New rack for the truck - light mounting, motorized fold-over antenna

I am taking a class this quarter called "Custom Production". Basically the class is to come up with an idea and go through the design process and production process on an individual, non-manufacturing basis. Boy, what a great class to take advantage of! If you read my blog enough you'll notice a few other projects I have done or am working on (or have worked on that are on hold - IE: the amplifier). This is one type of class project I really take to. This quarter is no different.

Intro to the idea and original problem:

I sort of had an idea early on, in fact before the end of last quarter. When I was on my snowboarding adventure (out in the big blizzard) I had my strobe light running (amber caution light) for better visibility . I realized the light I have isn't all that powerful. It is a North American Signal Company DFS350MX-A - the smallest one they make.

I am trained by and registered with the National Weather Service for storm spotting (as part of my public service in Ham radio, it's a lot of fun - but I will say that I am not a storm chaser, although I do that for fun too). So, I use the strobe when I am out and about watching the weather as well. The big blizzard just made me realize how tiny it really was - not good if I stop on the side of the road in heavy rain, I wouldn't be visible until someone got real close.

That said, I don't have a place to mount a good light on the truck. Magnet mount lights are great, but they are for temporary use. My 350 is a magnet mount, but I still hard-wired it to a switch on the dashboard. It is not a well-mounted setup.

For my next light I am considering getting a bolt-on of some kind, probably a 650 tall series (again, NA Sig Co - they do make some well-built lights). The problem here is I don't want to bolt anything to the truck. I don't like making holes in the body anywhere that is visible. I only make holes for what I need to make a hole for - such as running wire through the firewall or out the back of the cab to the rear for power or coax for an antenna.

The idea I came up with is to make a rack that goes behind the window of the cab to serve as a mounting point. I guess they are called both "back racks" and "headache racks". I don't know what to call it, so I'll just call it a "rack".

Further advancing of the idea, more uses:

In my thinking I came up with the idea to mount my Diamond SG-7900A dual band antenna to the rack as well. It is currently on a magnet mount and the truck doesn't move without it hehehe.

I have had a couple situations where the antenna has come off - I hit a fallen branch after a storm. It would be best to permanently mount the antenna to something solid, something that wont break or let loose.

The rack is absolutely perfect for this! In fact, I can make it work for me even better. One thing I hate to do is get out of the truck and monkey around getting to the antenna to fold it back when I go in to parking garages. I have avoided parking garages as much as I possibly can because of this. The truck is a pain in the butt to move around inside a garage to begin with, but having things that you need to take down just to park in one in the first place adds to the inconvenience.

The solution - make a motorized fold-over base! Think about it - have a circuit set up so I can push a button in the cab to raise and lower the antenna. That would be awesome!

I like to off-road. When I get the chance I always enjoy a little 4-wheelin'. What's an off-road truck without off road lights? Again, the rack to the rescue! It is a perfect place to mount over-head lighting.

So, this is what the project is: a rack that sits behind the window and a little higher than the cab so I can mount a light and put a motorized antenna mount on.

Rack theory and design:

When I was looking in to the design of these racks they all mount to the top of the bed rails. This is all well and good, but in my case I have a cap on there. I don't have access to the bed rails to make that kind of setup work in the same way.

So, I looked at the truck and was thinking about different ways to mount the rack. I looked at bolting it to the back of the cab (the body itself) or the front of the bed (again, the body itself ). This would require gaining access to either side - the easiest way to do that is to take the bed off. I had to do that when I put my body lift on and I would rather avoid that process - it takes a while to do it right.

I noticed there are holes on the frame - right between the bed and the cab. So, I am going to try and make these holes work for my rack. This means the main attaching point will be all the way down on the frame. The issue with that is the height of the mount is too tall and the distance between the bed and cab restricts the size of material for the mount such that it would be too flexible. With the antenna on there the rack would probably move so much it would hit the cab and bed, not to mention how much it would vibrate going down the road.

I'll need to add in some support above the frame - preferably to the front bed rail. Since the cap is on there I'll have to make a bracket/clamp that is thin enough to slip under the rubber seal. This shouldn't be a problem.

I decided to make a cardboard mock-up of the rack so I had a full-size model to work with in conjunction with the truck to test the fit and finish.


