Category Archives: Internet

No Vacancy in Moab

It’s Monday afternoon. I started this post yesterday, but we lost our internet connection in Bluff, Utah. It can get frustrating. The RV Park internet was down and Verizon couldn’t hold a signal.

On Saturday, before we left Lone Rock Beach at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, our new friends from the Netherlands, Rob and Bettea, stopped by. They were leaving, heading south to Flagstaff, then into the Grand Canyon National Park – the opposite route of our travels. Rob wanted to see what an American 40-foot motorhome was like inside. Donna gave them the tour. Then we took a look at their European (French) RV built on a Toyota HiLux chassis.

Rob is quite tall and he told me our motorhome is the only RV he’s ever been in where he could stand up straight. Their RV is small, but efficient. Inside, it’s much like the cabin of a small sailboat. The diesel engine in his Toyota gets about 25 miles per gallon.

We’ve run across quite a few European visitors over the past nine months. There seem to be two types. There are those who spend an extended amount of time here, say three to six months, and spend at least a few days at each stopping point to sightsee. The other type tries to see the entire country in three to five weeks. They check in to the RV park in the afternoon. They go sightseeing for an hour or two and are on the road again first thing in the morning.

We decided to leave Lone Rock Beach and hit the road around 10:30am. Friday was very windy and the forecast for Saturday was not only wind, but also rain arriving by evening.  I didn’t want to be in the soft sand and dirt if it was going to rain. We drove back to Page and stopped at Walmart again. We stocked up on a few things, then headed out on highway 98. We climbed about two thousand feet on this highway to an elevation of nearly 6,000 feet before we descended down to US160.

It was scenic east of the town of Kayenta. We passed Church Rock and Baby Rocks which are interesting rock formations the wind has sculpted. The Navajo reservation (officially called the Navajo Nation) is the largest native American reservation in the country. It covers approximately 27,000 square miles (about the size of West Virginia) in three states – Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The entire Hopi reservation is encompassed by the Navajo Nation.

We crossed about half of the width of the reservation before turning north on US191. US 191 is very rough in places. Although the speed limit was 65mph, I had to slow to about 45mph through some areas.

We pulled into Cottonwood RV Park in Bluff, Utah around 4pm, local time (we lost an hour coming from Arizona to Utah). We booked a site for two nights and quickly set up in a large pull-through site and didn’t have to drop the trailer.

The wifi worked fine when we first used it Saturday evening. After a while, it became very unstable and ultimately unusable. We shut down our laptops and watched the first two episodes of Lost before retiring for the night.

On Sunday morning, we were frustrated by the unstable wifi again. I couldn’t even get the Verizon Jetpack to work reliably. We had strong winds again and a few rain showers. Around noon, Donna and I strolled into town.  We’re located on the west end of town. The east end of town is about a mile down the road.

As we walked through town, we found historic Fort Bluff. Much of this old site has been reconstructed. Entry is free. We found the old cabins, wagons and buildings to be interesting.

 

Donna in front of a meeting room at historic Fort Bluff

Donna entering a meeting room at historic Fort Bluff

They had many nicely restored covered wagons

One of many nicely restored covered wagons

From there, we walked to the east end of town where the Two Rock Trading Post and Two Rock Cafe are located. The photo shows where they got the name “Two Rock.” The rock formation is also known as the Navajo Twins.

Navajo Twins rock formation

Navajo Twins rock formation

We ate at the cafe. The food was good and the service was excellent. I had a Navajo pizza, which is a pizza made with a fry bread crust. Donna had the chili (and some of my pizza). I also ordered a Utah craft beer from a Salt Lake City brewery called Squatters. I had their pale ale called Full Suspension. The beer was only 4% ABV, but balanced nicely and was easy to enjoy.

Full Suspension Pale Ale

Full Suspension Pale Ale

This morning, we were frustrated with the Internet connectivity again. Donna was able to establish a connection with the RV park wifi. I couldn’t get anything.

It was windy and cold out. We decided to head north. We pulled out around 10:45am and followed US191. The road is newly paved and very smooth between Bluff and Blanding. We stopped in Blanding and topped up our fuel tank with 50 gallons of diesel fuel.

We climbed to an elevation of more than 7,000 feet before descending into Moab. Our coach is currently sitting at an elevation of 4,550 feet at the Spanish Trail RV Park, just south of the town.

When we arrived in Moab, we drove all the way through town. We saw several RV parks on both ends of town. I pulled over in a wide shoulder on the north end of town. We had 4G service, so Donna fired up her laptop to look for an RV park. We didn’t have a reservation anywhere, and didn’t know what was available. We weren’t able to do much research with no Internet in Bluff.

It turns out that our timing is impeccably bad. There’s an off-road rally starting tomorrow in Moab, called the Rally on the Rocks. It runs through Sunday. All of the RV parks are booked for the rally. We found this park for the night, but nothing for the rest of the week.

We’ll come up with a plan and move on tomorrow.

 

 

Bluehost and Amazon

Yesterday I completed my task for the day before noon as I knew the day was going to heat up. I had the air conditioners running in the coach from noon until after dark. Today’s weather will be more of the same.

The task I set for myself yesterday was cleaning the wheels on the left side of the coach. First, I wiped the tire sidewalls and treated them with 303 Aerospace Protectant. Tire sidewall rubber degrades from exposure to ultra-violet (UV) light and to a lesser degree from exposure to ozone. Tire manufacturers use an inexpensive compound called carbon black to protect against UV degradation. By the way, that’s why tires are black. The carbon black eventually absorbs enough UV light to degrade and turn gray. That’s why old rubber looks gray. 303 Aerospace Protectant contains a powerful UV stabilizer and no solvents that can harm tires.

