Our Excellent Adventures

National Park Service Regional Director Jonathan Jarvis warned in a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that all six occupy former federal land that could revert to the U.S. government if the state fails to keep the parks open.

“Lands conveyed to the State under the Federal Lands to Parks Program must be open for public park and recreation use in perpetuity as a condition of the deed,” Jarvis warned in a June 8 letter to Schwarzenegger made public Wednesday.

The state could also lose future parks funding, Jarvis warned. California has received $286 million from the federal government since 1965 benefiting 67 parks on Schwarzenegger’s closure list, Jarvis said.

The state could also lose future parks funding, Jarvis warned. California has received $286 million from the federal government since 1965 benefiting 67 parks on Schwarzenegger’s closure list, Jarvis said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31693419

The sites are

• Angel Island
• The top of Mount Diablo
• Point Sur State Historic Park
• Fort Ord Dunes (beach)
• Point Mugu State Park (beach)
• Border Fields (beach)

Schwarzenegger has proposed closing 220 state parks to save $143 million. It is our position that maintaining and later re-opening closed parks would be much more expensive than closing them.

I would suspect we will see some if not all the 220 parks closed. The budget deficit is sufficient to basically close down the state. Unfortunately, more that 50% of the state budget comes from income tax with almost 40% coming from less than 2% of the tax payers. That is not a good position for the state as far as revenues are concerned.

We certainly don’t want the Feds to take back the parks they turned over to us. I don’t think we would easily get them back. But even that is better than one situation suggested selling off park properties to private companies.

It is on the web so it must be true.

Chrysler is committed to Sprinter through at least 2011. Fiat does have a similar offering, but since Sprinter is now established and is doing well overall, they may opt to continue that arrangement with Mercedes. Sprinter’s diesel gets Bluetec starting in 2010. http://www.allpar.com/reviews/2010/preview.html

Hopefully the 4×4 full time drive will come to the US also. I have a beautiful brochure from the UK advertising, among other things, that option.

I have added several Mercedes Sprinter video advertisements on the Sprinter reference material page and did a little reorganizing.

Added to Songs around my campfire is Blood on the Risers performed by the West Point Glee Club. For any airborne troops out there this was a classic.

And don’t forget to check out the Just for fun page. The Airline Pilot skit with Foster Brooks and Dean Martin will help justify your decision not to fly but to use the RV on trips.

Next I’ll be updating the Sprinter modifications page. We have a couple of major projects going on now. Totally pulling the refrigerator to remount and add insulation and the addition of new switches on the dashboard replacing those added below the instrument panel and adding more. We should end up with most of those switch blanks having a real switch. Like Brendon, my 8 year old neighbor says, I’ll be playing with my car again.