After the Yosemite Nationa Park and another night and Groveland we decided to go to the Sequoia Nationa Park to say HALLO to General Sherman tree. The street was very narrow and every 5 miles there was and advice for RVs that there might be some problems doing the whole way. Who cares, I did my driving licence in Italy and there is one important rule, everybody stops for a big car especially if it is a RV coming up a narrow road.

  
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We drove directly from the Sequoia National Park to the Mojave desert at Barstow. The Camping ground wasn’t very nice but after a trip of 260 miles everything was ok and we took some great phots in the evening

The day we visited the Calico Ghost Town. Once the city has 1200 citizen now only 10.

Then we have followed the 15 to Baker and then straight ahead through the desert. Exactly in the middle of the Mojave desert with the next call boxes 20 miles away I had a great idea. Let’s take some pictures. Unfortunately I’ve forgot that a RV is very heavy and it isn’t a good idea to drive it on sand….

There we were, in the middle of the dessert and a RV blocked in the sand of the Mojave desert. We tried to stop some big cars but they didn’t have the power to pull out an RV. Suddenly something big was coming. These two guys had everything to pull us out, I’m sure this wasn’t the first time they did such a thing. After our breakout and on the road again we’ve gone to Pahrump a little town next to Las Vegas

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Next stop LAS VEGAS

Today we were at the Yosemite National Park and believe it or not no clouds no rain and now snow. The sun is shining and we have 73 F.

We spent $20 for two person + RV and we can come and go for one week. We don’t need it but you don’t have a choice. The only camping round with a reasonable price is 40 miles away at Groveland. (There is a place called PJ’s Cafe. The double cheesburger with fries is fantastic. If you pass there take a break and try it.)

The road to the Yosemite National Park is incredible after every turn there is a new fantastic scenic. After travelling along this road at the highest point you can see the entire Yosemite Valley. There were many people but we hadn’t big problems to find a parking space even if our RV isn’t small. We started to walk around along the different trails and took many photos as usual. Here some photo from our trip to Groveland.

And these are at the Yosemite National Park

Day 8 – Yosemite National Park

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We are back on the camping ground next to Groveland. It’s 7 p.m. And the sun is going down. On a radio somewhere around here somebody is listening to soft country songs. Another day of our trip ends.

What a surprise yesterday evening while I was surfing on the internet and downloading my podcasts for my iPod with the Wi-Fi here at the camp ground. Suddenly no page could be loaded anymore and a I’ve been informed by a message that my internet access has been block because my pc might have been infected by malware or a virus. 100% not possible!

My mobile device was still connected to the internet so I started to find a way how I can avoid this block. Maybe it is a talent of the Microsoft MVPs or it is the reason why we are MVPs. We never give up and we search always for a solution.

In this case the solution was very easy. I changed my mac address. On windows you can change it in the registry or by downloading and execute Macmakeup. (http://www.gorlani.com/publicprj/macmakeup/macmakeup.asp)

So be carefull. Free Wi-Fi doesn’t mean that you can use it completely free

The bad weather is very annoying. We decided to go on the Interstate 5 and go straight ahead to the south. Now we are next to Sacramento and leaving in a few minutes to go 150 miles southern to the Yosemite National park. The forecast is predicting 68° F and a sunny day for tomorrow. Maybe finally we reach the sun.

Crescent City to Sacremento: Crescent City – Mount Shasta City(Day 5) Mount Sahsta – Placerville (Day 6)

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Sacremento to Groeland (Yosemite Park) (day 7)

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PS: If you want to check some of my pictures I’m taking long the road check out my Facebook profile and join my network.

Creating my blog post is quite easy with the Windows Live Writer. I don’t need an internet connection to create a post. Start the Windows Live Writer and write. Of the day photos of  taken with my Canon Ixus 750 can be embedded directly in the post through the incorporated flash-card reader of my laptop. But obviously you still need an internet connection to post online and this is why America is great. Most of the RV and camping grounds offer free Wi-Fi. Even the motels advertise with free Wi-Fi. The most important thing by choosing your RV space on the camping grounds is that it isn’t too far away from the Wi-Fi receiver. But if you don’t want to stay at a RV camping ground, just drive next to it and you can send you post online.

Another reason why I need an internet connection is called Facebook. I use Facebook to store my photos online and let everybody know that there are new photos and where I’m right now. The people than comment my photos and ask me things like “Why aren’t there sunny photos?” “Because it’s raining since we leave Seattle but we are going southern to avoid this English weather”. This sort of connectivity and interaction is great and I really love it. Thanks to the Facebook2Writer Plugin I can access my photos I uploaded and use them in my posts. But Facebook doesn’t only show my new photos, it shows every post of this blog directly after I publish it to everybody in my network. The pluging I’m using is called Wordbook and is for WordPress only.