When we’re parked for more than a few days, I use tire covers to keep direct sunlight off our tires. Since we’ll be on the road again, I wanted extra protection on the sidewalls. I’ve mentioned it before – RVs rarely wear out their tires. They degrade from age. I’d like to get as much time as possible out of our tires before they degrade.

After I treated the sidewalls of the tires, I started cleaning the Accuride alloy wheels. After wiping the surface, I used Nevr-Dull wadding to clean and polish the wheels. Nevr-Dull wadding is a felt-like cotton material treated with a chemical that removes tarnish and dirt without scratching or harming metal surfaces. I like this product. There’s no messy liquid to deal with and it’s super easy to use. Tomorrow, when we have a little cooler weather, I’ll do the wheels on the right side of the coach. The way we’re parked right now, the right side of the coach is facing east and has full sun all morning.

4_10LRWhl

Left wheels shiny and tires treated

Left wheels shiny and tires treated

After lunch, Donna took a few files and went to the Apache Wells RV Resort card room. She had the place to herself and was able to spread out and organize her work. While she was there, I rode the scooter over to WalMart to pick up a couple of things.

I bought an Omron electro-therapy device (these are generically called tens units). My chiropractor suggested I get one of these to relieve muscle tension while we’re on the road. It sends electrical pulses through pads that are attached to the skin near the affected area. The electrical pulses stimulate the muscle and provide relief from muscle spasm. I’ve used this therapy many times before, but only with a physical therapist. Nowadays, these devices are readily available and inexpensive. I thought it was worth a try.

Last night’s dinner was grilled hot Italian chicken sausage served with whole wheat spaghetti with a blender sauce made with fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic and olive oil, topped off with grated parmesan cheese. Donna sauteed sliced green peppers to serve on the side.

Hot Italian chicken sausage plate

Hot Italian chicken sausage plate

Hopefully, we’ll finish our taxes and get that out of the way today. It’s been a struggle trying to get it right with all of the changes we went through last year between selling the house, me retiring and us becoming full-time RVers. Next year should be easier.

I’ve added a few items to the right sidebar of this page. First is the Bluehost link. People have asked me how my blog is set up. I use WordPress for the blog template and Bluehost for web hosting. Below that, is the Amazon link. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a few pennies if you use my link to buy from Amazon. You pay the same price as always, but I earn a small referral commission.The last new item is a map with the states we’ve been through since we hit the road full-time colored in blue.

 

 

 

Gigabyte Trouble

When we were living in our sticks-and-bricks house, I never thought too much about an internet connection. We had a Comcast bundle for internet, cable TV and telephone. Their internet service was good. I had very fast downloads and became used to downloading things like European coverage of Moto GP races.

When we decided to hit the road, I did a little research on how we could stay connected. Some campgrounds have wifi, but their connection speed varies. What we’re finding is that it’s pretty good early in the morning, but as more people connect, it bogs down.

We have a couple of ways to get online other than relying on campground or other public wifi. Our main way of accessing the internet is through a device called a Verizon Jetpack. The Jetpack is a wireless router and hotspot that shares a data plan with my Verizon Galaxy S4 phone. As long as we have Verizon coverage, we can get online.

Verizon Jetpack.

Verizon Jetpack.

The other option is to make Donna’s T-Mobile Galaxy S2 a mobile hotspot. She has an unlimited data plan with T-Mobile. Unfortunately, T-Mobile doesn’t have the greatest coverage. We’ve had Verizon 4G service everywhere, so we have yet to fall back on using her phone as a back up.

Here’s the rub. When you are using a shared data plan with your cell phone provider, there are limitations. You can only download a finite amount of data under the plan you’ve chosen.  Exceed the limit and you may be charged an exorbitant rate for the overage. I had no idea  how many gigabytes (GB) of data we’d download (or upload) in a month. I didn’t want to sign up for too much, but I didn’t want to go over either.

The good thing about Verizon is they let you alter your plan during the billing cycle. You can monitor your usage and if you think you’ll go over your limit, you can change the limit for that billing cycle. If you raise it one month you can lower it down the next month. The price goes up or down by $10 for every 2 GB.

I decided to start with a plan that has unlimited talk or text on my smartphone and 6 GB of shared data. My first billing cycle was only 24 days and we used a little over 5 GB. I thought we were doing pretty good.

This month, one week into the billing cycle, we were at 1.3 GB. Right on track. The next day it was 3.2 GB! What! I asked Donna if she downloaded video content. She didn’t, but she did move a big batch of files from Dropbox to her computer. She also downloaded an upgrade to her virus protection program that may have been large. We discussed this and decided we needed to be smarter about handling data.

Whenever we have free wifi access, we can do large data files. On our dime, we need to be more careful. This requires a change in mindset. After years of unlimited internet access, it’s hard to form new habits.

Yesterday, I wanted to download the Moto GP race. I get this through a torrent program and it simultaneously downloads and shares an upload. Typically a couple of GB of data moves in a short amount of time. I was connected to the campground wifi and started the download.

In the afternoon, the campground wifi here typically is slow as more and more people get online. With the download running in the background, I worked on another project online. My screen kept freezing and I became frustrated. I disconnected from the campground wifi and connected to the Jetpack so I could complete the project. I totally forgot about the download running in the background.

Once I’d finished uploading a few pictures to a page I was working on, I remembered the Moto GP download. I opened the torrent program and the download was complete! Doh! I checked my data usage – it went from 3.2 GB to over 5 GB in 20 minutes! I can’t let that happen again!

I went to my Verizon account and upped our plan to 8 GB, which may or may not be enough for the rest of the month. We’ll see. But we’ll be very careful from now on. There are races I want to download over the next two weekends. Lesson learned: If I’m downloading a race on free wifi, I’ll walk away from the laptop until the download is complete.