 12-volt systems aren’t good for higher power output. They’re fine for a camping fridge or charging phones, but not for houses. You could do it, but you’d have some thick cables to handle the current.

In general, 48-volt inverters are good for houses. But 48-volt batteries are not cheap nor plentiful. You could make a 48-volt battery out of four 12-volt batteries, but then you have to worry about keeping them all balanced. If one battery gets low or goes bad, then it’ll take the others down too.

For my plans, I’m choosing the middle ground – a 24-volt system. It can handle higher loads with moderately-sized cables, and for battery balancing you need to manage pairs of batteries, not quads of batteries.

So I have 4800 kWh per day, and a 24-volt battery system (note: pick solar panels that can make a 24-volt output), so I need to size my batteries. 4800 kWh / 24 volts = 200 amp-hours per day of usage.

If I were to get 200 amp-hours worth of batteries, I could start with a full charge and go one day without sunlight before my fridge would stop working.

But the thing about batteries is that they don’t like being run all the way down. In general, you want double the battery capacity of your expected daily load. And if you want extra days of power (to survive longer with more cloudy days), you would keep adding capacity.

In my case, I’m going for typical use and not having to ride out a multi-day weather event. So 200 Ah * 2 = 400 Ah. I need to buy 400 Ah-worth of batteries.

Other Items
And I also need a power inverter good for at least 600 watts continuous.

One more thing: I need a charge controller. That goes between the solar panels and the batteries, to make sure batteries are managed well and not overcharged. Bad things happen if the batteries are full, the fridge doesn’t need to run so there’s no load, and it’s sunny so the panels keep pouring electrical charge into the batteries.

Prices
Here’s what I got for prices for those components:

• Inverter: $220
• Charge controller: $175
• Solar panels: $600
• Batteries: $1440
• Total: $2435

That was solar system cost, now on to payback rate.

Conclusion
Around here, electricity is about 10 cents/kWh. And this particular load is 4.8 kWh, so that is $0.48 per day that I’m trying to avoid with this system. That works out to $175 per year.

With a system cost of $2435 / $175 per year, that gives me 13.9 years to start coming out ahead with my system.

In general, the panels and inverter and stuff should last that long, except for the batteries. Which, of course, are the most expensive part of the system. The AGM lead-acid batteries I picked for their cheaper entry price will last about 7 years.

So before the 13.9 year payback period is up, I would have to spend $1440 again for another set of batteries, which bumps the payback period up, and then before that period is up, the second set of batteries would expire, requiring a third set, and then once more before we actually get to a point where the system has paid for itself before the batteries expire.

So really, the total cost is $2435 + ($1440 * 3) = $6755. And that’s a 38.6 year payback period. And then the batteries expire shortly after that anyway and you don’t get to turn much of a profit.

If I do ever setup solar power for my house, I will have to do it without a big battery bank.

Based on recent events involving power tools in the barn not working because critters chewed on the cords, today I am listing for you the worst animals to have on your property.

These are listed in order, with the first animal being the worst (most annoying).

• Woodchuck : They seem to have a knack for knowing which items near them are the most important to humans and then damaging them. Such as ignoring the cheaper 25′ extension cord and chewing through only the 100′ extension cord. And digging under the concrete slab floor. And digging behind the car tire so the car gets stuck when I try to move it and I have to get another vehicle to pull it out of the very small ditch. And so on.
• Deer : Deer are very damaging, but only to plants. Especially fruit trees. They are high on this list because their physical range requires so much work to defend against. You can’t just put up any old fence, it has to be high and sturdy.
• Chipmunk : These little guys like to dig. Whether it’s under my brick walkway or through the flowers I just planted, they get just about everywhere. I expect about a 10% loss of any flowers planted because chipmunks can’t help but go through new dirt (they seem attracted to freshly-dug dirt) and they don’t put back any roots they may unearth in the process.
• Raccoon : These are not as annoying as chipmunks – although it was a close call – because they are easier to get. Chipmunks are too small and fast. Raccoons do damage property, but there are fewer of them and they are large and slow. If I kept animals, such as chickens, I would put raccoons above chipmunks, since I know they go after small farmyard animals.
• Canada Goose : Noisy and messy and mean. They don’t specifically damage property like the critters I’ve listed so far, but they could damage you if you let them get settled and they start feeling territorial.
• Mouse : Messy, and they chew holes in things. Not a big deal, except we have a corn stove. I have to keep a tight lid on the corn storage, otherwise we end up finding little stores of corn in weird places, like in someone’s hockey skate that apparently looked inviting to a mouse to use as his pantry.

Note that this list is tailored to the Midwest. I’m sure there are worse things to have milling about the grounds in other places, such as mountain lions or chimpanzees.

Also note that I do not mind having skunks around at all. They avoid people and stay away from my stuff. I’ve never had a problem with them. I’ve run into skunks 3 times in my life, and each time the skunk had skedaddled out of sight by the time I realized it was a skunk and not a large cat.

This is your annual reminder that the term “summer solstice” means “the solstice that occurs during summer”, not “the start of summer”.

It is an astronomical term having to do with the position of the sun relative to the earth, and while it does affect the seasons, it is incorrect to assign June 21 as the start of summer.

It has felt like summer for a few weeks already. What is summer? What is any season? A season is a grouping of days with similar weather features. For example, winter: temperatures are low, plants are dormant. And fall: temperatures decrease, plants lose their foliage. And spring: temperatures increase, plants grow their foliage. And summer: temperatures are high, plants are fruiting/seeding.

From the viewpoint of an observer with no calendar, how would he know when spring ends and summer begins? It’s a fairly slow transition with no defined border, so people have tried to assign that border. But the summer solstice is the wrong border.

The summer solstice has historically had a weather-related association. Think back to the time of Shakespeare. I would hope that you, dear reader, would recall the title of one of his plays (no expectation that you’ll know the plot or characters, just the title): A Midsummer Night’s Dream. When, historically, was the day of the year that was called “midsummer”? The day with the most daylight, of course. A lot of European countries still celebrate Midsummer in late June.

Anyway, my preferred time for summer is the 3-month block of June, July, and August. An acceptable alternative answer is Memorial Day to Labor Day, or perhaps from the first 80-degree day to the first 40-degree day after that, or perhaps from when the first rose bloom appears to when the chrysanthemums start blooming.