Thursday  July 23

South Dakota what a deal (our fulltimer home state) and finding this is a long state to drive across, and now up the middle going north. Much like Iowa, crops and more crops, without irrigation systems as needed in Nebraska this far west, but in this case wheat and hay and some sun flower fields thrown in for good measure. Wheat harvest is in full swing in the south and still kind of green up north here yet. This is a learning experience as I've been in many areas in the west, but not through this section of the Dakotas. 

Want to buy a brand new John Deere combine. Just get out your petty cash me thinks...

We came upon our stopping for the night town (Herreid, SD) with RV park and this is what we found. The main street was torn up. 
Ruts tipping the 5er from side to side and back and forth trying to miss the big trucks. What a mess. The flag person refused to even look at us as she knew she would get a stern look back from us expressing a now verbal  how could they mess this up this bad. I'm sure she has had to put up with people yelling at her and she saw us coming with tehe5er bounching around in the ruts. 

We checked Streets and Trips as we are going to backtrack in the morning and go on side streets to get around this disaster.  We could see they were routing all traffic right down through the construction so as to keep the huge grain trucks off the side streets. 

On the north side of town our RV park right on US HW 83. What do you want for $10. We are the only people here and we don't expect any to show up. It's all just for us, me thinks.

The truck on the left was with the suvey crew doing the raod. 

Call for reservations are you kidding. 

Now meet our lovely campground host. You pay your money and takes your chances.  Inside the building there was a his and hers (might hae been cleaned sometime this year, didn't look close) and a couple of washers and dryers. Some exercise equipment which a local kid was using along with a stereo that we could hear inside our 5er with the A/C going. Not a problem, kids are kids... have fun while you can, me thinks. 
The sign said Rates: $20 or as indicated in your travel book. In our case PassportAmerica sez $10. I printed out a copy of the PA listing and included it with a 10 dollar bill. Have a nice day. But it is 93 outside and the 30 amp power is keeping us cool. The power pedistles look newer and we are the only ones here, so don't think low power will be a problem. Me thinks this is the bargain we were looking for. Except we now feel we came out of our way to find it. We have decided since landing here we are going to back track a bit and head down to HW 12 and then go west through Mobridge on over to Bowman, ND. to a little RV park we found on the web. 

Can't see heading north and taking I-95 through Bismark. No interstates for us, thank you if we can help it.  Guess we got carried away with seeing a low cost PA park here. With burning fuel up and backto get here we could have stayed at a regular RV park on US 12. Might be why this park is not used much. Live and learn me thinks.  We are out to enjoy and not be perfect, that's for sure... If not IT is always Terry to blame as Navigator Error. But this time I picked this spot so he is off the hook. Damn... 

We knew it will be Friday night so I called Butte View RV park in Bowman and they said not a problem. Me thinks things are slow. We found this next stop on www.freecampgrounds.com and also checked the GPS location in Google earth. What a way to travel. If they only had this stuff 150 years ago.  Looking forward to see how busy things are as we continue our travels. Got diesel for $2.39 today. Not complaining...  HW 12 should be a fun route as many small towns along the route. 

Oh did I mention we went to the pool last night in Mitchell in the R & R Campground. A PA Park for $15 What a great deal that was. It was open till 10 PM and we were the only ones in it. I floated and closed my eyes and had the best like suspended animation experience. It was heaven. Now to get a hot tub when in Q this winter, how cool that would be. 
 
 

Leaving Vermillion we discovered southern South Dakota is wet as rivers were flooded and fields were a mess. Late morning we came upon our hometown Emery, SD. About time we visited our hometown. It just celebrated its 125th Celebration, and we missed it.

It was nice we could stop by as we had never been there before. MyHomeAddressInc.com was open and we got our mail and without much fuss.  They are located on a dead end street (a street sign said no RVs beyond this point) in a addition behind their garage, so we couldn't drive the 5er to them but had to walk several blocks. I am out of shape (it was warm and humid) for that,  not me thinks, me knows. I know what you're saying... Pure Babby. 

