When we arrived in Bushnell, it was cool. High temperatures were around 60 degrees. Since then, it's been warmer each day. Yesterday's high approached 80 degrees, and today's will likely exceed it. It's why we're here. We're loving it.
So, what do we do with such lovely days?
Today and tomorrow I'm playing golf. On Friday, I washed the dog, and on Saturday, I washed the cat. Ooops, no I didn't wash the cat. I washed the car.
Yesterday, with Consuelo's help, I removed one of our storage bay doors. The top had rotted and the hinge broke when we left Knoxville. After I get home from the golf course today, I will call a truck body repair place in Ocala to see if they can build a new door for me, and paint it.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Thanksgiving at Sumter Oaks
For the second year in a row, we'll be having Thanksgiving dinner with a hundred or so of our Escapee friends. This year we're at Sumter Oaks in Bushnell, FL. Last year we were at The Plantation in Summerdale, AL.
Escapees provides turkey and ham and gravy for everybody who's in the park. There's a nominal charge of $1 per person. We make the rest. It's not much different than dinner with the family, except the family is not here.
We volunteered to be table hosts. That means we coordinated the food so we got a little of everything we wanted.
I'll be making pies, as soon as I finish typing this blog. I have an award winning apple-cranberry recipe from my aunt Flo which I tend to make every year. I'll make a pumpkin, too. We'll bring a bottle of wine, plates, silverware, and a good appetite. I'm looking forward to it.
Escapees provides turkey and ham and gravy for everybody who's in the park. There's a nominal charge of $1 per person. We make the rest. It's not much different than dinner with the family, except the family is not here.
We volunteered to be table hosts. That means we coordinated the food so we got a little of everything we wanted.
I'll be making pies, as soon as I finish typing this blog. I have an award winning apple-cranberry recipe from my aunt Flo which I tend to make every year. I'll make a pumpkin, too. We'll bring a bottle of wine, plates, silverware, and a good appetite. I'm looking forward to it.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Jekyll Island State Park
Jekyll Island carries the tag line Georgia's Jewel. It's one of the barrier islands protecting the coast of Georgia and Florida. In the late 1800's it became a winter resort for the rich of New York, including the Rockefeller's, Pulitzer's, and Carnegie's. In 1942 the US government ordered everybody off. In 1947, the state purchased the entire island, leased home sites and permitted limited commercial development. Over 60% of the island remains undeveloped.
The Jekyll fishing pierToday Jekyll sports hotels, homes, 10 miles of beach, a marina, shops, 63 holes of golf, and a fabulous 240 acre historic district which is centered on the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, including the cottages of the rich. There are miles of bike trails, an airstrip, and a fishing pier.
Sunset over BrunswickAnd of course, there is a campground. This has become one of our favorite places to go, and we'll make our 4th stop there in March 2007. This time, we only stayed 2 days there. But we enjoyed it immensely.
Sidney Lanier BridgeThe campground is sheltered by a crown of live oak and pine trees, meaning that there is filtered sunshine during the days. The oaks produce buckets of acorns, and the acorns keep the squirrels fat and happy. And Thumper loves to chase squirrels, even if it's only to the end of her tether. A little squirrel barking goes a long way.
Across the bay to the northeast is the Sidney Lanier Bridge, a beautiful cable stayed design, and Georgia's longest span. The bridge provides access to Brunswick, Georgia, noted for it's fishing fleet, and for providing a major deep water port, a destination for luxury cars inbound from Europe.
Across to the northeast is St. Simon's and Sea Islands. Both have interesting history, and are the current resorts for the rich. To the south is Cumberland Island.
Jekyll lies 5 miles off the Georgia coast, much of that distance filled by saltwater marsh. A causeway provides direct access by car (or motorhome). There is a $3 parking fee charged to all vehicles entering the island.
The campground features large open spaces for RVs, with full hookups. Cable TV and free wifi are provided. Daily rates in the winter are $33/day, with weekly and monthly rates available. The campground is home to a large population of snowbirds, many of whom stay all winter.
Back to Florida
I am emotionally affected when I arrive in Florida. I always seem to feel that I have arrived in a sunnier, cheerier place. We drove over the line from Georgia yesterday, and the surroundings seemed better immediately.
Parking on Jekyll
It was a gorgeous day in Georgia. We checked out of the Jekyll Island campground by the required 12:00 noon, and parked in a lot by the beach, since we had time to kill. Thumper and I walked on the beach, a beach 10 miles long, and very wide since the tide had mostly receded, and it goes out a long, long way at Jekyll. We stopped at the Flying J in Brunswick and topped off our tank, as fuel is 10 cents or more per gallon. Then we cruised down 95 to Jacksonville.
The Jekyll Island beach
It could be because whenever Consuelo and I went to Florida in our past, it was to relax and enjoy the warmth, usually leaving from Rochester, MN, deep in the grip of winter. We vacationed for a dozen years at our timeshare in Key West at the end of February. Sometimes we drove down from Minnesota, and always got excited when we arrived in Florida.
