Travel time and arriving in California

This sign says it all.  We started out yesterday in Colorado, drove through Utah and Nevada and ended up in California.  I didn't post yesterday because all we had to show for the day was a bunch of photos of the beautiful scenery.  At one point we passed sleeping dinosaurs.  We then entered the arctic, only to be closely followed by the surface of the moon. The country truly is a beautiful space.  For two days we lost ourselves in a Ken Follett classic and the beauty of the world around us.  

I saw tumbleweeds roll across the road, we saw wild horses, we saw fields of cattle grazing.  Our route was US50 and while it was a very good road, at times it was four lane, and others it was only two.  It is dubbed the loneliest road in America and I believe it.  We saw very few cars. There is a booklet that you can get stamps on all the way across, and when you collect 5 the parks service will send you a certificate. Sadly, I only managed 3. The places that have hte stamps were mostly museums and closed when we arrived.  No matter, it was fun all the same. When crossing the Sierras if the sign said slow down to 50, I quickly learned it really meant 30.  There were numerous times that we just didn't know how we would get across the mountain only to be taken on a windy road through a pass.  

I've had friends tease me about how in awe I am of this place, but as a child vacations didn't exist for our family.  I've traveled I80 across from Illinois to California, but never had i gone this route.  If we don't travel any further on this trip, these past three days have been worth it.  

We were to go into Nevada and see George's old friend Wally Lee, but sadly his health took a turn for the worse and we had to pass.  It all worked out in the end because we got to make a few extra visits that we hadn't planned on, but more of that over the next few days.

Since we missed Wally, George decided we should go to Giga Nevada.  We've seen Freemont and Shanghai so why not?  We didn't get as close as we would have liked, and while I was sitting on the side of the road looking up the next address, the Tesla police came and shoed me away.  You can bet we will go to Giga Texas in a few more weeks.

We arrived in Livermore at around 6:30 at night.  The mountains are beautiful, but I didn't like driving through them.  George will drive when necessary, but prefers not to and so far it has all been me.  I'll admit, last night I was a lot grumpy.  It was dark, I was tired, my back ached from driving so rigidly.  We were driving due west so the sun was in my eyes while we had it and the tension was just too much for me.  We ended up staying at some suites place. The bed was soft and inviting, but they really didn't have a restaurant, but just a little bistro. Now I've been trying to stay away from gluten, and sadly, that was really all they had on the menu. In the end I ordered some buffalo wings with the batter removed and the worst tasting olives I've ever had.  

We awoke around 8 the next morning, had breakfast and drove over to see Harry Nelson. For my non-puzzling friends, he had a hand in producing a boatload of puzzles.  A rather brilliant man.  We arrived at 11:15 and spent quite a few hours chatting about puzzles and people we all know.  He was probably as happy to see us as we were to see him.  After a while his son came in and we all spoke for a while longer. We made a nice lunch as Harry is unable to really go out much.  

Very kindly he let me go upstairs and rummage through a rom full of duplicate puzzles.  I filled up 4 boxes to take along for the museum with the promise of more to come in future.  The entire time we were there, I kept handing him puzzles and was surprised to hear that he had a hand in the design, or the invention, or the bringing it to market.  I guess my 'old puzzle people' knowledge isn't as good as I thought.  George and Harry reminisced about when they used to visit each other in the past.  It was a very nice way to spend the morning.

Our next stop was the lego store so I could purchase a gift for a friends daughter.  I also bought myself a monkey set. From here we drove to see our friend Dave Litwin, but my GPS took me to a different friends house. We got back on our way and the GPS told me I could save 5 minutes by taking a different route.  Sure.  Why not?  It took us down the most amazing road.  

We saw the giant redwoods, we saw a family of wild turkeys, we drove through the wiggliest road I've ever been on. The canyon to the right was so deep I couldn't see the bottom.

Eventually we got to Daves and he showed us his puzzle collection and his razor collection before we headed out for dinner.

 It was a great way to end a wonderful day. 

We stayed in a Motel 6 just down the road from dinner. It was the first hotel off the interstate.  OMG! The room was fine.  Cheap and it had hot water and a bed.  But around midnight, Johnny Walker and Peg-Leg-Pete took up occupancy in the room above us.  First they moved all the furniture around, then they stomped back and forth across the floor for an hour.  At 4 am I heard them wake up again from a shout sent by someone in a neighboring room.  Stomp Stomp Stomp.  George and I are convinced it was a traveling meth lab.  I turned the noisy room heater on to try and drown out that noise.  Oh what a night.  

