May 9, 2005: Vehicle gear installation day

Today was a day to do the majority of the work on installing the rest the chase gear in the car. The Jotto desk for the laptop came today, and was a pretty simple install. The base attachment wasn't quite as stable as I had hoped, but a C-clamp and some steel cable from Lowe's fixed the problem. The desk has a swivel arm and adjustable vertical support, so that whoever is operating it from the passenger seat can stay comfortable.

I also was able to make the repairs to the Inspeed anemometer to fix the vibration problem, and now it is back in service. The rotor had been damaged and out of balance after I hit a tree branch with it on the Ranger. I also finished assembling the rear communications/power console - consisting of a 750-watt power inverter, outlet strip/surge protector, XM Satellite Weather data receiver, CB radio, scanner and battery chargers. I direct-wired the power console to a main feeder wire to the battery, so there are no voltage problems now. I will have to test this setup to make sure there are no major interference issues, but for now everything seems to work fine.

As far as the storms are concerned, it's looking like we'll have a lull in the severe weather activity for the first few days of our trip, possibly until as late as Wednesday or Thursday of next week. As always, the conditions can change quickly so we'll be keeping our eyes open. At any rate, our departure date of the 14th still stands, if the Lord wills. We may even leave on the 13th if we can get on the road before 2PM.