Crunching Numb3rs

Since this post isn’t about a specific destination, I’ve included a random assortment of favorite photos from past adventures for your viewing pleasure.  Alan and I just returned from a delightful eleven day trip to the coast of Maine; more current photos will soon be forthcoming.

“We all use math every day
to predict weather, to tell time, to handle money.
Math is more than formulas or equations;
it's logic, it's rationality,
it's using your mind to solve the biggest mysteries we know.”

I am a huge fan of the television show Numb3rs which ran for six seasons on CBS beginning in 2005.  The series is a police procedural about an FBI agent and his brother, a math professor, who work together to solve crimes.  The beginning of each episode during the first two or three seasons began with the quote above.  I didn’t watch the show when it originally aired; Alan and I were busy raising two young children.  I spent too much time attending PTA meetings and team sporting events to fit much TV into my evenings.  I found Numb3rs on daytime reruns when I was looking for something to help me pass the time while I indoor biked my 20 miles a day.

I was initially attracted to Numb3rs because it was a crime drama.  I liked it because the characters had varied and intriguing backgrounds, and the relationships among them were both simple and complex.  But I fell in love with the show because of the numbers.  Texas Instruments (TI) partnered with CBS on TI’s math initiative, “We All Use Math Every Day” – affectionately referred to as WAUMED in math circles.  For the first three seasons of Numb3rs, TI posted math lessons online that were related to the actual math rules, laws and formulas used in the show’s episodes to solve crimes.  For the final three seasons of the series, CBS partnered with Wolfram Research, and you can still find math lessons for the full six seasons on that organization’s website.  Fun fact: Cornell University also picked up on the WAUMED initiative, and you can still find math lessons for the first five seasons of Numb3rs on Cornell’s website.  Numb3rs and its creators actually received a Public Service Award in 2007 from the National Science Board for their contributions toward increasing scientific and mathematical literacy on a broad scale.  And just what, you ask, does all of this have to do with RVing?  Give me a minute; I’m getting there.

Camping under the Watchman - Watchman Campground, Zion National Park, Utah

I have an affinity for Numb3rs – and numbers.  Although I carried good grades in school without extraordinary effort, I never liked it.  At all.  I had a particularly adversarial relationship with math because I had such a difficult time relating it to life outside of school.  With hindsight and maturity came the realization that I didn’t like school because I was an introvert.  Noisy lunchrooms, full classrooms and the ever present threat of the teacher calling on me to answer a question in front of my classmates made just getting through each day a challenge.  The small, Catholic high school I attended threw me a lifeline by offering business electives, and it finally dawned on me that education could and did impact life outside of school.  In college, accounting and business math intrigued me.  There was something about seeing all those little numbers lined up evenly and correctly in columns that made my brain happy.  I say that numbers are my friends.  Alan thinks my mind works a little differently from other people’s.

Conch Tour Trains - Key West, Florida

My first job out of the chute after college was in accounting at a local bank with five branches.  (Notice that I couldn’t just say “at a local bank.”  I had to add “with five branches.”)  I also worked as a tax collector (hey, somebody has to do it) and served as the treasurer of the PTA for a number of years.  I did a couple of stints in Human Resources over the course of my working years, but my most rewarding jobs always involved numbers.

Angels Window - Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

At the time Alan and I got married, we had decided to live off my salary and put his salary toward the building of a home.  Since Alan was adapting blueprints, putting together a materials list and tracking construction expenses (all in addition to actually building the house and working full time), I picked up paying the bills, educating myself about investments and handling all the minutiae of our daily and financial life.  (Just for the record, I did my share of brush clearing, framing, sheetrock and cement mixing, too.)  Under the, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” theory, the numbers stayed with me even after we finished building the house.  Because we make it a point to talk about our finances on a regular basis, Alan could easily step into my shoes if he had to.  Just because I like my number buddies doesn’t mean he can’t play with them, too.

Boating on a blue sky day - Great Sacandaga Lake, New York

For whatever reason, my brain seems to have an intimate relationship with numbers.  It also seems to prefer even numbers over odd, although I have no idea why.  Back when I started in banking (more than 45 years ago), we all had “teller numbers” even if we weren’t a teller.  The number was actually our employee number, and mine was a nice, round (and even) 100.  I can still tell you that my colleague Bill’s teller number was 85 and Julie’s was 86.  Brenda’s was 70 and Guy’s was 2.  He was one of the old-timers.  When an unidentified phone number appears on Alan’s phone or mine, I know that it’s the Chevy dealer, the neighbor down the road or that it’s a Connecticut area code.  I can rattle off our Discover and Chase credit card numbers, expiration dates and security codes, as well as our two local bank accounts and the bank’s routing number.  The license plate on my 1976 Pontiac Ventura was 338-LLX; our 1993 Chevy Cavalier Z was ANK-8235; our 2002 Chevy Trailblazer was BMJ-8949 and my 2007 Tahoe was DPT-2758.  Like I said, numbers are my friends, and some of those friendships go back a long way.

Hiking the River Trail - Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia

If you’re wondering how I’m going to segue into why numbers are important in RVing, I’m not.   I’m just going to jump right in.  While it may be true that we all use math every day, it becomes a critical component when you’re shopping for an RV, traveling by RV and maintaining your RV.  Once I made that connection, I saw examples everywhere, and I asked Alan for his input, as well.  Crunching numbers and RV life go together like S’mores and campfires, or good friends and good times.