The grass is different in Florida. Unlike the north, the blades are wide and stiff. Golf balls tend to sit on top of it. The land is flat. The roadsides usually have wide ditches that slither off into a swamp or pine bush. Or, if they built the road in a swamp, then the ditches are where they dug the dirt for the road, and they are filled with water, and often birds, and sometimes alligators.
Today, the sun filled a crisp, blue sky. It wasn't that warm, barely 60, and it was breezy. But it was Florida. We're back.
Parking on JekyllIt was a gorgeous day in Georgia. We checked out of the Jekyll Island campground by the required 12:00 noon, and parked in a lot by the beach, since we had time to kill. Thumper and I walked on the beach, a beach 10 miles long, and very wide since the tide had mostly receded, and it goes out a long, long way at Jekyll. We stopped at the Flying J in Brunswick and topped off our tank, as fuel is 10 cents or more per gallon. Then we cruised down 95 to Jacksonville.
The Jekyll Island beachIt could be because whenever Consuelo and I went to Florida in our past, it was to relax and enjoy the warmth, usually leaving from Rochester, MN, deep in the grip of winter. We vacationed for a dozen years at our timeshare in Key West at the end of February. Sometimes we drove down from Minnesota, and always got excited when we arrived in Florida.
The grass is different in Florida. Unlike the north, the blades are wide and stiff. Golf balls tend to sit on top of it. The land is flat. The roadsides usually have wide ditches that slither off into a swamp or pine bush. Or, if they built the road in a swamp, then the ditches are where they dug the dirt for the road, and they are filled with water, and often birds, and sometimes alligators.
Today, the sun filled a crisp, blue sky. It wasn't that warm, barely 60, and it was breezy. But it was Florida. We're back.
Friday, November 17, 2006
On the Road
We finally departed Knoxville. The prescription still had not arrived. I left a forwarding address at the PO, so hopefully they will send it on if/when it arrives. Meanwhile, I think we'll have to request another shipment from Rochester next week.
A new repair item arose. One of our storage doors is rotted enough that when I closed it, the door broke and the hinge popped off, forced out by the gas cylinder that usually holds it open. With Consuelo's help, I got the cylinder off, and closed the door, and then duct taped it shut. I'm thinking I'll have to tru to cut off the rotten wood inside the door, without damaging the paint on the outside, if possible. Then attach a new top section and epoxy everything together. It will have to wait until we land in Bushnell, where we'll stay for 3 weeks.
Last night we stayed at a Walmart in McDonough, GA, about 20 miles south of Atlanta. We usually follow the Escapees guidelines for Walmart stops: to stay only one night, not to spread out, and to ask the manager if it's OK. We were the first RV into the lot last night, around 5:30 PM, and once found, the manager said it was OK. Since we don't set up our satellite dish, we only got TV off-air, one channel, and poorly, at that. So to amuse myself, I penned the following poem.
Stopping by a Walmart on a Cloudy Night
The maps are vague, the stops unsure,
The stores are hard to find.
The day's been long, we pulled up stakes,
The manager was kind.
We're on our way to Jacksonville,
to see a vampire bat.
We got a special entrance card
from Jack the technocrat.
And so we slip into a space
or two or three or four.
We come alone, but soon it's filled
with campers by the score.
The privates hate the way we play,
stopping for a night.
They want to suck the pockets dry,
And leave us nice and light.
We walk the dog, and watch TV,
We act like we're in homes
Play solitaire and pinball, too,
And write these silly poems.
And then we sleep, all through the night,
with traffic whizzing by.
Shoppers keep on pulling up
to make a late night buy.
And when the sun climbs slowly up
we'll wake and clean our plate.
And drive to maybe one more store
Along the Interstate.
A new repair item arose. One of our storage doors is rotted enough that when I closed it, the door broke and the hinge popped off, forced out by the gas cylinder that usually holds it open. With Consuelo's help, I got the cylinder off, and closed the door, and then duct taped it shut. I'm thinking I'll have to tru to cut off the rotten wood inside the door, without damaging the paint on the outside, if possible. Then attach a new top section and epoxy everything together. It will have to wait until we land in Bushnell, where we'll stay for 3 weeks.
Last night we stayed at a Walmart in McDonough, GA, about 20 miles south of Atlanta. We usually follow the Escapees guidelines for Walmart stops: to stay only one night, not to spread out, and to ask the manager if it's OK. We were the first RV into the lot last night, around 5:30 PM, and once found, the manager said it was OK. Since we don't set up our satellite dish, we only got TV off-air, one channel, and poorly, at that. So to amuse myself, I penned the following poem.
Stopping by a Walmart on a Cloudy Night
The maps are vague, the stops unsure,
The stores are hard to find.
The day's been long, we pulled up stakes,
The manager was kind.
We're on our way to Jacksonville,
to see a vampire bat.
We got a special entrance card
from Jack the technocrat.
And so we slip into a space
or two or three or four.
We come alone, but soon it's filled
with campers by the score.
The privates hate the way we play,
stopping for a night.
They want to suck the pockets dry,
And leave us nice and light.
