Skip to content

Archive for

What We’ve Been Up To

(1) Trying to Keep Cool. It’s been a hot week. A friend of ours who has lived in Mariposa several years said she has never seen it this hot so soon. Great.

(2) Painting the House. This has been going on for a few months as we’re trying to do it “right” — washing, scraping, priming, and painting two coats of the final color. As of today we have 3 sides down with the area under the garage the last to go.

(3) Getting Driver’s License. After we sold the RV, there was no need for Jan to get a Class B RV license (a real PITA). So here’s Jan with her Class C license:

(4) Gave Flirt a Summer Cut for those hot days ahead.

A Very Different Looking Doggy

(5) Home Improvement Stuff.

Replacing Non-Working Ceiling Fan
Installing a New Garage Light
Putting Up New Blinds – We’ve Install a Lot of These Since We Arrived

(6) Looking for a New RV. Well, actually a used Class C motorhome in the under 30-foot range. Almost as soon as we sold our Newmar RV, we started missing RVing. So . . . we’ll probably buy a used one early next year . . . along the lines of this 26-foot 2004 Majestic Class C:

Starlink – Part Deux

I’ve been meaning to write an update to our Starlink saga, but we’ve been busy with house stuff. More on that in the next post.

First, apologies to my former high school and band mate Wally who sent me a link to a Starlink review ( https://www.theverge.com/22435030/starlink-satellite-internet-spacex-review ) over a month ago. The article’s title (“SpaceX’s satellite internet service is a technological marvel — when it works”) signaled the direction of the Starlink review.

In a nutshell, in the whole week he evaluated the service, the author seemed most concerned about the fact that Starlink was not as fast as his cable Internet service.

Dumb. Starlink was designed from the getgo as a rural, not urban, Internet service.

Internet in the Boondocks

First, as a rule there’s no cable Internet available in the sticks because it’s just too expensive to run cable lines for so few customers.

So rural Internet options are typically cellular, microwave, and HughesNet.

For example, here in Mariposa, CA where we live, before Starlink our Internet options were cellular (Verizon, AT&T, etc), microwave (unWired broadband), and satellite (HughesNet). I’ve had experience with all of them and reviewed my cellular and microwave services is an earlier post ( https://rvseniormoments.com/2021/03/23/starlink-vs-att-verizon-microwave/ ).

From RVing, I’ve also had extensive experience with HughesNet ( https://rvseniormoments.com/projects/hughesnet-gen-5-satellite-internet/ ).

Starlink

We’ve been using Starlink since March and we’re very happy with it. If anything, Starlink service has become more dependable and faster over time.

Recent Starlink Numbers
Our Fastest Download Speed

About a month ago, we moved the Starlink dish from our backyard fence to our house roof:

Dishy McFlatface Looking North

In order to mount the Starlink dish on our roof, we used a special Pipe Adapter kit and a Cable Routing kit. Both kits were exemplary for what they included . . .

Pipe Adapter Kit
Cable Routing Kit