Here you can see the beginnings of my mock-up. The pencil lines are a little faint on there. I measured the cab and it is around 70" wide at the bottom of the window and tapers to 55" wide at the roof. The rack should fit the contour of the taper as well as rest high enough off the cap so it won't restrict the cap's movement when I open it as well as provide an unobstructed view of the bed lights and tail light on the roof. That means the bottom of the top bar will lie at least even with the roof. I will have to play around with some other dimensions to see what they would be like before I settle on a width, though - I want to make sure the rack "fits" right.

The motor there is what I was originally going to use for the fold-over antenna mount. It has about a 150:1 reduction on it, lots of torque but not much speed. I will explain my troubles with the antenna mount design in a bit.

The antenna pictured there is the actual one that will be mounted on the rack.

Here the mock-up is resting up on the truck to show where it is going and the relative size. The view from the front of the truck shows the height best, although it will actually be a bit higher - the bottom won't be level with the top of the cap.





Antenna mount theory and design:


The antenna mount is the most challenging aspect of this whole project. There aren't any antenna mounts on the market that I have ever come across in my 7 years of being a Ham radio nut . The closest thing out there is the Diamond K9000 series motorized mounts. They aren't the greatest products made, several people have had problems with their durability. However, the bigger issue for me is the max antenna size rating is 45" - my SG-7900A is 62.5" - WAY over the limit.

So, I am stuck with needing to make my own. That isn't a bad thing at all - it adds to my creativity with the project and sense of accomplishment once it is done. The theory behind my idea is to have a motor with enough torque to drive a worm gear or a lead screw that would be strong enough to support the wind loading of an antenna 60 some inches tall going down the road at highway speeds.

I would say I am over-engineering this one just a bit, but I am working with materials I have easily accessible. The motor that I was originally going to use, as shown in a previous picture, has a 150:1 gear reduction. For driving a low reduction worm gear this would be fine. I could also mount the motor 90 degrees to the axis of rotation for the antenna since the worm gear would have to change the direction of rotation 90 degrees from the rotation of the motor output shaft. Because the motor has a flat pancake shape that would work nicely. The box to house the mechanism would be fairly large, but it would not be overly tall.

The problem I came across with this setup is I don't have a worm gear set to use for the project. I looked around online real quick and came to the conclusion that I was going to need to spend a lot of money on the gears to get ones that would be adequate for my application. I don't have a whole lot of money to spend, so I decided to change my approach.

My next idea was to use a lead screw. If you don't know what that is, basically a long bolt acts as the driving device against a nut. Either the nut or the screw can be driven, the one not driven is anchored so it wont rotate. The advantage of this setup is you get a tremendous amount of push/pull power.

Another advantage of this is I can make or purchase relatively easily (a trip to the hardware store and a couple bucks) I can have a suitable screw/nut. However, a disadvantage I ran in to is the screw would have to mount in-line with the motor shaft. That flat pancake motor/gearbox would soon get pretty tall.

The even bigger disadvantage, though, is the time it would take to move. The 150:1 reduction on the motor left me with 26RPM's. If you do the math, on a 3/8"x16 screw and 2" of movable distance the time it would take to go through one cycle (up or down) would be about 22 seconds. That means it would take 22 seconds for the antenna to go up or to lay it back. I don't know about you, but I don't feel like hanging around for 22 seconds for an antenna to go up and down!

Since the motor's RPM's are set, the only way to cheaply change the time is to change the pitch of the lead screw. Even still, the time isn't going to change too dramatically - we're only talking a difference of about 10-12 rotations over the length of that screw.

Luckily I got another motor to use instead. This one has a gearbox on it and runs at 88RPM's at 12 volts. This is a large improvement over the 26RPM's of the other one.

At the same 3/8"x16 screw the time with the new motor is about 15 seconds. This is a big improvement over the 22 seconds before, but still... I don't want to wait around for 15 seconds for my antenna to go up and down.

I went to the tool room and scrounged around looking for a tap and die set. I got one and found tap for a 3/4"x9 thread, the lowest pitch I could find in there. A 3/4" screw is pretty big, though. Considering the room the motor will take up to begin with I think the screw size is a negligible dimension. I am making this all from scratch anyway, so I can make it work.

With the 9 pitch screw I knocked the cycle time down to just under 12.5 seconds. This is still a decently long time, but it's the best I can do. I think I can live with it!