A plugin which I really love for the Windows Live Writer is the Polaroid plugin. It’s really simple to use. Choose the photo on your hard disc and the pluging creates a Polaroid version. If you want you can even add a caption text and tilt it. Unfortunately there is only the Polaroid skin and no link to the source file. A Postcard skin wouldn’t be bad “Greetings from California”.

If you don’t want to carry your laptop with you on your trip you can use an USB stick or an USB device like an iPod to install the Windows Live Writer portable. (Sorry there is no windows mobile version of the Windows Live Writer) It doesn’t weight much and you can use the Windows Live writer with all your pluging at every internet point around the world. Some weeks ago there was the release of version 2 but I still don’t have the time to test itbut maybe you can. Please notice that this is not an official Microsoft product. Complains have to be addressed to the author of the version.

Stephan Sacramento, CA, USA

Day 4. Finally we arrived at California. It was snowing and raining the whole trip. It is not really warm but it’s not snowing and there are no penguins walking around, good job Arnold!

Let start this blog post with a typical song.

The rule of free Wi-Fi

First rule: 90% of the times you need an extra password even if nobody else is there.

Second rule: If they told you at the office that there is Wi-Fi everywhere, don’t believe it. Always ask for a place next to the office, because this is where the wi-fi router is.

Third rule: Most of the camping grounds close at 4 p.m. This is not a problem, because you can do sign in later and pay the next morning, but doing this way you don’t get the password for the wi-fi.

Our trip of Day 3 & 4

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Unfortunately I can’t update the map button on the top because Google maps can’t manage all the GPS data. Maybe we can fix it later. I’m going on to publish the day trips and maybe when everything is over there will be a overall map.

We are next to the southern boarder of Washington. We started north from Seattle at Concrete and finally arrived near Raymond at South Bend.

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What a night. It rains the whole night and even now 8 a.m. it is still raining. The temperature is very low, maybe it will snow today. Time to go to the south.

Wilfried didn’t bring his laptop. The only way for both to blog is my laptop. I setup a second user account to avoid confusion and save the privacy. The problem was, that we don’t have an internet connection and without an internet connection you can’t setup the Windows Live Writer. Even if you already have a installed account.

Scenario:

John is a blogger and he writes on 10 blogs. One day he have some problems and have to reinstall his pc. After installing Windows he installs the Windows Live Writer and starts to setup the different blogs and re-set all the special configurations he create for every blog. In some blogs John doesn’t like to create a thumbnail and a link to the original file. In other blogs he doesn’t use the special effects for the photos.

John is very shy so he doesn’t tell me how long he configured his pc, but he was very lucky because his Internet connection works the whole day. I’m pretty sure that John prefer some sort of setup files he can simply double-click and everything is like it was before. For security reasons a password control should be implemented as well.

I have to go now, we are leaving Grandy Creek soon and I have to take a shower before we start our trip to the south.

Stephan, Grandy Creek, WA, USA

The MVP Summit 2008 was awesome! You probably might have noticed that I didn’t released any blog post since I arrived at Seattle. The reason is quite simple, I didn’t have the time. I met so many MVPs from other countries that I didn’t find the time to blog. Fortunately Wilfried need only a few hours to sleep and he passed many nights to write his German blog posts. He is becoming a real blogger . Why mixing up German and English? It’s quite simple, German guys in USA.

How was Redmond? The Microsoft Campus is great and I really like the small offices and the kitchens where you can take coffee and cold drinks. The most exciting experience at Microsoft was by sure meeting Scott Lovegrove (is is really VERY British ) and obviously the Windows Live Writer Developer Team (Charles, Joe, Brandon and Becky) and talking about the Windows Live Writer and its future. Unfortunately everything is under NDA (Microsoft Secret) and if I tell anybody only one thing they send the Microsoft Terminator to kill me.

After three days of MVP Summit we left Seattle at 2 p.m. and get our coach.

We left Seattle to the north and go to Concrete / Grandy Creek. I’m writing you from the KOA Camping place. Some words from the catalogue:

Enjoy a beautiful natural setting at the base of Moint Baker with easy access to North Cascades National Park and Grandy Creek. Take a day trip to Bellingham, the San Juan Islands or British Columbia – the beautiful Northwest is at your disposal. This newly redesigned campground features long pull thus as well as tents and Kamping Kabins.

Probably we are the only one on this camping ground and this is great. We have the whole beautiful nature for us. They even have free Wi-Fi but only at the office building. It’s not far away. Maybe 150 ft but the signal is very poor and we gave up to download our E-Mails. This place is very different from the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, no Wi-Fi, No TV Signal (by air), no mobile phone (we have now US numbers ask for them if you want) no people.

Blogging is the only thing we can do this evening. God bless the Windows Live Writer.

Stephan, Grandy Creek, WA, USA

What a plane! The Boing 747 is really very big. I’m sitting on 48H, it’s a place next to the corridor but the seats are not very comfortable so I have the option to expand my legs. I took some photos during the flight. Stil 4 hours to go….