I was a little pooped when we finally got inside in the above picture. 
The sign for Emery sez pop 439 
and just up the road Alexandria the county seat pop 563. 

Now I came from a small county in eastern Iowa but this IS tiny. We could see the population of the entire county is maybe under 2000 and me thinks more people live on paper in this one room in Emery than real people in the entire county. You would think the county would provide valet parking for this place with all the federal revenue sharing moneys they get for their population count that doesn't physicley live here. 

Next headed off to Mitchell our stop for the day. R&R Campground is a PassportAmerica affiliate so it cost us all of $15 to check-in. Nice pool and the works. Terry is off now doing laundery in their machines.

We just had to go for a drive and look what we found, the tourist trap of downtown and the Corn Palace. And no we didn't stop and tour it. When you are the driver you get to decide when the big O truck stops. Guess who drives...

Yes those are ears of corn on the wall. Cool.

Next the reason for all the fuss of Mitchell, SD. Cabela's. Terry wanted fly fishing leaders, shoes, and I wanted a new camping lounge chair. Their catalogue showed just a model I wanted. 

Well let me tell you we came away vowing never in the near term to at least this Cabela's again. Very disappointed. First off we noted the parking lots so very empty.  (See above) Hum, it is Wednesday and in the middle of summer vacation this place should have been busy. Right on I-90 Not so.  On inside we went.

It didn't take us long to decided things we not up to snuff. They had no fly fishing equiptmernt that (Terry was looking for) as in leaders and replacement net bags.etc.  I had been wanting to get a nice light camping recliner, but the camping section looked like it was a Sunday and everyone had left the campground and gone home. No chairs at all to speak of. Very bleak. I thought as I searched the section, you can't sell it if, you don't have it. Terry wanted new Cabela's walking shoes... nope none in stock. We made it politely clear we were unhappy campers. They of course offered to ship anything and at no cost, but as we are fulltime and moving on down the road that doesn't cut it. 
After the front clerk called one of the managers to come up front to see if they could please us as they were all very polite.  It was what that manager said that made what we had observed, with the lack of inventory, come to light.  He acknowledged they were short product and among other things this caught us between the ears. He said "some of their venders have not been shipping inventory to them".  Code words for Cabela's might be in a tad bit of trouble. Others such as Sportsman's Outlet are in Chapter 11 and it doesn't take much thought after looking around this store that things are not going well. Now that is just our observation and we hope we got the wrong impression. But no reason to stop in here... best to call ahead to have must have items shipped ahead to the store for pick-up if they even have it. 

The sculpture in front of Cabela's.  A work of ART. Enjoy.

Next off to northern South Dakota. To Herreid, SD (See the box around its name) (A $10 a night PassportAmerica park) after leaving Mitchell. We will boondock when we get more into the boonies. Besides it is warm and our next stop it is to be 95 for the high at Herreid. 
We were thinking of staying an extra day in Mitchell but after our Cabela's experience we are moving on. 

 

Left the great green farmlands of eastern Iowa and hit US 20 to cross the northern part of the state to get to South Dakota as we are headed for our first sotp in Vermillion, SD. 

Norhtern Iowa is now big for wind power. Corn and wind, this goes on for miles and miles. 

Landed in Vermillion, SD at their nice city park. 

You would not believe the yelling it took for us to get backed into this spot. We were a little tired from our days drive. Got to get back in the grove as we have been off the road for a few weeks. We first tried the one to the left but soon decided the satellite would not find anything through the tree so moved to the one next to it.
The weather was rain for most of the morning as we drove through it for several hours. Now partly could and about 80 out. A nice breeze... The entire midwest with all the green crops reminds us as the movie sez   Is this heaven... no this is Iowa...  but SD comes up a close second as it is now our new home state. 
Now for the yelling... I told Terry after we sat down with a happy hour drink, said we might as well get off to the correct start. Screaming at each other so as we go along it will only get better... With no other RVers camped here we could yell a loud as we want without getting that, can we help you back in, look.  You know you are in trouble when they bring out their lawn chairs to watch you park it.  And he yells to his wife bring me another beer, this is going to be fun...
No sense starting out all pleasant lovey... dovey.. and have it deteriorate. This way it can only get better me thinks. Terry thinks it is going to get better also. We did have a great first day, not to worry...