The differences between the worm gear approach and the lead screw approach is that the worm gear transfers the plane of rotation 90 degrees from the plane of the output shaft on the motor. In my case with the antenna mount, the motor would lie 90 degrees from the direction the antenna rotates - in line with the truck, front to back. The lead screw approach uses a motion parallel to the motor output shaft. Basically, what you are driving (in my case a threaded insert on a lever that the antenna mount is attached to) is being driven linearly - in a straight line, not rotary - a set radius about an axis. The threaded insert on the lever will move exactly in the same line as the output shaft on the gearbox. It is still possible to drive a rotational device in a linear fashion, however you loose the linear force and speed.

Did I loose you yet? Basically, driving the antenna to rotate up and down with a lead screw means the speed of rotation is non-linear - the speed accelerates and decelerates as the angle of rotation increases/decreases. Since my antenna is just going up and down I don't think this is a problem. As long as the antenna goes up and down and does so in a reasonable amount of time I don't care.

Next issue. Because the speed is not constant I wanted to balance it so at least it is symmetrical. This lead me to place the axis of rotation of the lever that the antenna mount is attached to half way between the high and low points of the screw. Then, maintain a 45deg angle between the driven side of the lever and the screw on both the high and low points. If you add that up (45deg at both ends) you get 90deg, a perfect right angle.

Because of the layout of the motor and gearbox I have I was perplexed by where to place the screw drive mechanism in relation to the motor. The lever has to rotate in line with the shaft, so there were only a couple ways that it could be mounted to achieve that relationship. After a lunch break I figured out how to do it in a way that makes the most sense - lay the motor/gearbox on it's side and mount the lever 90deg to the screw in a vertical configuration.

Finalizing the designs:


The next process is to finalize the design - work out a few bugs. The ideas and design concepts are there, now I need to tie them together and make them work with the processes and tools I have available.

We don't have a good way to bend tubing. Because of this I am going to cut and weld the tubes for the rack instead of bend them. This will add to the care I need to take in laying out the parts and welding the parts, but it is the easiest way to make it work.

The box to fit the fold-over mechanism needs to be created. Once I get the dimensions of everything with the device I can work on the box. One more design issue I have is to seal the box from the elements. This means there will have to be a round plate that rotates with the antenna, or a rubber sheet. I like the plate idea best - it will be the most durable.

The box will lie in the center of the top tube of the rack. There will be two top tubes welded to the fold-over box instead of one going all the way through. Another benefit of this approach is that the length of good tubing I need for the top tube is cut in half. I can have two good short pieces rather than trying to find one good long one.

Continuing the project:

I am still working on the bugs with this. I need to have plans and a timeline of when this is to be completed. That will be the task in the next couple days. I hope to have the plans and most of the timeline done by the end of the weekend so I can go in Monday and start the fabrication process.

I will post more pictures and drawings as I get to that point. I have a couple pages of ideas sketching, Ill scan those here and post them later.

Neat day today - EWI, Honda ELP

I had the opportunity to go on a couple tours here in Ohio. The program I am in at OSU is Technology Education and the OTEA (Ohio Technology Education Association) was having their annual spring quarter conference here in Columbus. One of the professors in our program at OSU opened the organization's tours up to the students to fill in a few open spots, so I was able to get in there. Boy am I glad I did!

The first place we went to is the Edison Welding Institute (EWI). They are one of two organizations in the world that are as specialized as they are in materials joining technology. They do work for customers, but the main focus of the organization is research and application of welding technologies. Out of 62 known welding technologies they have the capability to implement 58 of those in-house. Pretty amazing!

The first thing we saw on the tour is their strength testing lab. They have hydraulic presses that can apply up to 100,000lbs of force to a specimen. Along with very sensitive sensors and computer technology they can monitor just about everything in regard to strength testing - torque, compression, tension, fatigue, etc.

Then we moved to the main production floor. They have a LOT of space in there, and each area is not enclosed - the only enclosures they have are the machines and blue light-filtration curtains. You normally think of welding machines as being portable units either on a cart or carried, or if you have seen large-scale industrial welding then you have seen the boxes either trailer mounted or locked down in a fabrication facility. Well, have you ever seen a welding machine the size of a small kitchen in a house? How about a welder that is so big you can drive a semi truck through? Then, they had MIG welders with wire the size of a hair. Not only do they do heavy-duty welding, but they also do welding on a "micro" scale. There were some pretty amazing operations at EWI!