We walk the dog, and watch TV,
We act like we're in homes
Play solitaire and pinball, too,
And write these silly poems.
And then we sleep, all through the night,
with traffic whizzing by.
Shoppers keep on pulling up
to make a late night buy.
And when the sun climbs slowly up
we'll wake and clean our plate.
And drive to maybe one more store
Along the Interstate.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
It's Raining
10:00 AM. While we like to travel around and see the country, we are usually alert to the weather and any problems it might cause for us. After all, mobile homes are notorious for being destroyed in tornadoes and hurricanes. Structurally, our motorhome is just like a mobile home. We have one advantage over a mobile home: We have the opportunity start our engine to move away from severe weather, if we know it's coming.
We had known for a few days that it would rain today. I even suggested to Consuelo that we leave before today to avoid the rain. But we are still waiting for the rest of the mail to arrive, so we didn't.
It started raining as we went to bed, around 11:00 PM last night. It was raining this morning when we got up. It was raining hard enough that Thumper didn't want to stay outdoors, unusual for her. It's still raining as I write this at 10:00 AM.
To be prudent, I checked the weather from the National Weather Service on the web. They had issued a wind WARNING for the eastern Tennessee mountains for today, exactly where we had planned to travel. Given that we don't have a deadline anywhere at the moment, we decided to stay here until (at least) tomorrow.
Getting weather from the web is only one of the ways that we are tuned into the weather. Of course, we can get the Weather Channel on DISH when our dish is up and running. One feature I'm looking forward to soon there is the ability to get local weather on the Weather Channel via satellite. It's an Interactive application from DISH, which means that we can enter the zip code where we're watching, and the receiver will pick out the local weather info to display on our screen from all the signals available from the satellite. That will give us one more place to check for localized weather info, especially when severe weather is nearby.
We also can check on local radio and off-air local TV stations, if we can receive any. TV signals are generally more useful for this, as they have the opportunity to embed information about a weather event in the video, and have it visible for a long period of time. Many radio stations do not even have local production facilities anymore, programming comes from some other part of the country. So turning on the radio usually result is normal programming. Of course, if there is a warning from the National Weather Service via the Emergency Broadcasting System, the radio will carry it. But if we turn on the radio after the alert, we'll never hear it.
The most informative weather warning system we have is the Weather Radio that we carry. Or did carry, ours died recently and we'll need to replace it. The weather radio announces any watches or warnings directly from the nearest National Weather Service office. It sits on the desk in our RV in standby mode, listening for that beep that signifies a message we need to hear. On numerous occasions over the past 2 years, we have been warned of severe thunderstorms, tornado watches and warnings, and flood watches and warnings in our travels. We have perked up our ears in Florida, Georgia, California, and mostly at our cabin in Minnesota. Sometimes we have taken action to protect ourselves.
Today we'll wait out the storm, and listen and watch.
7:00 PM. It's still raining. Hasn't stopped all day. The news reported tornadoes in Mississippi and Alabama, south of us. I went out to the store this afternoon to get printing supplies for the computers and check the mail. Otherwise, we just hung out indoors, except for Thumper who is wet and won't dry until Friday.
One more piece of mail arrived. But not the prescription... Lord know where that is.
We had known for a few days that it would rain today. I even suggested to Consuelo that we leave before today to avoid the rain. But we are still waiting for the rest of the mail to arrive, so we didn't.
It started raining as we went to bed, around 11:00 PM last night. It was raining this morning when we got up. It was raining hard enough that Thumper didn't want to stay outdoors, unusual for her. It's still raining as I write this at 10:00 AM.
To be prudent, I checked the weather from the National Weather Service on the web. They had issued a wind WARNING for the eastern Tennessee mountains for today, exactly where we had planned to travel. Given that we don't have a deadline anywhere at the moment, we decided to stay here until (at least) tomorrow.
Getting weather from the web is only one of the ways that we are tuned into the weather. Of course, we can get the Weather Channel on DISH when our dish is up and running. One feature I'm looking forward to soon there is the ability to get local weather on the Weather Channel via satellite. It's an Interactive application from DISH, which means that we can enter the zip code where we're watching, and the receiver will pick out the local weather info to display on our screen from all the signals available from the satellite. That will give us one more place to check for localized weather info, especially when severe weather is nearby.
We also can check on local radio and off-air local TV stations, if we can receive any. TV signals are generally more useful for this, as they have the opportunity to embed information about a weather event in the video, and have it visible for a long period of time. Many radio stations do not even have local production facilities anymore, programming comes from some other part of the country. So turning on the radio usually result is normal programming. Of course, if there is a warning from the National Weather Service via the Emergency Broadcasting System, the radio will carry it. But if we turn on the radio after the alert, we'll never hear it.
The most informative weather warning system we have is the Weather Radio that we carry. Or did carry, ours died recently and we'll need to replace it. The weather radio announces any watches or warnings directly from the nearest National Weather Service office. It sits on the desk in our RV in standby mode, listening for that beep that signifies a message we need to hear. On numerous occasions over the past 2 years, we have been warned of severe thunderstorms, tornado watches and warnings, and flood watches and warnings in our travels. We have perked up our ears in Florida, Georgia, California, and mostly at our cabin in Minnesota. Sometimes we have taken action to protect ourselves.