Next off to Mitchell, SD as we pass through our home town, for mail forwarding that is in Emery, SD.  MyHomeAddress,Inc That we have never been there... is that a problem. Now to remedy that, so if we are ever stopped by some terrorist security agency and asked where we are from and about our home town, we wont have to say we have never been there. An answer like that could get you a ride in the back seat of a unmarked police  unit to the local dungeon for more questions, me thinks... 

So next another big day as we are off exploring whatever we can find...  Cabela's is in our future... Shopping  for goodies...  Mitchell, SD here we come.
 
 

Off we went to eastern Iowa to visit Terry's family and their century farm. His parents still live on it along with his brother and his son who is now just out of college and pursuing a career in insurance working with a agency in a nearby town. See where we are at, on the DataStormUsers map. Terry's brother has taken it over to farm and also works fulltime for the USDA in their local field office. 

They moved some machinery so we could have a spot to land next to some grain bins. Really a great RV pad spot. You know how great it is to be able to visit family and have a free RV spot. I also grew up on a farm so parked out back next to the grain bins was right up my alley. Feel right at home. 

Parked on a level spot where an wooden old corn crib building used to stand.

Have to have HD TV dish set up. Needed to spot it just so it didn't get set up in a cow pie. 

From inside our living room. Oat hay bales with the oat shaft still attached clipped before the grain matures. The cows love this like candy. A electric wire runs around it so they can't get to it till it is served up for desert. 

This is where you get your power when camping out back on the family farm. Terry and his brother wired this 30 amp box into his existing power that runs the grain bin augers. He is selling grain on Friday afternoon and the area will be filled with semis getting loading up to take it all to town to the co-op. They will be on the other side and not effect where we are parked. 

The weather is now great being so cool that we have turned off the A/C and on Friday the high is forcast for only 67. This is mid July the last I looked. Think we'll take it and love it. 
 

As we are getting ready to head to the outback as in ND amd MT we thought we needed new FRS/GMRS 2 way radios.  We had been thinking about getting new ones for some time. We need to be in contact and if cell service is not close this is the easy way to go. Our old ones were not up to par with want we now wanted so when wondering around WalMart the other day, right there was some Cobra 22 Mile range units that looked just like what we should have. You know WalMart only has brands that they have determined are the best in the field and at the right price. 

And they had NOAA weather radios built in. That did it, Terry bought them with him saying this is your birthday present. OK OK that sounded good. so off we go. 

So what do we find, the charger unit didn't put out any power. You can plug it into each unit or to the base unit, either way it didn't work. SO off they go back to Wally World. New ones opened after you cut through the packaging without slicing of a finger if your lucky. Well this batch had its problems also. One of the units auto squelch didn't work as you had to touch the antenna to quite it. Not good. So these were also going back... 

But this time I decided I should do a little research as we were not going to just replace these Cobra units again. Now looking for a better solution to our needs. Off to Cnet.com on the web and other places to do research as to what I should buy and for customer comments...  Why didn't I do that in the first place. I normally do that but I thought  this is a common buy and these things should live up to the packaging statements. After a web search  I decided the Motorola Talkabout Model MJ270R was the unit to buy. 

New for this year a the 2009 CES show and had many features above and beyond others. 
We bought ours at Target as they had them in stock. So many of the big box stores have very few items in stock and only online more of what you want. Why bother going to the sticks and bricks if you always have to order online at even Radio Shack, or Best Buy to get what you are looking for.  And we wonder why Amazon.com has it all and ships fast. This time Target had this item in store and in stock.  So off to Ames, IA  to return the junk Corba units and get the Motorola units.  So far happy with this unit. It has a weather alarm built in so just like the standalone units it will turn on when a weather alert is broadcast. Many other advanced features I may not even use. That's like so many things over engineered and can only be used by geeks. OK so I'm not a true Geek but a couple of the features of this unit do appeal to me. Somtimes more is better and now I have to teach Terry how to use this.  It does have a feature I can program so I can LOCK the controls so Terry can only just turn it on and off so I can call him and make it so he can't screw up the controlls. Cool. My kind of FRED...
Fuc%ing Ridiculous Electronic Device. 
 