On the 12th day of Christmas

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
12 other puzzlers
David Litwin, Bram Cohen, Eitan Cher, Mr. Yao, Jason Smith, Steve Winter, Vesa Timonen, Peter Wiltshire, Mike Toulouzas, Ayi Li, Wil Strijbos, and Stuart Coffin.

11 Oskar Van Ds
10 Chinnimoto's
9 Robert Stegmann's
8 Jerry Slocum's

7 Eric Fuller's
6 Tony Fisher's
5 Richard Hess'
4 Mr. Fok's
3 Da Yan's
2 Brian Young's
And Stickman in a pine tree

It's day 12 and this little story has come to and end.  I thought the best way to do that would be with 12 final puzzlers!  Links and photos are provided where available.  Go look, go buy, go make sure the designers keep designing and the puzzlers keep puzzling!

Dave Litwin, Geert Hellings

David Litwin is a long time friend.  He's designed and built my collection of elemental puzzles along with a few others over the years.

Bram Cohen, Adam Cowen, Bob Hearn

Bram Cohen in addition to being a computer wiz has had a number of puzzles made by Hanayama as well as being the inspiration for many of Oskar's designs.

Eitan Cher is a young up and coming puzzle designer.  He's currently doing post-graduate work in Chicago but still finds the time to put out a puzzle or two.

Mr. Yao is the man behind Witeden.  He's designed a number of his own puzzles and that number keeps growing.  In the past few months he's put out over 10 new puzzles.

Jason Smith

Jason Smith first brought the helicopter cube to the market.  recently he has been designing a series of deep cut puzzles.

Steve Winter is new to the puzzle building scene.  He specializes in mazes, but has recently designed  few twisty puzzles with a maze built in.

Vesa Timonen has been designing puzzles for a while now that can be found in shops all over the world. He works in all media.

Peter Wiltshire is another relatively newcomer to the world of puzzling.  His Ferris box won the 2012 Jury Prize at IPP.

Peter Wiltshire

Mike Toulouzas builds beauties in wood.  His Judges Gavel won the first prize at IPP in 2011.

Ayi Li is a designer of a number of new twisty puzzles. I love Ayi because like me, he calls his puzzles TOYS!

Wil Strijbos is the dealer of choice for the puzzle world.  One and all go to him for their puzzling fix.

Wil and Tom

And finally...Stuart Coffin. He has got to be the builder of puzzles with the most designs to his name.  As he numbers each design, it is fairly easy to keep track of what he's made.  At IPP this year I picked up number 258 "Octet in F".  That sure is a lot of puzzles!

(AND 12 bloggers blogging (Gabriel, Allard, Kevin, Jerry, Neil, Brian, Oli, Moises, Gunnar, Scott, Tom, and Rox of course!))

Neil Hutchinson and Allard Walker

For a real enjoyable trip through puzzledom, click on the bloggers names above. Some of them you might have seen before  others may be new to you, all are enjoyable reads. This was my originally intended ending, but as I went through all the puzzle designers in the initial write-up of this blog back in December, I realized that not all the bloggers are designers   For this reason, I changed it to the above 12th day, but since we all enjoy reading about puzzles and people, I thought I'd leave it in here for you to get a small bit of extra Christmas cheer!

designer and blogger Scott Elliot

Merry Christmas all!  I hope you enjoyed my little poem this year. I only wish there were more than 12 days of Christmas as I have many many more than 12 puzzlers I'd like to introduce you to.  To do that and learn more, I guess you'll just have to continue reading my ramblings.  The more I do these, the harder they get.  It is becoming more and more difficult to come up with ideas....But next year....well, I'm already thinking ahead now aren't I?


And just for you Mr. Stickman:


On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
12 puzzlers puzzling AND bloggers blogging
11 Oskar inventing
10 Chinny spinning
9 Robert Webbing
8 Jerry Collecting

7 Eric building
6 Tony cutting
5 Richard Hess'
4 Mr. Fok's
3 Da Yan's
2 Brian Young's
And Stickman in a pine tree

(Are there enough verbs in there for you now? I left them out intentionally because I wanted to name names and tell tales!)