Today we'll wait out the storm, and listen and watch.
7:00 PM. It's still raining. Hasn't stopped all day. The news reported tornadoes in Mississippi and Alabama, south of us. I went out to the store this afternoon to get printing supplies for the computers and check the mail. Otherwise, we just hung out indoors, except for Thumper who is wet and won't dry until Friday.
One more piece of mail arrived. But not the prescription... Lord know where that is.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
The New Street Atlas 2007 Plus arrives
Having been on the road for over 2 years, we have managed to find our way around pretty well. Before we left, we invested in Street Atlas 2005 Plus (SA), mapping software for Consuelo's Dell Laptop. We also use the Delorme Earthmate GPS, a 2 inch square block on the end of an eight foot USB cable. Usually, it's all we need to figure out where we are and where we are going.
Our travel has some constraints. The most obvious one is that our motorhome is 38 feet long and 8 and 1/2 feet wide, so some streets are just not possible. Another important one is that when our VW Bug is attached, we can't back up more than a couple of inches, because the steering on the bug goes the wrong way when we try to back up. We have to fit these limitations into our travel planning, and having instant location and map info in our hands is vital. For example, if we miss a turn, Consuelo can usually figure out how to get around the block, if there is a block. We've missed a few turns in our 2 years on the road.
On the other side, the mapping software is not perfect, either. Delorme and the other software vendors utilize information provided by county governments and other geographic sources, and it contains errors. To illustrate this, try looking up Sumter Oaks RV park in Bushnell, FL, on Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth. Both locate the park about 1 mile east of where it appears in the satellite imagery. Mapquest appears to be closer, but still looks to be somewhat east of the actual location, based on the curves in the road. Such errors often create adventures for us.
The most annoying error is when we perfomr a "find" in Street Atlas, and it fails to find an exact street address. It provides instead a generic address for the city itself, rather tyhan the street address. My guess is that it is offering the geographic center of the city. It is highly unlikely that the street address we are looking for coincides with the geographic center of the city. So we click on the given address, thinking that it is the exact place we want to go. On several occasions, we have been searching for Walmart stores and Street Atlas provides us with turn-by-turn directions to nowhere. Actually, directions to an arbitrary spot, not a Walmart store. We've driven our big rig through some neighborhood side streets where we know there cannot possibly be any commercial activity, let alone a Walmart. Close examination of the returned address reveals that SA could not find what we were looking for. But an answer is an answer, and off we go. Way off.
There are other errors to contend with, like missing roads. Our last missing road adventure was in Front Royal, VA, searching for the Elk's Club there. We had an exact street address on Guard Hill Road, and Street Atlas found the location. We were driving down highway 320 from Winchester, turned right and followed the SA route through back roads for about 10 miles to get to the specified address. When we went to town that night, we discovered that our location was just .2 miles off of highway 320. Because SA was missing 400 feet of road connection, it could not figure the shorter, simpler route.
Then there are occasions where the software has a road that doesn't exist. Or a portion of a road that it thinks is there, but isn't. The last one I recall was a 2 mile dead end road where the mapping software showed a bridge across a river. Might have been one, once upon a time. Fortunately, we were in our car for this one, so going back was not difficult. And, that was in Maine, where the locals always say, after giving directions, "but I wouldn't go that way". Now I see why.
The New Version. Today the new version of SA arrived in the mail... yes, the mail we were waiting for yesterday. Consuelo eagerly got the new version, shipped on 2 DVDs, onto her (new) laptop. The installation went smoothly for her, smoother than I had expected. I confounded the smoothness, because I recalled that there was an extra step to install the map files on your hard disk in the 2005 version, which I asked if she had done. Since Delorme integrated this into the normal install, we spent a lot of time figuring it out for nothing, it was all done.
So far, so good. We're still here, waiting for the rest of the mail (the prescriptions) to arrive, so we haven't tried using the new software while navigating down the road. The layout and appearance looks good so far. It seems to start up quicker. All of our data files, which contained relevant information for our travels, like the Walmart and Sam's locations, Flying J and Love's Truck stops, State parks, and other info, loaded up just fine. My file of all the places we have stopped in our 2 years of travels loaded up OK. We haven't tried the GPS yet, but I expect it will work fine. Consuelo like the new look, and reports that everything seems quicker.
So I went back to that error on Guard Hill Road to see if it had been fixed. Nope, it was still there. But the new version has a way to add a routable road to the map, so I made the fix myself in my copy and checked to see if the routing tools would include it, and they did. Not only that, But Delorme has included a way to send such corrections to their cartographers for future releases, which I did. So there may be hope for the future.
Meanwhile, we'll benefit from all the other changes and updates that Delorme did manage to get into this version, and we should at least do no worse using these tools in the future while travelling in the motorhome.