Life as we know it...

It's Saturday night and the 5er is all clean as I got down on my hands and knees and cleaned the bathroom and shower last night. Where can I find, I was asking in the middle of that process.
(You can click on the Merry Maids graphic above if you want. Not sure they will come to a RV park. But then they just might!)
Just getting up off the floor is a big deal don't Ya know. Fat and me starting SS payments this month it is a wonder I got up of the the floor at all. (Terry did help me get to my feet) Me thinks a cleaning service in Quartzsite this winter would make money as people who can't or just don't wnat to do it, would pay just to watch it done in front of them. Combine it with carpet cleaning and there you go...

Our bathroom (348 SB floorplan by NuWa) needed cleaning as I wont tell you when it was last done.  (as in not since we got this new 5er) If I have to tell how long that is, you have not been paying attention. How dare we.  Two guys in a 5er, what do you expect. It wasn't that bad, as we did do touch ups but not a through cleaning (but it was, when I got down close up close on the floor). I do a cleaning like this as I shower, me and the shower gets cleaned together so to speak. It Works. That's how I did the our sticks and bricks houses, but this space is smaller and not as easy.  But now it all sparkles and smells so fine. Terry who is smell deprived even noticed. 
Now today I redid the kitchen cabinets today using plastic storage containers (shoe sized) we got at where else WalMart.  (after a mid day nap to recover from last nights bathroom, shower, floor, and stool cleaning workout) Terry vacuumed today with our Eureka Model Super Lite 402. A great vacuum for a RV. 

It's like a whole new 5er... Clean organized and ready to travel. 
Terry is cooking a chicken pot pie from scratch... Pie crust and all... You would think he can cook or something. Must as I am way overweight, but we do eat most of the time from scratch, so we get less, fat, sugar and salt found in processed supermarket selections. Now to just eat less of his offerings and get more exercise. Hiking adventures sound good, untill I have to do them. If they were all just down hill. I will try to do that in the next few weeks when we are off to north by northewest on this summers great adventure. 
 

Follow along to see what we find.

Now a forum post I did on RV.net on this topic...
The question was... 
What would you do??? 
Lets say you purchased your RV from a local dealer (30 min. away) and had a great experience with purchase (you liked the price, walk through was complete,customer service and repair service has always been top notch) everything you could ask for. You also like the brand of RV as far as fit and finish etc etc. you want to upgrade but the brand you have no longer makes a floorplan you want and dealer only carries 2 brands. other brand doesn't have floor plan either...

Would you buy completely different floorplan so you could stay with dealer and brand or would you buy from another dealer and and another brand but maybe not have as positive experience as the first.

My post:
My first thought is why are you having to take your RV back to this wonderful dealer for service in the first place. Go find a quality RV with the floor plan you like, where you don't need great customer service as it doesn't need fixing. I know the argument all RVs are junk and need fixing. Not... I have owned two Hitchhikers (NuWa) and I never had to use the local dealer for service. I never worried about a pre delivery inspection because I never found anything wrong up front with them. I trusted them to deliver a unit ready for fulltiming and they did. Yes, I did stop at the factory in Chanute, KS for some work after I lived in them for a time. But only a couple of things and nothing I would have wanted a local dealer to work on anyway.

Am I just lucky?

Or let me ask how many times did you have to get service at your local dealer, and why do you think you owe them loyalty.

Now I as I post this I realize this topic is under General RVing Issues and I may be more of a fulltimer and not a weekend or vacation RV user and may be buying a higher end unit which may if I'm lucky doesn't need as much service. So be it, but if you can go for quality, so you don't have to suck up to your local dealer for service, do it. You get what you pay for, never fails to work.

But the end game is just get out there and camp, the summer will be over before you know it. Have fun... And if the hot water heater fails, get a pan and heat some over your campfire.
 