After a lunch break and meeting up at the conference location we re-joined for the tour at Honda ELP (East Liberty Plant). This was a treat as well. I have been through the Anna, OH plant before so I had an idea of what to expect.

I e-mailed a good friend of mine, Steve KA1VHF, yesterday (who works on automation/control stuff like PLC's and such at the Marysville plant) and got some inside information there. Boy am I glad I contacted him! He said to be sure to keep my head up, as long as I was watching where I was going occasionally hehe. Not only does the production floor of the ELP have a "production floor" with the main activity... they have another 1, 2, 3, 4, and probably 5 or 6 in some areas, levels above and below the floor! There is so much going on it is impossible to see it all in one walk-through.

They have automatic guided vehicles on the main floor (basically robots that drive stuff around). These are the first things we saw going in. They carry parts and materials around the floor - it is almost like an automated conveyor belt, except they don't have one place they go - they can be programmed to take anything anywhere. They travel right down the isles, no separate tracks or paths, so you have to "share the road". One thing I want to point out here is they don't just have a few of these. There are TONS! Every few minutes we would have to pause for one of these things to go driving by. They don't go fast, just a normal walking speed I would say.

The choreography of production was amazing. I made the comment to our tour guide that "It's amazing how someone figured out how to do all of this". It is a different world inside. I can't think of a better example of modern production technology. I am sure there are processes out there in other companies that rival some of the ones at Honda, but to combine the mass of technology and mass quantity production you can't beat Honda.

It is one thing to teach people to play music. You have a conductor standing in front of an orchestra keeping everyone synchronized. What happens when you add machines, robots, non-stop assembly lines, and the like, to the mix? Can you still play on the same note? Go to Honda and watch it in action. You'll be blown away!

So, thats it for my "neat" day. I sure am glad I had the opportunity to go. Any time something like this comes up I will try and jump on it. No two places will be alike, even withen the same company . Plus, I am still trying to figure out what I want to do for a living once I get out of school. Everything I see is something else to experience and consider.

Making a rain fly for a tent

I have an old Lake-N'-Trail tent, I am not sure what model it is but it is said to be for 2 people. I don't think it ever had a rain fly. The past several times I have had it out I have used a tarp to keep dry. This works, but it adds weight and having a fly that doesn't "fit" adds to the complexity of set-up.


Tear-down June 07' ARRL VHF contest EM89 stop, that's me by the tent.

What I have decided to do is to use Visqueen, a type of plastic sheet, to make my own custom fly. I had access to some so I didn't have to buy any materials for the project.

The first chore was to figure out the design. I want enough space between the fly and the tent that the two won't touch. The Visqueen comes on a roll and unfolds to 10' wide, so I wanted to try and use this dimension as full as I could so I would minimise waste.

I found out the real dimension of the width is not exactly 10' - it is 9'10". This wasn't too big of a deal, in fact it needed to be trimmed down anyway.

My design is basically just like the tent is - a triangular prism. Only, I decided to bring the front and back out to a point rather than a blunt edge. The theory here is less wind loading. Angles guide air up and over an object, rather than plow straight in to it. My point is supposed to be 2' out from the plane of the side.

I also added some length in front of the tent, 2.5' to be exact, for a little extra room. The tent is 6.5' so I went with 8' for the length. That way I have some space for things outside of the tent - boots, backpack, whatever I want to stick out there for more room inside.

Here you can see the front and back laid out. The big hunk folded up is the main top part.



One BIG issue with the Visqueen is it is a plastic - it doesn't breathe like fabrics do. This means some ventilation is necessary. Plastic makes a GREAT water barrier, but it blocks air too!

Joining the plastic parts together was another big issue. I tried silicon caulk first as I had some and thought it might work. Wrong. It makes a great sealer, but it doesn't adhere well - especially to plastic. So I tried some medium CA without much confidence. All it did was get the plastic wet with glue, there was nothing for it to soak in to and the chemicals wouldn't combine with the plastic.

I went to the hardware store and got two kinds of contact cement. The first kind didn't work. It was about like the caulk I tried to use. So, I didn't even bother opening the second.

One guy on the backpacker.com forums said to try and melt the pieces together with a soldering iron. I gave this a try and it works! The plastic has to tear in order for it to come apart, just like a good weld on steel. I noticed the melting makes the plastic a bit thin, though, so I am sure it weakens it to some extent. I will have to experiment with it to see how well it holds up.



