The Grand Alignment Weekend Has Arrived

This weekend the planets align . . .

FRIDAY – Blackpink play Coachella

SATURDAY – BTS appear on SNL

SUNDAY – GOT is back

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

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.

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.

New Shower and Bathroom Building

New Building Shower Stall

CAMPGROUND TOUR

Our Site #4 Panorama (click on photo to enlarge)

View Out Our RV Windows . . .

Camp Host Site

Beach

Bottle Brush Bush & Tree . . .

Bottle Brush Bush

Bottle Brush Tree

Jan Took a Picture of this Great Egret Near Our Site

DOG PARK

A very pleasant surprise. Flirt found herself running around and rolling in a nice-sized leash-free dog area.

WEDGE HILL TRAIL

Located near the boat launch ramp. Walking trail along the Colorado River.

JAN PAINTING

Jan’s Painting Setup

Jan’s Painting

MOMENT OF ZEN . . .

One Minute Movie . . . our last night in our Lake Havasu park model. We’ll miss it.

The Road Ahead

The Road Ahead 2019 (click on map to enlarge) — map created using RV Trip Wizard

We’ll be starting a Western US & Canada tour this coming Monday. As of now, it looks like we’ll stay at about 40 campgrounds in Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada.

Highlights of our trip over the next several months will include . . .

• Grand Canyon National Park
• Yosemite National Park
• California Wine Country
• Oregon & Washington Coasts
• Banff National Park
• Glacier National Park
• Yellowstone National Park
• Zion National Park
• Lake Mead

Stay tuned!