I thought I would share a post I did on RV.net forum about the new NBC TV summer show 
Great American Road Trip. The web site for this show. 

You did watch this now didn't you.  You don't have to admit it, but I know you did, as it was the only thing on that wasn't a rerun. The web site sez you can see the premiere encore on Sunday July 12 if you missed it the fist time. Normal schedule is Monday night. 

Now my forum post...
I want to see where they park all those RVs in Oatman, AZ on Route 66. Let the kids feed the burros with carrots as a contest. Maybe a burro will eat one of the brats (I mean kids) fingers. The family with the kids most fingers left wins. Can't believe they got rid of one family on the first show. How many weeks is this show on? Wont be anyone left by they time the get to Williams, AZ. Hope they detour and take the train to the Grand Canyon and see who can throw the most trash over the edge. Do you get the idea these families are dysfunctional and then had children. Made for TV viewers just like them. They are nuts and that's why we are watching them make fools of themselves. It's what TV is all about.
It's why I spend big bucks for HD service from DirecTV in my fulltime RV. And why am I watching this junk TV show? Could be nothing else new on during the summer season. I need to get out and have a campfire...
I hope El Monte RV rental (I did a Google and looks like all they do is rent RVs) got their money out up front and not just in it for the advertising. Do they think they can repaint the MHs and re rent them after these clods get done with them. Ops. that would be the norm in a rental me thinks... The units don't exactly look high end, but nice paint jobs.

Now back to real life as we know it...
We are having a beef pot roast for supper, you know with carrots, potatoes, onions. OK I'll say the word Yummy in advance.  Have not had one for awhile so this will be great eating event.  Terry talks about when we have leftovers as we will have tomorrow, sez we need to feed on that for lunch etc. I hate that term "feed on that" like we are cattle or pets that need to need to eat their feed.  Or, Oh No put on the feed bag... I'm getting lost here...

Too bad the above TV show is not on tonight to enjoy it with, as when The Adventures of Tioga and George
calls a pot roast a beast feast.

The aroma is flowing about the 5er as I type. We have the A/C on, not as it is so hot outside as rain storms came through a couple of  times today, but it is very humid (we are in Iowa as it is July) so the A/C helps with that. 
We are still planning to get to eastern IA next week to visit family and old friends. Need to get the trailer tires back in round by spinning them ongoing down the road. Hitch Itch here we go... Do tires get flat spots on them on the bottom in summer like tires do in the winter when the temps go below zero? Not that we will ever be where it gets that cold anytime soon to find out? Been there, done that, in a former working life. Bet summer flat spots work free sooner. Don't think  I'll bother presenting that question on the RV forums. 

Think the beat feast is coming out of the oven... Later... 
 

  I know many of you may think what a crazy idea that must be.  Or what is that even about. So did I, (I still do not have Facebook and not anytime soon do I think I'll want that) but slowly as I use Twitter I'm getting usable results with this process, so it is now, for me  worth using it as after all I am a webmaster of several web sites. I started out with a Commodore 64 after all.  Needing to try new things but as I get older some just don't cut it anymore.  If you have no desire to use or find out more about it, don't worry, you can live without some of this,just fine. No need to be an early adopter every time. I have done that and now try to research some of this first. 
Now about why I kind of like it. People are more inclined to send a quick twit instead of a long email to a bunch of Cc: users.  What a hassle that is.  Now if you just updated your travel blog or have something you want to share, you can twit about that to your Twitter followers. Rember people have to find you and sign up to follow you. They can then go to your regular blog for more info if you put that link in your twit to read and see more about it. It doesn't replace blogs or email but complements them so we can communicate faster with a little more flair. 
Recieving tweets from people I follow I can go right to their blog to read the rest of the story. Sure you may say this will put Hitchitch.com out of the loop. In some sense yes but when you want to see all the Travel Blogs in one place people will still go to it me thinks. And only a small selection of bloggers on our site will ever be happy doing twits. Room for all in this cyber space. Not worried about being replaced and if so so be it. I only do www.hitchitch.com for fun and not for profit. Sure the ads pay for the my internet bandwidth usage but not a huge money maker.  I don't think a 140 char. max. twit will replace full fledged blogs anytime soon but only inhance their use.  We are www.twitter.com/hitchitch For more info on Twitter go to http://help.twitter.com/portal

On to tomorrow and what I may ramble about next...  Just think in a week we'll be back on the road doing a real travel journal with stories about  The restless urge to see new territory, to find what is beyond the curve in the road ahead.  Don't you get tired of my ending my post with that tag line... 
 

