RV Travels With Huggy

After quite a bit of looking around I finally went ahead and ordered the new camera. That Nikor 18 - 200mm DX VR lens is almost impossible to get by itself. I did find one place that might have had one to sell but they were asking $1200 for it! I guess Nikon is selling almost all they can (or choose to) make on the D2 and D200 cameras. I found the D200 with that lens at B&H Photo in New York for $2250. They offered a Tiffen UV filter at a good price and I don't have any that are large enough (72mm) to cover that lens, so I added the filter. I know that store has a good reputation so I was comfortable buying through them. I did pay a bit extra for UPS 2-day shipping so hope it will arrive Monday. If not it will be for sure on Tuesday. I thought about getting a D80 camera but am not sure I could get it with that lens and I would have to replace all of my memory cards. The D70 and D200 use Compact Flash (CF) cards while the D80 uses the Secure Digital (SD) size. There is a difference of a few hundred dollars in the camera price but it would cost more than that to replace the dozen or so CF cards I have with SD cards.

We are back to our more normal winter weather pattern of rain but it is warmer than it had been. The temperature today is supposed to be around 50F with over night lows close to 40. There will probably also be some rain although yesterday was beautiful and rain has not started yet so far today. It is not like winter was while I was in Arizona but I did get an email note from friends who are in Yuma and there was one night last week when it got down to 33 there and they said it had been something like 17 the week before in Indio, CA while they were there. Indio is next door to Palm Springs, in the desert east of LA.

Patti and I have kept busy. Yesterday we went to an open house at the new cancer treatment center at our local hospital and I have a couple of photos that I may post when I get the chance to get them ready. We are driving her diesel powered VW a bit more than in the past as the price for diesel fuel seems to be going down. It is about as low as the price for regular gasoline at one local source, at $2.429/gallon. My Saturn is scheduled to go into the shop to have it's rear brakes serviced next week. I have been leaving the Miata parked under cover most of the time but if the weather really does improve it might well be time to get it out and use it more. I probably won't take the top down yet, though. I may sell my little scooter to help pay for the new camera and since I am not using it very much. I have owned it over a year and a half and only put about 300 miles on it. I tend to drive the Miata more when the weather is good and the scooter is only a one person vehicle. Patti doesn't ride bicycles so isn't likely going to try a powered scooter. Anyone close to Mt. Vernon who might be interested in a very low mileage Honda gas miser?

I hope the new camera will arrive early in the week, so I should have some news to post by about mid-week. I will try to do better than once a week in the future but I sure seem to be keeping busy with other things. And I still have a lot more house cleaning out to do.

Edit: I was off on the price of the diesel fuel I listed above. It should have been $2.599/gallon, not $2.429. Either is better than it has been as our price in this area has regularly been closer to $3 for quite awhile.

Labels: Pat and I, Photo gear, Weather