This is what it looks like in 3D. I don't have the door or any ventilation holes yet, but you can get an idea of what it will look like. Once I get it done and set up it will tighten up and take shape better.

Winter Driving - Be More "Aware"

If you haven't read or flipped through my previous post on the big Blizzard go back and do so. This is directly related to my experiences then - and driving in general.

I wish to offer some critical advice for anyone venturing out in winter weather, and regular every-day driving at that. This is what they DON'T teach you in drivers-ed!

I don't consider myself an "expert" driver, I consider myself an "aware" driver. Even the most cautious drivers can end up in the ditch, though here are some tips to help you become more "aware" as well. Read on.

I know people in snow-prone regions (Mentor, OH, Buffalo, NY, Michigan, as well as the Rockey Mountains and the Pocific North-West) are "used" to this kind of weather. For the rest of us, it isn't often we see weather like this. I also know that the majority of drivers out there DON'T KNOW their vehicles. It is one thing to get in a car, push the gas and break petals, and turn the steering wheel, and get the car to go where you want it to go. However, driving in snow (and wet pavement at times) is totally different. You don't have traction like you do on dry pavement. All the normal sounds and vibrations have changed.

I'll use myself as an example here because I can't figure out how to describe my point otherwise. When I am in my truck I KNOW what it feels like. I KNOW what it sounds like. I KNOW when I turn the steering wheel a certain amount at a certain speed how much the truck should move (both in turning and leaning - g-forces). I KNOW the rumble of the tires, the clunking of the driveshaft and U-joints, the rubbing of the tires in the wheel wells if I cut the wheel hard when I am backing up. I know my truck like the back of my hand. When something is wrong I can SENSE it. Whether it be a pebble stuck in a tire, a worn bearing, an off-ballance tire, whatever. I know what some problems feel like because I have felt them before and I understand the reasoning behind why a part was making a noise or vibrating a certain way.

The average person does not pay attention in detail to their vehicle. Therefore, when something is wrong, like a worn out part, they won't realize there is a problem until there is really a PROBLEM.

When it comes to traction on the road, people don't understand it in the SAME way. They take it for granted that you push the gas petal down and the car moves, turn the wheel and the car turns. This is where people get in to trouble in the winter. The laws of physics aren't the same! When your car slides you need to account for that, correct it, and regain traction. If you don't understand how to physically do this and freak out you loose control and end up in the ditch - like numerous people in the previous pictures.

Advice: LEARN YOUR VEHICLE! Pay attention to what it is TELLING you. Learn how it feels. Learn how it sounds. Take it out to an open parking lot in the winter and slide around. Do a few donuts. Learn what the vehicle feels like when you DON'T have control. Learn how much to push the gas petal and how far to turn the steering wheel to correct a slide. Every mistake you make there is one you are less likely to make on the road when you could get hurt or hurt someone else. You are the person driving and ONLY you can have control. The person you are talking to on the phone, the person sitting next to you, or in the back seat, can't TELL you how - you have to feel it and know for yourself. Keep in mind to keep it slow! The slower you go the more reaction time you have and the LESS likely you are to have a problem. Above all - don't get overly confident. The minute you get too confident you let your gaurd down and get in to trouble.

Snowbaording Adventure - Blizzard March 7-8 ,2008, Mad River Mountain

I would have posted this sooner but I ran in to some problems uploading pictures here. I just tried it again and it worked! Here's the big story:





When I heard we were getting so much snow I just had to go snowboarding. My half-sister snowbaords also, so I figured we would make an adventure out of it and go together. That meant I had to drive back to Dayton from Columbus to get her.

Saturday was the best day for us to go, and with the big blizzard blowing I needed to allow sufficient time to get to Dayton. I decided to leave Friday night. I waited for the gap between the blows and took off - only to hit the second round head on. There wasn't much of a gap in the storm.

I left Columbus about 9:30pm. Needless to say, it was dark. The roads were totally snow covered, the wind was blowing 30 mph, and it was snowing pretty good. I was by myself so I didn't get any pictures of this but it was the start of the adventure!

I got to Dayton around 11:30pm, in only about 2 hours - about a half an hour longer than it normally takes. When I pulled in the driveway there was several inches of snow so I fired up the tractor and cleared it all off - as well as pushed the snow my dad plowed off earlier in the evening further away from the driveway so we would have room to clear off the snow to come over night.