Integrating the technology? Not yet! While I sat here looking at the new mapping software with my new image and video and music enabled cell phone, it occurred to me that it would be nice to be able to publish segments of the map to the cell phone, to take along while driving our Bug into town, or looking for attractions. The mapping software already incorporates support for PDA devices, which probably have more memory and better software support for such things. But the concept is similar. The phone and PDA's have screens and buttons. Should be possible, right?
The short answer is, "Not yet." Perhaps Delorme will find a way to easily push map data to cell phones. For most folks, the interconnection is not that simple. PDA's automatically come with USB cables to connect to their computers. Pushing data to the cellphone is more difficult, though not impossible. And I do have a USB cable for the new cell phone. Verizon sells it to download music files from the computer.
But Verizon also sells a mapping solution for the cell phone, as well as an Internet service. They would have little incentive to cooperate with Delorme to find a way to push custom maps to the phone to access while driving around town (let alone turn-by-turn directions). My brief cruise of the web did not turn up any obvious ways to do this.
However, I did find that there are ways to access the Internet with this particular phone for only the cost of air time, or perhaps a bit more, like $1 per month. That, combined with Mapquest or a similar service, could help solve the problem of finding directions in town without having to carry the laptop and GPS.
Or not. I'll have to try it out, and report back in a later blog.
Our travel has some constraints. The most obvious one is that our motorhome is 38 feet long and 8 and 1/2 feet wide, so some streets are just not possible. Another important one is that when our VW Bug is attached, we can't back up more than a couple of inches, because the steering on the bug goes the wrong way when we try to back up. We have to fit these limitations into our travel planning, and having instant location and map info in our hands is vital. For example, if we miss a turn, Consuelo can usually figure out how to get around the block, if there is a block. We've missed a few turns in our 2 years on the road.
On the other side, the mapping software is not perfect, either. Delorme and the other software vendors utilize information provided by county governments and other geographic sources, and it contains errors. To illustrate this, try looking up Sumter Oaks RV park in Bushnell, FL, on Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth. Both locate the park about 1 mile east of where it appears in the satellite imagery. Mapquest appears to be closer, but still looks to be somewhat east of the actual location, based on the curves in the road. Such errors often create adventures for us.
The most annoying error is when we perfomr a "find" in Street Atlas, and it fails to find an exact street address. It provides instead a generic address for the city itself, rather tyhan the street address. My guess is that it is offering the geographic center of the city. It is highly unlikely that the street address we are looking for coincides with the geographic center of the city. So we click on the given address, thinking that it is the exact place we want to go. On several occasions, we have been searching for Walmart stores and Street Atlas provides us with turn-by-turn directions to nowhere. Actually, directions to an arbitrary spot, not a Walmart store. We've driven our big rig through some neighborhood side streets where we know there cannot possibly be any commercial activity, let alone a Walmart. Close examination of the returned address reveals that SA could not find what we were looking for. But an answer is an answer, and off we go. Way off.
There are other errors to contend with, like missing roads. Our last missing road adventure was in Front Royal, VA, searching for the Elk's Club there. We had an exact street address on Guard Hill Road, and Street Atlas found the location. We were driving down highway 320 from Winchester, turned right and followed the SA route through back roads for about 10 miles to get to the specified address. When we went to town that night, we discovered that our location was just .2 miles off of highway 320. Because SA was missing 400 feet of road connection, it could not figure the shorter, simpler route.
Then there are occasions where the software has a road that doesn't exist. Or a portion of a road that it thinks is there, but isn't. The last one I recall was a 2 mile dead end road where the mapping software showed a bridge across a river. Might have been one, once upon a time. Fortunately, we were in our car for this one, so going back was not difficult. And, that was in Maine, where the locals always say, after giving directions, "but I wouldn't go that way". Now I see why.
The New Version. Today the new version of SA arrived in the mail... yes, the mail we were waiting for yesterday. Consuelo eagerly got the new version, shipped on 2 DVDs, onto her (new) laptop. The installation went smoothly for her, smoother than I had expected. I confounded the smoothness, because I recalled that there was an extra step to install the map files on your hard disk in the 2005 version, which I asked if she had done. Since Delorme integrated this into the normal install, we spent a lot of time figuring it out for nothing, it was all done.
So far, so good. We're still here, waiting for the rest of the mail (the prescriptions) to arrive, so we haven't tried using the new software while navigating down the road. The layout and appearance looks good so far. It seems to start up quicker. All of our data files, which contained relevant information for our travels, like the Walmart and Sam's locations, Flying J and Love's Truck stops, State parks, and other info, loaded up just fine. My file of all the places we have stopped in our 2 years of travels loaded up OK. We haven't tried the GPS yet, but I expect it will work fine. Consuelo like the new look, and reports that everything seems quicker.
So I went back to that error on Guard Hill Road to see if it had been fixed. Nope, it was still there. But the new version has a way to add a routable road to the map, so I made the fix myself in my copy and checked to see if the routing tools would include it, and they did. Not only that, But Delorme has included a way to send such corrections to their cartographers for future releases, which I did. So there may be hope for the future.