Took the truck for new front tires today. GoodYear Wrangler SilentArmor. $181 each. Needed one but decided to replace both front. Saved the good right front as spare. That got done and the good news they checked the breaks with 69K miles on the truck and declared we still have over 60% break left so no work was needed. Wow that is good news as like all things truck related it would have been big bucks for break work. I don't want to be crusing down a mountian road and have break rpoblems. This is our home I'm pulling around behind us after all. 
One thing I know for sure is we will check for uneven tire wear from now on as we missed it on the old tires that only had 6K miles on them. Long time readers will remember my horror story getting the tires and alignment way back when at the Chevy dealer in Parker, AZ. You know the story where it took them 9 hours to put on 6 tires and do an alignment. And now we know the alignment was not so hot as I now needed a new front tire because of inside edge tire wear. 

But that is all behind us now and one less thing to worry about so we can hit the road to north by northwest so soon. This is going to be a great summer and fall for traveling me thinks. Look out Tad here we come. 
 

Just had to pass on this post on RV.net  Google Earth and Corps of Engineers Parks
 by Chris Guld of Geeks on Tour and their Geeks on Tour Blog  site.

All the COE campgrounds and national forests show up in Google Earth along with links to each site with more info. I turn 62 this month and will be getting a pass for 1/2 price to be used at the COE parks. Can't beat that and now with Google Earth pointing them out to us so we don't miss any. The COE has some of the best campgrounds that can be found anywhere and now at a price I want to pay. We will make them one of our first choices when in the area of one of them. COE campgrounds are close to being right up there with boondocking with great locations and views and on lakes. And now for us with a cost we can also enjoy.
You can go to the COE web site as Chris talks about in his above post and go down to the 
New - Corps Lakes & Google Earth! section. Or go right to Google Earth to View Corps Lakes link
The internet just gets better and better and thanks to  Geeks on Tour for pointing the way. 

They have a  free e-Newsletter. Check what they have to offer. 

On Tuesday we are off to town (Ankeny, IA) to get new Good Year Silent Armor tires on the front wheels for our truck and also get the breaks checked. Should not have to be doing this as we only have about 6 K miles on the tires BUT we screwed up and didn't check the wear and now find the left front out of alignment and it wore bad on the inside edge. So might as well replace both and be done with. Will save the right front as spare. These things are not cheep as you may well know, but this is our tow vehicle so not going to mess around and just do it.

Terry got the back shed at his sisters place sorted out so we have room again to store my old 94 Grand Am till we might need it again next spring. One more thing done so we can leave at the end of the week. So you say 94 Grand Am that must be a wreck. No rust and runs and looks like new. Has a shape that kind of still blends in with the newer cars. It turned past 100K this last week so what's not to like. Saves putting miles on our 1 ton diesel. The first car that I ever owned that has had more than 25K miles on it. From that you can tell I traded autos regularly. Not so now. But we did trade in our 5er for a new one so I still have the itch for new. And the diesel truck has only 70K miles on it. Just getting broken it me thinks. 
 

A rainy morning in good old Iowa this 4 th of July. It did the same most of the night, Bet there are a few wet campers out there at the local campgrounds. That reminds me we will have to take a drive over to Prairie Flower (COE) and JesterPark (Polk county park) to see how the weekend campers are doing. It's an annual thing to do for us we are entrenched in our lot here and no way would we want to be out in a local campground with all the amateur campers we fulltimers call them. After all it is their time to enjoy and so we need to let them be and stay out of their way as we can have the use of the grounds when they are back at work. 