I got up around 7am to check out the snow. I thought we might go to the day session at Mad River Mountain (ok, it's not a mountain it is a hill - just with a few ski lifts to get back up hehe). I was still tired and I knew my half sister was not going to get out of bed that early so I figured we would go to the afternoon session - 4:00-9:30pm - and went back to bed.

I got back up around 10-11 and plowed the driveway agian. This time there was about 6" of snow on the driveway. This was a good sign - for snowboarding that is. The more snow the better!

After driving to Dayton the night before I knew I needed to allow extra time to get there. I thought 2 hours should give us enough time, so our target departure time was 2:00pm. We happened to time leaving with the last heavy dumping of snow.

I had my half sister take the pictures while I drove - I wanted this one WELL DOCUMENTED! It isn't often here in Ohio that we get snow like this, and it isn't often that the opportunity arises to take advantage of the snow and go snowboarding. That said - we had some serious battling of Mother Nature to do before we could have fun.

This is what we were looking at getting on I-675 North at Route 48, exit 4. Slow traffic and lots of snow! The cars off in the distance are on the on-ramp, the guard rail is on rt.48.











I-675 was moving, but slowly and it was 1 lane. In a few spots the snow was several inches deep on each side of the one lane. In these conditions you wonder why people still get on the road in a car. A 4 wheel drive truck really helps out in these conditions!









The visibility really wasn't THAT bad on 675. You could see for a good 1/2 mile. The snow on the road made it impossible to see the lines, so you had to navigate by the difference in elevation between the roadway and the ditches on each side. The visibility issue wasn't so good once we got on Rt. 4 and on to Rt. 68. Here is a shot not too long after we got on Rt. 4:



I would say that is less than 1/4 mile visibility, wouldn't you? If this was night time it would be a whole different ballgame though!


Rt. 68:



One of our landmarks along the trek is downtown Urbana. They have a neat statue sitting in the middle of Rt. 68. I am not quite sure what it is for, I have never looked at it other than passing it before. There is a round-a-bout there too. We know we are withen about 15 minutes of getting to Mad River Mountain once we hit this point. This time it was a little different.



As we passed through Urbana we saw these guys out on a snowmobile. It looks like a lot of fun! I haven't been on one for about 15 years - my granparents had a couple up in Baudette, MN, when I was a kid. I don't think this one had been running in quite some time - it was puffing out a lot of smoke.



We were looking for a place to get some food before we hit the slopes. Unfortunately all the fast food places were closed. I guess they close down for snow emergencies hehehe. Now we know! So, we stopped by a Shell gas station about 5-10 miles north of Urbana and settled on some junk food. We happened to have this guy come fill up his snow mobile when we were leaving. You DEFINATELY don't see this in Ohio much! You see it all the time up North (Minnesota, Wisconsin), but Ohio?



This is a little back road we take off of Rt. 68. It is about a mile north of the Shell station, County Road 5 I believe? Anywho, major white-out here.



We didn't get any other real exciting pictures before we got there. It snowed all the way there. We were driving in the tail end of the storm so there wasn't much left. When we got our lift tickets the snow stopped. Shortly after our arrival the clouds broke and the sun came out. This was around 5:30pm or so. It stayed clear the rest of the evening. We even caught the sun setting from the top of the hill. I didn't have the camera on me, so no pictures of that. I don't like to carry my camera on the slopes - if I fall it could break.

I came back out to the truck later in the evening, around 7:00 or so, and got a few pictures of the slopes. I did a 5 sequence shot at 2 different exposures. This one was at least 3-4 seconds of exposure.



The drive home was uneventful. It was too dark for the camera to get any decent pictures, the few we do have are extremely blurry (hey, we were moving down the road and the camera wanted a 1/8sec shutter speed - if I went to manual mode and set it to 1/60th to cure the blur there wouldn't be enough light). The roads were better but still snow covered. The plows had been out in force clearing the roads. Rt. 68 was the worst, but no issues there. The first part of I-675 was also not real clear, but as we drove south the conditions got much better. In fact, we were all the way down on pavement in spots.

So that's it for the Great Adventure! I hope you enjoyed the story and the pictures. This only does the adventure partial justice, however. To be there and experience what we did was a truly unique experience!