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| 8 August 2002 Lake Ahquabi State Park Outside Des Moines IA Finally, we are out of Missouri! And finally we are able to access the internet from the campground using our Verizon/laptop combination! I'd like to meet that 'Can you hear me now? guy, and give him a piece of my mind. We are learning a lot about the shortcomings of wireless internet. It's late, and I'm trying to get all my stored up entries uploaded - tomorrow, maybe I'll know for sure where I am! 6 August 2002 Thousand Hills State Park Kirksville MO We have now had several bad experiences with the Trailer Life Directory’s rating system – the first campground we checked out last night turned out to be in the middle of a group of manufactured homes. Apparently, several of these homes had been torn down, and the owners of the place decided to put in a few RV hookups. The place was seedy and in the middle of a commercial district. Oh, yes, there was a water treatment facility right in back of the trailer court—too gross! We then made our way to the nearby state park; at least, with Missouri’s state parks you pretty much know what to expect—level pads and electric hookups in a wooded setting. We’ve been very impressed with the maintenance of the state parks in Missouri, and they’re among the cheaper places we’ve stayed. We’ve decided to stay here a few days. My leg has been aching and we both need some downtime. 5 August 2002 Binder Park Campground Jefferson City MO The heat this weekend was nearly unbearable, so we stayed put this weekend, and didn’t do much except thank God that we had air conditioning in the trailer. We had to move from one site to another yesterday, which was a drag, but not quite as much trouble as pulling up stakes and moving on. I rode in the trailer with the cats for the short trip down the road, just to see what it’s like when the trailer’s in motion, and to keep the cats calm. It wasn’t quite as hot yesterday so our neighbors on the one side decided to have ALL their friends over for a beer bust. Glad we didn’t have to be outside and listen to it, and breathe their cigarette smoke. Sounds a little puritanical, I guess, but I’m an ex-smoker (8 years) and now I can’t stand the smell of it. I am the unofficial navigator, so I am enjoying playing around with our routing and mapmaking software – we use Rand McNally’s TripMaker and Streetfinder, and they yield very detailed and personalized maps for us. Tripmaker also has a database of services on the road, so we can find nearby campgrounds, gas stations, restaurants, etc. Of course, we have print sources for a lot of this, too – the Trailer Life Directory, road atlases, etc. I’m an information junkie, and I like to know where I am. We use the GPS unit in the truck to orient ourselves, and make sure that we stay on course. After all the times we got lost, and had to turn this monster around, we’d like to keep that kind of activity to a minimum. John was talking to a Voicestream salesman in the mall the other day, who said that it would take 10 years for wireless internet to be available everywhere via satellite. We had been thinking about investigating Direct PC, since we’ve not had the best luck yet connecting to the Internet with our cell phone/laptop combo. We’ve been discovering that Verizon’s digital coverage can be spotty in some areas. As yet, we’ve not been able to connect to the Internet from a campground, even here just outside of Jeff City. Of course, JC probably isn’t a fair test because it’s a very hilly town. In order to get online, we get in the truck and drive around till we get a strong digital signal, and then we compute in the truck. Workmanlike, but not all that comfortable. |
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Bev's Journal We Proceeded On... Part II: The Journey West |