Meanwhile, we'll benefit from all the other changes and updates that Delorme did manage to get into this version, and we should at least do no worse using these tools in the future while travelling in the motorhome.
Integrating the technology? Not yet! While I sat here looking at the new mapping software with my new image and video and music enabled cell phone, it occurred to me that it would be nice to be able to publish segments of the map to the cell phone, to take along while driving our Bug into town, or looking for attractions. The mapping software already incorporates support for PDA devices, which probably have more memory and better software support for such things. But the concept is similar. The phone and PDA's have screens and buttons. Should be possible, right?
The short answer is, "Not yet." Perhaps Delorme will find a way to easily push map data to cell phones. For most folks, the interconnection is not that simple. PDA's automatically come with USB cables to connect to their computers. Pushing data to the cellphone is more difficult, though not impossible. And I do have a USB cable for the new cell phone. Verizon sells it to download music files from the computer.
But Verizon also sells a mapping solution for the cell phone, as well as an Internet service. They would have little incentive to cooperate with Delorme to find a way to push custom maps to the phone to access while driving around town (let alone turn-by-turn directions). My brief cruise of the web did not turn up any obvious ways to do this.
However, I did find that there are ways to access the Internet with this particular phone for only the cost of air time, or perhaps a bit more, like $1 per month. That, combined with Mapquest or a similar service, could help solve the problem of finding directions in town without having to carry the laptop and GPS.
Or not. I'll have to try it out, and report back in a later blog.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Waiting for the Mail
Full time RVing sometimes requires planning and patience. Getting our mail is generally not a difficult problem. We subscribe to a mail forwarding service through Escapees, our RV club. All of our mail goes to a real address in Texas. The hardworking Escapees mail staff there sorts it, deletes any 3rd class stuff, and when we call with a forwarding address, puts it into an envelope and sends it along to us. We usually have it sent to General Delivery at a nearby post office, though sometimes it is delivered to the campground where we are staying.
Escapees mail work very well. They have a good understanding of our needs, provide good customer service, and are relatively inexpensive. We pay about $100/year for the service, and we pay the postage on everything that is forwarded to us, typically around $3 to $5 in priority mail fees.
But this week, we're waiting for the mail in Knoxville. Last week we were waiting for the mail in Front Royal, VA. It turns out that we are victims of our own poor planning.
One of the things we receive in the mail is our prescription drugs. They are sent from a pharmacy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. By default, they send them to our Escapees address in Texas, but if we're running low, we can have them sent to an alternate address. So 2 weeks ago, we ordered one of our prescriptions, asked that it be sent to Front Royal, and we waited there for it for 4 days. Turns out, the prescription was expired, and the pharmacy and our doctor did not connect. So the prescription never got sent. After the 4th day, we called the pharmacy, and they said they were waiting on the doctor. We called the doctor, and they had no record of a request from the pharmacy. A typical catch 22. So we asked the doctor to request the prescription, which he did, and it was sent the next day.
Since we were heading down the road to Knoxville, we also asked the pharmacy to change the address from Front Royal to Knoxville. They said they would. Alarms bells are going off, right? The prescription did get filled and shipped, but not to Knoxville. It went to Front Royal.
There's always a way out, but it may not be easy. In this case, we needed to contact the Front Royal post office to ask them to forward our general delivery main to Knoxville. USPS does not have their local post offices listed in the phone book any more. Instead, an 800 number will supposedly get you anything you need from USPS. I called and told the 800 number operator what I needed and asked for the phone number for Front Royal. She told me that, "only Express mail can be changed over the phone", her way of declining to give me the number. Not willing to give in, I politely asked, "Are you going to give me the number or not?" After a few moments, she relented. I understand the need to limit the interaction with the PO over the phone, but I didn't see any other way to achieve what we needed. And it turned out that the postal employee that I spoke with in Front Royal was cheerful and helpful, and said she would note our request where the general delivery was sorted, as our package had not yet arrived.
So, we checked for our mail here in Knoxville (actually, Heiskell) this morning, and none of it has arrived. The Veteran's Day holiday mail have delayed things an extra day. So we spent the day working on Xmas presents, getting groceries, and visiting with the other campers here. We'll try to get our mail again tomorrow. After all, we're retired, and usually don't have to be anywhere.
Escapees mail work very well. They have a good understanding of our needs, provide good customer service, and are relatively inexpensive. We pay about $100/year for the service, and we pay the postage on everything that is forwarded to us, typically around $3 to $5 in priority mail fees.
But this week, we're waiting for the mail in Knoxville. Last week we were waiting for the mail in Front Royal, VA. It turns out that we are victims of our own poor planning.
One of the things we receive in the mail is our prescription drugs. They are sent from a pharmacy at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. By default, they send them to our Escapees address in Texas, but if we're running low, we can have them sent to an alternate address. So 2 weeks ago, we ordered one of our prescriptions, asked that it be sent to Front Royal, and we waited there for it for 4 days. Turns out, the prescription was expired, and the pharmacy and our doctor did not connect. So the prescription never got sent. After the 4th day, we called the pharmacy, and they said they were waiting on the doctor. We called the doctor, and they had no record of a request from the pharmacy. A typical catch 22. So we asked the doctor to request the prescription, which he did, and it was sent the next day.