We are doing fine sitting here in the 5er (overcast and cool outside 65) listening to Click and Clack and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR and visiting the blogs on Hitchitch.com (another plug for my site). I can spend hours reading the adventures while I set here in comfort out of the rain in our new 5er.
Reading other travel blogs gets me excited about getting back on the road in a week. First heading to eastern IA to visit family and then off to the northwest. 
I think we have all our ducks in a row... Truck all serviced, (oill leack didn't amount to much, leaky filter adapter) 5er is ready, (NuWa did that in KS on our way here) didn't really unpack the basement. Will put gas tableizer the car and put it back in storage.  Dr. apointments are done and teeth are now clean again. Dr. didn't keep me so ggod to go. Then hook er up (5er) and just go. 

I made the device below to hold our netbook while traveling in our 03 Chevy Duramax.

I consists of a stock finished shelf (9.8" X 23.8") from Home Depot. Next got adjustable straps from Wal*Mart in their sports dept. (under $2 each) and some thin round elastic (from a fabric store) to hold the netbook to the board.  Screwed the straps to the board and just strap it all to the center console and ready to boot up Streets and Trips with GPS. The straps go down under the board and under and around the console flip up door. I have them laying on the top just for show now in the above picture. 
. 

When hooked up you will not see them. The strap clips are not in the way as they are in the console storage area when connected. I can still open the console normally. It is just at the right height to lean and write on the board also.

The netbook slips under the elastic cords. 
The whole point is to replace my inefficient human navigator. Not mentioning any names!

I can control the D3 DataStorm satellite via WiFi from here (inside the truck) and raise and lower the dish on top of the 5er during rest stops if I care to. All the satellite electronics, modem, WiFi, runs off a tiny inverter right in the bathroom closet so the big 2000 W inverter for A/C to the rest of the 5er is not needed.  Now I hope no one breaks my security on my WiFi while we are going down the road and deploys the dish on me. They would also have to know the IP address for the D3 controller unit. Not likely.  More likely I will not turn on the tiny inverter to power it all till needed anyway. Peace of mind when coming to a tunnel me thinks. 

Update:  6 PM CDT Iowa time.  It is still a wet drizzly kind of day in the midwest.  Plenty of wet not so happy campers as we toured the locals campgrounds.  Just something some of us fulltimers do to see how the weekenders do it in the rain. Lots of little kids and big ones getting dirty in the mud puddles. 

Now back at our 5er listening to Prairie Home Companion on NPR. A little wet outside for grilling so slid a turkey loaf in the oven. Comfort food for a wet, and foggy night.  Not your normal 4th food but we still have all that in the fridge and will cook it on Sunday and next week.  What you think we are on vacation of somthing...
At 8 PM CDT NBC is doing the fireworks from the Hudson river in NYC put on by Macy's. We shall see how it looks this year in HD at 1080i. I'm sure PBS is planning some great viewing tonight also. Sort of like New Years Eve for the population who stay at home and watch it all on TV.  Wish we were in a campground out west, or better yet boondocking it, watching the stars sparkle all on their own, withiout the aid of blasting powder, in the clear night sky for a very special kind of 4th celebration. 

But we will soon be able to spend the next several months doing just that. Exploring the northwest and later heading south when it gets cooler and back to Quartzsite. So for now on this 4th we are happy to be right here in our home state with all its green growing crops, where we were born and raised, to enjoy this holiday.  We refresh our spirit spending time here each year watching the good earth sprout forth in its green splender. The black earth in Iowa allows all this without irrigation as it rains here, thank god, like this special weekend. We see much of dry non productive lands out west as we do in AZ where we spend winter. It gives our time here a chance to recharge. But now we are ready to pursue The restless urge to see new territory, to find what is beyond the curve in the road ahead. Here I go again with my main web page jargon... It is what drives us all isn't it?  I still need to be better at stopping in a timely manor each day when on the road so to leave more beyond the curve for the next day. 

I'm a man, but I can change, If I have to, I guess. 
 
 
 

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