Madison Campground - Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, Montana & Idaho

Anyone in the market for an RV will usually determine what type of RV they would prefer (Class A, Class B, Class C, fifth wheel, travel trailer, etc.) and then its ideal size.  We have to think about length (what campgrounds will we want to fit in?) and height (to avoid tunnel mishaps and ensure that low hanging trees wherever we intend to store the RV don’t take out the air conditioner).  That’s the easy part.  If you’re towing any type of trailer, you’re into calculations involving Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR), Gross Combined Vehicle Weight Rating (GCVWR), tongue weight (which generally runs between 10% and 15% of your trailer’s weight), payload capacity, towing capacity and cargo carrying capacity (CCC).  Don’t forget to check the weight ratings of your trailer hitch and ball.  Running these numbers can be tedious – and make your head hurt.  But failure to understand the formulas involved can result in damage to your RV and/or your tow vehicle.  Worse yet, ignoring these meaningful numbers can negatively impact your safety and the safety of other travelers on the road with you.

Watching the sunset from Cadillac Mountain - Acadia National Park, Maine

Once you get through all those fun-filled calculations, you can start thinking about the size of your refrigerator (8 cubic feet, 10 cubic feet, residential?), the number of air conditioners and their cooling capacity, the BTU output of various furnaces, the size and number of propane tanks, the wattage of any solar panels and how many gallons your fresh, gray and black water tanks will hold.  (Those last two items makes a huge difference to those of us who dry camp in State and National Parks, or go off the grid entirely.)  And we haven’t even gotten to the price yet.  Speaking of price, you’ll need to calculate how much RV you can afford, what the payments will be (if applicable) and the value of any RV or vehicle you intend to trade in during the purchase.

Biking the shoreline of Lake Champlain - Burlington, Vermont

Once you have your new RV, the trip planning begins!  You’ll probably want to devise a budget so you know how much you can safely spend on your trip.  Think about your miles per gallon, the cost of gas and the distance you’ll be able to travel.  (Numbers, numbers everywhere!)  Before every trip, Alan compares the percentage of oil life remaining on the truck to the number of miles we plan to travel, and determines whether to change the oil prior to our departure or to factor in time during the trip to have it done while we’re on the road.

Cliff Palace - Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado

Our trip calendar includes the distance we plan to travel each day and the approximate time it will take to do it.  That requires a whole set of calculations at the time our itinerary is planned and reservations are made.  All that preparation allows us to determine the departure time from one campground and the arrival time at the next, promoting smooth sailing and a stress-free day.  In addition to unexpected mechanical failures, there are two other major stressors that can ruin our travel days.  The blame for both falls on me.  One is arriving at a campground after dark.  It makes me a very unhappy camper which doesn’t bode well for either Alan or me.  The second is my failure to eat before I get too hungry.  We generally carry snacks and water in the truck but, sometimes, I forget.  In all fairness, I do try to warn Alan in time to avoid trouble: “We’re now in the 30 minute warning period.”  If we haven’t found a source of real sustenance within those 30 minutes, the warning becomes:  “If we don’t find something to eat soon, one of us is going to die.”  Consequently, Alan and our kids have become extremely adept at watching the clock, counting down those 30 minutes and finding food - fast. 

Wax COE Campground - Nolin River Lake near Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

As we travel, we compare gas and propane prices, look at the number of good reviews a restaurant has garnered and decide which credit card will provide the highest percentage of cash back at a particular establishment.

Gateway Arch National Park - St. Louis, Missouri

In reference to maintenance, Alan tracks the number of miles that accumulate on the trailer and when the truck is due for a change of transmission fluid.  He scrutinizes speed and load ratings for the trailer tires, and monitors the pressure and temperature of the trailer tires via a tire pressure monitoring system.  Apparently, no matter what he says, numbers are his friends, too.

Sunny Gulch Campground - Sawtooth National Forest, Stanley, Idaho

Not only are numbers readily apparent and often used in the human world, but a correlation exists between math and nature, as well.  One episode of Numb3rs highlighted the Fibonacci Sequence – also known as “the Golden Ratio.”  The sequence begins like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and goes on that way forever.  Each number is the sum of the two numbers that precede it.  (I know you checked to be sure the sequence worked correctly.  Don't worry, I'm not offended; I did, too.)  Scientists and mathematicians determined that this pattern seems to be a built-in numbering sequence in nature.  The Fibonacci Sequence is evidenced in the way flower petals, seed heads and pine cones are formed, and can be seen in the way tree branches form and split.  If nature “counts” numbers among its friends, as both an outdoor enthusiast and a numbers nerd, I’m in good company.   

Jackson Lake - Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

I could provide you with additional examples in reference to the relationship of math and numbers to RVing, but I’m sure you get my point.  We all use math every day – many times without even realizing it.  Among other things, numbers can mark our progress toward a goal, prevent us from missing an appointment, allow us to monitor our investments, ensure that we dress properly for the day’s weather and enrich our travels.  Numbers don’t need us, but we need them.  Personally speaking, I ’m happy to call them my friends.

“Only in math can you buy sixty cantaloupes and no one asks what the hell is wrong with you.”                  (Charles M. Schulz)

The last word . . . For your information, no words or numbers were harmed in the drafting of this post, but 2,152 of them were, indeed, used.