I signed up at one of the coolest sports gyms in Santa Clarita, California Here are some specs on the club:

http://www.spectrumclubs.com/cali/clubs/valencia.html

I have never worked out at a sports club before ? this is my first time. My brother used to belong to a really cool club down in west Hollywood called ?The Sports Connection?.

The spectrum club is right across the street from my office, so it?s very convenient for me. I haven?t really found my ideal time to go every day... Lately I have been starting to work at about 7:00 AM so doing a workout before work and getting in to the office by 7:00 a.m. Means I have to wake up before the roosters crow! However, the gal who signed me up at the club suggested that a morning workout is the best for our bodies, because you get your body humming and then you feel great the rest of the day.

Everybody who signs up at the spectrum club gets three hour long sessions with a trainer. For my first session I think I yakked too much with the lady trainer and she didn?t really get to fill out all my paperwork LOL you know me. For the second session, she finished asking all the questions about my body, then she got me up on the treadmill and ran me ragged for about ten minutes to get my heart rate up to 150 BPM. That was it for the second session.

For the third session she had prepared a list of things for me to do at the club and showed me how to use a few of the machines. There are so many different machines to use. They?re all first class pieces of equipment too.

The locker room is very luxurious. There are always two attendants in the locker room stocking new towels and keeping the place in order. They keep the locker room looking really nice. There are plenty of lockers so the locker room is never very crowded. In front of these big tall vanity mirrors they have these pump machines that dispense deodorant and body moisturizing lotion and a little box with cotton swabs for your ears. In each shower are three pump bottles mounted on the shower wall ? shampoo, conditioner and liquid soap ? each scented really nicely. The shower stalls are all lined with ceramic tiles and are spacious.

Off to one side is a steam room and next to that is a dry sauna. I have been in dry saunas before, but I have never been in a real steam room before, so that has been an experience. You walk in and it?s alll steamy and hot. Every few minutes some kind of machine shoots steam into the room. It?s probably all thermostatically controlled to keep the room a certain temp. Tonight it got so hot in that room ? I felt like my hands were going to get burnt! Wow, it?s so relaxing. Now I know why everybody always brags about steam rooms!

I am sooo out of shape! My arms are so skinny ? they must be the size of Popeye?s girlfriends arms. My arms ache all the time now from all the workouts on the rowing machines, chin up machines, etc! Kristin ? the gal who worked with me for the three sessions told me something I had never heard before. She said that muscles bounce back really fast when you start exercising them as if they are saying ?thank you for exercising us!?

I won a raffle at work a few weeks ago. The prize was the use of a Toyota RAV-4 EV supplied by Southern California Edison. Here are some pictures I took of the vehicle yesterday:

http://www.pbase.com/harrymyhre/toyota_rav4ev

The pictures were taken at the Sylmar Metrolink Train Station. Many Metrolink Stations have EV charging stations. Unfortunately, I discovered the charging station at the Sylmar station is defective.

How does the RAV4 drive? The first thing I noticed about the vehicle is the weight. Acceleration is adequate for around town driving, but you more than likely won't break any speed limits. The speedometer reads no higher than 80 MPH.

I had no problem keeping up with traffic around town on city streets this afternoon. My boss and I then got on The Golden State Freeway and headed down to the Sylmar Metrolink Station. Handling on the freeway is fine - again; acceleration is "majestic". I had no problem ascending Newhall Pass down into the San Fernando Valley. I think Newhall pass is about 1,500 ft. elevation.

We messed around with the charging station for half an hour. The station kept coming up with an "E2" error message and would then shut down. So I doubt the batteries ever got much of a charge.

Last night I found a charging station closer to home. Good thing, because max mileage for the RAV4-EV is about eighty miles.

I can see lots of people in my town of Santa Clarita, California making use of a vehicle like a RAV4-EV - provided they're going to stay within the Santa Clarita Valley where the greatest one way distance we usually travel is around eight miles. The problem is there aren't enough charging stations... And since no new battery only powered cars are being sold in California I wonder what will happen to the charging stations? Will be interesting to see if any new mfgrs enter the market with battery powered cars now that Sparrow is no more, Think never even got out of the starting gates, and the GM EV1 is history, etc.


--- Saturday morning addendum ----

I went over to the charging station close to home this morning. The parking structure where the charging station is was closed. I asked one of the security people at the shopping center if they could open up the parking structure so I could charge my vehicle. The security guy took about ten seconds to process this request. One of the security folks told me the other day they don't see a lot of vehicles utilizing the charging station.

Without saying a word, the security guy walked over and unlocked the chain that blocked access to the parking structure. "FINALLY!" , I thought. I got in the RAV4-EV and parked in the charging spot. Got out of the vehicle, pulled the plug from the charging machine - lo and behold, Murphy was standing over my shoulder and the goll darned plus was one of the large paddles , I think designed for the GM-EV1.

So that's it for my experience with the RAV4-ev this weekend. Monday morning the tow truck driver will come by and take it back to Southern California Edison.