Since we were heading down the road to Knoxville, we also asked the pharmacy to change the address from Front Royal to Knoxville. They said they would. Alarms bells are going off, right? The prescription did get filled and shipped, but not to Knoxville. It went to Front Royal.
There's always a way out, but it may not be easy. In this case, we needed to contact the Front Royal post office to ask them to forward our general delivery main to Knoxville. USPS does not have their local post offices listed in the phone book any more. Instead, an 800 number will supposedly get you anything you need from USPS. I called and told the 800 number operator what I needed and asked for the phone number for Front Royal. She told me that, "only Express mail can be changed over the phone", her way of declining to give me the number. Not willing to give in, I politely asked, "Are you going to give me the number or not?" After a few moments, she relented. I understand the need to limit the interaction with the PO over the phone, but I didn't see any other way to achieve what we needed. And it turned out that the postal employee that I spoke with in Front Royal was cheerful and helpful, and said she would note our request where the general delivery was sorted, as our package had not yet arrived.
So, we checked for our mail here in Knoxville (actually, Heiskell) this morning, and none of it has arrived. The Veteran's Day holiday mail have delayed things an extra day. So we spent the day working on Xmas presents, getting groceries, and visiting with the other campers here. We'll try to get our mail again tomorrow. After all, we're retired, and usually don't have to be anywhere.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
The Satellite Dilemma
We are satellite junkies. We have DISH for television reception, and we have Starband for our internet access. These two providers work well together, as the Starband dish provides a mounting bracket for the DISH LNBs, meaning it's just one setup for both.We like having internet access while we are on the road. Prior to buying the Starband system in May of 2006, we used our Verizon cell phone for the internet. This worked, but was relatively slow, did not work in some areas where there is no Verizon network, only one of us could use it at a time, and if we used it during weekdays, we used our minutes for data transfers. That plus the fact that Verizon is discontinuing access to the Quick-Link service when customers upgrade to new phones prompted us to spend the money for Starband.
The Starband system is not perfect. We have been in a number of places where we did not have a clear look to the southwestern sky, so we could not get either internet or TV from the satellites. This problem is compounded the northern part of the country, and especially in northern New England, as the Starband satellite, at 129 degrees west, is down to about 13 degrees above the horizon. We also encounter occasional outages from heavy rain, either where we are or where the Starband network center is in Georgia.
The photo at the left is our setup in Bethel, Maine. The elevation was about 14 degrees, and we had trees and powerlines in our field of view. To get around the trees, I put the tripod as far into the road as I dared. Even so, we had internet access, but the DISH satellites were behind the tree, so we had no DISH reception. The campground had a good cable system, though, which provided for our TV viewing. Of course, Thumper is able to catch her tether on the cables, or the tripod, but so far, she has not caused any difficulties.So far, I've only set up the Starband system about a dozen times. My proficiency is improving, and I can generally get set up in about 30 minutes. We purchased a Bird Dog meter with the system, and is saves a lot of time, compared with the setups I used to do with just the DISH antenna and an analog meter.
We also need to be careful with our Starband bandwidth. Our download speeds are about 300 Kbps peak, and upload is about 1/2 of that. That equates to about 1/2 of a DSL line, as I figure it. We are allowed about 900 MB in any one week period, and if we exceed it repeatedly, we get downgraded to dial-up speeds. This has not happened yet, though when we were looking at real estate in Maine, we did get a warning. But we need to be careful not to download huge videos, software distributions, or lots of pictures. We occasionally allow other RVers to use our wifi to access the internet, and when we do, I watch the byte count to make sure we don't exceed our limit.
This is our setup in Augusta, Maine. We were parked on a hilltop behind the Elks Lodge, and had a clear view of all the satellites, even though our elevation was only 13 degrees.We also don't even try to put the dish up if we're staying in a Walmart parking lot, or other place when we'll just be overnight. One consideration is the amount of power that the DISH receiver consumes. We have a model 625 dual receiver DVR, and I figure it consumes about 125 watts (there's a hard disk inside that runs continuously when the receiver has power). When we're camped without an electrical hookup, 125 watts is too much for our batteries and 2 solar panels, though sometimes we'll fire up the receiver so we can watch movies and other shows that we had stored on the disk. Alternatively, we have a DVD player and some discs, or we can read a book.
The Dilemma. Technological progress often requires changes or reinterpretation of the laws that govern our society. For example, the advent of compact discs enabled the liberal copying of digital music, and required the passage of new laws to protect copyright.
In the case of satellite TV, laws are in place to protect the local TV stations from outside competition and perhaps to conserve precious broadcasting bandwidth. Such laws were designed to prevent the possibility of NBC acquiring all the TV station allocations in a given city, as well as preventing stations from delivering their signals outside their market area. Such laws did not envision the development of delivering broadcast TV signals from the sky.
