Granted, many readers may be saying to themselves, “Thank God all those ads are gone!” But by the time others read this post, they may be thinking, “What on earth is this guy talking about?” If you’re the slightest bit interested in making little extra spending money by placing Google ads on your own website, or you wonder why we’ve stopped running ours, please read on. If not, rest assured the ads will be back. Hopefully soon.
Work
Living the dream full-time RVing nomadic lifestyle working as location independent entrepreneurs.
This Small Town Versus That Small Town
One of the reasons why I wanted to leave Humboldt County was because in the nearly 10 years that we lived there, many of the great ideas that people have about improving the area, never get off the ground. With the exception of the Redwood Technology Consortium who won the fight to connect Humboldt to the real world with fiber optic cable a few years ago, it seems that most great ideas never go anywhere.
Every improvement from the badly needed pedestrian / bike trail connecting Eureka and Arcata, to the fabulous Bay Trail, to the Marina Center Project, requires 10 consultants and 100 studies, and 10 years later, guess what? Nothing. Now, that definitely isn’t the fault of great residents like my friend Jen Rice who are so dedicated and try to get things like the Bay Trail to happen. No, not at all. It’s just that there are so many darn factions and infighting in Humboldt, that nobody can agree on anything. Every great idea that comes up will have a fight on its hands by some group claiming to know what’s best, guaranteed.
So as we head out into the rest of Small Town U.S.A., we are taking note of which towns have leaders and citizens that can work together and get things done.
Field Report: MotoSat Trouble
Our first day boondocking at Seedhouse Campground in the Routt National Forest, we had excellent connectivity with Satellite 91 West using our DataStorm F2 dish. The next few days however, we spent too much time trying to troubleshoot connectivity issues. In a previous life, this would have been frustrating. But it’s hard to get upset when your home office is deep in the woods with so much to do…
Troubleshooting the Norcold N821 RV Refrigerator
We’ve been giving the fridge a serious workout the past few weeks as we have traveled through some record-breaking heat in Arizona and Utah. I’ve been meaning to post about how the fridge issues that began at Lake Francis RV Resort seem to be resolved. Then I noticed the ignition fault error this morning after our first night in the Rockies outside Steamboat Springs, CO.
Fifth Wheel vs. Travel Trailer (vol. 1)
Here’s another reason to get a fifth wheel instead of a bumper-mounted travel trailer. The last few legs of our roadtrip have confirmed that we made the right choice…
When we researched purchasing a travel trailer or a fifth wheel, we discovered that fifth wheels are much less likely to sway in high winds as the weight is centered over the axle instead of hanging off the bumper.
Over the past few days we have experienced some pretty high winds. Traveling south on CA highway 395 and then up out of Death Valley, we experienced strong winds from all directions. Not once did I feel instability in the trailer. I never noticed the fifth wheel sway or fishtail from side to side. It felt steady even in the strongest winds and was always rock steady in the rear view mirror.
Staying hitched to the trailer
For the past couple nights we’ve been staying hitched to our fifth wheel trailer when spending just one night in RV resorts. We’ve researched this online and only found this one forum discussion about staying hitched that addressed the issue specifically. It confirmed my assumption that it will do no harm to the truck. I do, however, raise the trailer a bit more than the …
Engine Dings in the Valley of Death
From our direction we’re traveling in, there’s only one road in, and one road out, to the hottest, most inhabitable place in North America, Death Valley. The music of Pink Floyd is the ultra mellow soundtrack for our crossing at 5:30 am today. Way back in 1996, the first time we crossed this inferno, the only soundtrack was the wind screaming in my ears as …
Over the mountain and through the woods
Gave the ol’ Dodge Ram 2500 a real workout this weekend haulin’ the rig over Carson Pass (8,650) and Monitor Pass (8,314 ft) from Silver Lake near Kit Carson, CA to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, CA. Check out our new LiveWorkDream Roadtrip Maps page to see some of the crazy hairpin turns and to follow the progress of our route. The truck had no problem …
Satellite Internet Geeks Make Great RV Neighbors
By the time we finished setting up the trailer at Crags Campground on Robinson Creek near Twin Lakes our site neighbor already knew us by name. I couldn’t help but notice the MotoSat dish atop his Sea Breeze RV Coach when we pulled in, and I noticed him watching ours as it locked onto 91 West. I did not, however, expect what happened next… When …
Life as a Campground Host
I’ve always wondered about what it was like being a campground host. Then, over the weekend, a really nice host named Jim Wagner helped Jim and I back our RV into a tight spot at Silver Lake, off Hwy. 88 near South Tahoe. He seemed to be really seasoned at being a host, and with RVing in general, so I asked him if he would …
We are not on vacation!
I sure like the view from my new office – at least this week. And it sure is nice to take a break from working online to go fishing or for a walk in the woods. Earlier today while desperately trying to catch a large brown trout that was toying with me for hours in the creek coming out of Silver Lake, a kid asked …
We’ve drawn first blood.
We can officially call the trailer ours now that we’ve given it its first battle scar. But it could’ve been much, much worse. When checking out the forest service campground at Silver Lake East, we came a bit too close to the trees. More than once. Luckily, we only put a good sized mark on our awning. It didn’t even tear through. But I’m actually …
Talk about Interference…
After chatting with Linksys Tech Support and troubleshooting my router’s Wifi signal for over an hour at the Travelhome RV Park, I went for a walk with Jerry and quickly discovered why there was so much radio interference in the area. I couldn’t tell if this was a local cable company, television station, or a regional NSA office, but it most certainly wrecked havoc on …
If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.
After a fun visit with some friends who drove all the way from Oakland to visit us at Lake Francis, we have now made it to Yuba City – just down the road from the RV Service Center where we’ll take the rig tomorrow to get the fridge checked out. Of course, it seems to be working well now. Hopefully it was just bad power at that campground. This trip has certainly become one of discovery.
Good news is, we do have internet access with our dish here. Bad news is, our computers can’t see our wireless network. I’ve wired in to troublshoot the problem and have determined there is just too much WiFi interference here. Various other networks keep showing up and disappearing. Ours was visible momentarily then went away for good. At least we are only here for the night … hopefully!
Camp WiFi vs. Satellite Internet
Here’s a question for the web-savvy full-timers:
Would you rather rely on spotty campground wireless service for your internet connection, or have your own more reliable yet much more expensive satellite dish service such as MotoSat? This may be irrelevant to the weekend warriors but for those of us on the road full-time, who need to remain connected for either business or pleasure it is a serious consideration. So consider this…
We have a top of the line .98 meter F2 satellite dish from Datastorm with MotoSat internet service and a Linksys 300N wireless router