Posts from the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Apr 12

Camp Verde, AZ

After we left Alamo Lake State Park, we spent one day in Wickenburg, AZ because it was halfway between Alamo Lake and our next destination Camp Verde.

Click on map to enlarge

CAMP VERDE (3,147 ft elevation)

We’re staying 4 nights at a campground that looked promising. It’s under new ownership, and the online reviews sounded good. We have strong signals for both Verizon and AT&T, plus the camp WiFi is passable.

Our Camp Verde Site

While we camped here, Jan baked a loaf of banana bread in our convection oven . . .

Yum

JEROME (5,066 ft elevation)

The View from Jerome (click on photo to enlarge)

After resting a day, we drove to see the abandoned copper mine in Jerome, AZ which is about 2,000 feet higher in elevation. We didn’t really notice, besides occasional ear popping, until we started driving the ledge roads coming into Jerome. Ledge roads have steep drop offs and I was driving the outside lane near the drop off. Nancy, Mary, are you hearing this?

Also, most of the buildings in Jerome are built on ledges — steep ledges.

Jerome, AZ (click on photo to enlarge)

There was a mining museum there and lots of stuff to look at.

SEDONA (4,350 ft elevation)

We kinda sorta planned a driving tour of Sedona on our third day in Camp Verde. What a mistake! Seriously, if you want to explore Sedona, stay in one of the hotels for a month. The traffic in and out of Sedona was horrific. There was really no place to stop and take pictures as there was a plethora of PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO PARKING, and NO TRESPASSING signs. Really inviting.

High point of this trip was Pizza Lisa where we stopped for lunch. We highly recommend this restaurant.

However, we were able to grab a few photos . . .

Red Rocks Everywhere

MONTEZUMA CASTLE NATIONAL MONUMENT

While I slept in on our fourth day here, Jan drove to the Montezuma Castle National Monument just outside Camp Verde.

Visitors are no longer allowed inside the cliff dwelling, but Jan did take these photos.

NEXT STOP: Grand Canyon

Apr 11

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The Grand Alignment Weekend Has Arrived

This weekend the planets align . . .

FRIDAY – Blackpink play Coachella

SATURDAY – BTS appear on SNL

SUNDAY – GOT is back

Apr 10

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Alamo Lake State Park (Wenden, AZ)

Click on map to enlarge

We left River Island State Park on Friday, April 5th and traveled to Alamo Lake State Park near Wenden, AZ. We stayed three nights.

As the crow flies, Alamo Lake is not far from River Island. However, there are mountains and rough terrain in between the two parks. So it ended up to be about a 100-mile trip.

Alamo Lake is a huge natural catch basin that was made into a lake when the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam to create the lake in 1968. There are three fishing ramps into the lake, each at a different elevation. This is necessary because lake levels can vary dramatically — up to 11 feet in just overnight.

Wild burros inhabit the area. Both Jan and I spotted a burro near our campsite. We heard them braying at night. They are loud.

Our Site

We had to use our HughesNET Gen 5 satellite Internet dish again as there was no AT&T or Verizon coverage. However, we did have full hookups.

Here are some photos from our stay . . .

Jan’s Painting Table

They’re Everywhere

Corps of Engineers Dam

Jan’s Alamo Lake Watercolor

Apr 4

HughesNET Gen 5 Evaluation 3 Results

This is my Internet speed test 3rd Evaluation of my HughesNET Gen5 satellite dish.

The results of this latest eval show a rather drastic speed decrease when compared to my previous two HughesNET evaluations, but I think these latest test results are the most realistic.

In my previous two evaluations I used several speed test programs — Speedof.me, TestMy.net, and Bandwidth Place. I thought that averaging the results from three programs would be more accurate than from just a single speed tester.

Now I don’t think so. I noticed wildly different results, and some test programs always seemed to skew high. For example, Ookla’s highly recommended Speedtest application yielded contradictory results: it came up with higher speeds for my HughesNET Gen 5 than for the actually faster campground WiFi (see attached PDF for my raw test results).

After some research, I settled on using just a single Internet speed tester: Speedof.me. To me Speedof.me’s methodolody (see “How It Works”) more accurately predicts actual web browser behavior than other Internet speed testers.

OTHER CRITERIA

While download and upload speeds are very important, there are other considerations. One of those is ease of use.

I’ve been able to set up my .98M dish HughesNET system in about half an hour. It’s actually easier to aim than my DISH satellite TV.

Finally, I can live with my latest download speed findings of about 6 Mbps. It’s dependable and allows me to stream video in the middle of the desert.

Apr 3

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River Island State Park (Parker, AZ)

Park Entrance

Our Site #4

Our first stop. We’re here for several days. Notice that we have our big HughesNET Gen5 dish set up. This is because . . .

AT&T Service: none

Verizon Service: 1x (at best)

Campground WiFi: Download speeds between 5 to 8 Mbps. However, it was only sporadically available.

This campground brings back memories for us. It reminds us of all the Wisconsin state parks we stayed at years ago. Electricy and water. No sewer hookups. So it’s campground shower time as our RV holding tanks would fill up mighty fast if we showered in our Newmar. Doing laundry is out too.

Here’s a description of the campground facilities . . .

OLDER CAMPGROUND BATH & SHOWERS

These are located near the Colorado River beach.

The Older Shower/Bathroom Building

Older Building – Typical Shower Stall

NEWER CAMPGROUND BATH & SHOWERS

These are located near the campground entrance. We tried both old & new showers. The new showers had the best water pressure and hot water. The older showers took forever to warm up.