So the law was changed to allow DISH and DirectTV to deliver distant network signals (DNS) to customers under certain conditions: 1. The customer could not receive off-air signals with a reasonable antenna; 2. The customer was mobile, such as RV and truckers; 3. The customer obtained a waiver from the local TV station (few are granted). We qualify under #2, and we have file the appropriate paperwork with DISH to enable reception of the major network stations from New York.
Unfortunately, DISH was not scrupulous in their enabling DNS for customers in categories 1 and 3. They were sued successfully by the National Association of Broadcasters, as well as the major networks. The judge in this case has issued a permanent injunction requiring DISH to discontinue ALL DNS transmissions as of December 1, 2006, even the legal ones like ours. DISH is appealing, and is also lobbying congress to modify the law. Neither is likely to be successful, based on my reading of the issues, though they might get an extension of the date from the judge.
I've been exploring this on the web for whatever information might be useful.Escapees has contacted the Texas legislators on our behalf. I have sent an email to the president of the NAB. DISH also provides local stations for about 95% of the country. This means that DISH customers in, say, Phoenix, get the Phoenix stations on their DISH system. We are enabled for the Houston local stations based on our Livingston TX mailing address, but because they are transmitted using "spot beams" from the satellite, the signal is only available in a relatively tight radius around Houston. When we signed up for the service, I was told we could not change this. There have been some discussions suggesting that DISH will change our "physical" address as we move, so that we can get the local broadcasts from the satellite based on where we are. This will provide us with network coverage (and perhaps some other locals we don't get now, like WB and CW). But we will need to call DISH every time we change locations outside a spot beam, a bit if a hassle given the long wait times on the DISH customer service lines.
We also can sometimes receive off-air signals using our regular TV antenna. The signal is almost always worse than satellite, and we may have to turn the antenna when we change stations. We're also spoiled by the additional service we get with DISH: the ability to get "info" about any show on the schedule, and of course, the DVR which doesn't work with the off-air antenna.
We're kind of accustomed to watching the local news from New York. Since my son TJ lives there, we have some affinity to the area.
The Future. Of course, the technology is not standing still, either. Broadband internet is making video on the cable more practical, and cable's triple threat of TV, internet and phone service are making the offerings of satellite broadcast service less attractive. In addition, high definition TV (HDTV) is complicating every one's TV choices, including RV satellite customers. HDTV is being embraced by first adopters, but broadcasters are reluctantly coming on line with HDTV signals and programming. Local HDTV transmissions are up and running but remote ares, now served by transponders rather than the originating signal, are not being upgraded to HDTV. Consequently, even more customers in fringe areas will be disenfranchised by the advent of HDTV. Cable has a chance to provide more and better HDTV than does the broadcaster.
Satellite is providing HDTV for some cable channels, premium movie channels, and network transmissions. Since the broadcasters have less market penetration with HDTV, satellite can provide more customers, at least initially, with HDTV.
RVers can utilize HDTV, too, and we have seen some RVs with huge HDTV screens. This further complicates the hardware problem, though. In addition to different receivers and TV sets, the satellite signals for HDTV are being transmitted on different satellites, requiring more equipment and more complication at the dish itself. Our current DISH 500 signals are on the 110 and 119 satellites, and we have 2 LNBs on our dish, one for each of these satellites. DISH HDTV signals are being distributed from satellites at 61.5, 118 and 129 degrees west. Since our Starband satellite is also at 129, it would be impossible to have a single dish setup to receive both Starband and DISH signals at that location. Even adding 61.5, while possible, complicates the hardware and cabling.
We will just have to wait and see what is the best path for us to go down the road with hardware, dishes, and entertainment and internet services.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Visiting Knoxville
I decided that it might be appropriate for us to start a blog. I'm not sure who cares where we are, or what we're doing. But it might be a way to journal our travels in a concise, readily available way.
Today, we're in Knoxville, Tennessee. It's raining. Of the 8 days we've been here, it seems that it has rained on half of them. Though yesterday and Thursday were beautiful, sunny warm days. We're parked in the Escapees Raccoon Valley campground in Heiskell, waiting for our wayward mail to arrive. We've been here since 11/2.
Enough about the weather. Yesterday we did some touring in downtown Knoxville. The city was holding their Veteran's Day parade, though today is Veteran's Day. We had fun. We watched the parade for a while, then went to the Visitor's Center, which turns out to include the stage for a local radio station, that was having a live show by Jennifer Brantley, a local artist of the pop/bluegrass persuasion. After that we walked through the Market Square Mall. I believe that the day was a local holiday, as many things seemed to be closed. Our impression of Knoxville is that it is being rebuilt. Much renovation was going on downtown.
We did find a nice outfitters/department store downtown called Mast General Store. They sold Woolrich, Carrhart, and other heavy duty clothing, candy, boots/shoes, etc.
We left there around 2:00 to find a mid-century antique store called Nostalgia that Consuelo had seen advertised, and we did find it, after having lunch at Marble Stone Creamery. Turns out the ice cream was better than the antiques.
I took the first travel pics with the new cell-phone camera. It's not great, but having it along where ever we might go will be handy.
Knoxville Skyline
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
