agesilaus

DJW I have to suspect that you are more closely attached to the VA than most of us. Anyway it is a military truism that if the troops aren't complaining that is the time that you need to start worrying. Many of us, the service connected especially, have paid for their VA care with some part of their health. Some with most of their health. It's not like a local pizza joint where you can tell someone if they don't like it they should buy their pizza elsewhere.

Hmmm interesting especially since I had two other, in office, doctor appointments that very day and I have another one also in office, today. And a laser surgery visit this Thursday. Plus several more in the coming month. Plus my wife had an extensive visit with one of her doc's yesterday. Maybe you need different doctors. They have made adjustments like removing half of their waiting room seating or asking you to wait in your vehicle until they call you in. But they still see you face to face for the visit.

I signed up for an account but in order to be able to make an appointment online you have to go in to the hospital and let them look at the VA card that they gave you in the first place. Otherwise it seems to be useless. Unless I'm missing something And DJW, is it "doing their best" when they are too lazy or incompetent to change their phone message from "leave a message and we will call you right back" to something like "we are at home collecting our paychecks and don't want to see any patients or do our jobs"? How is it doing their best when compared to the people at the local supermarkets who go to work every day and see hundreds if not thousands of people every day? Or how is it doing their best when every other physician's office is open and seeing patients every day?? Just how are the people at the audiology clinic, located in the basement, far away from any patient treatment floors, overloaded while they sit at home? Keeping these facilities closed is just political warfare. Ami lastly, congress critters maintain offices in their district that are staffed with people who are supposed to deal with government malfeasance. At least they do if they want to be re-elected. That is what those offices are their for, constituent services. And in the case of this critter I am sure that those people are in those offices doing what they are being paid to do unlike the VA.Maybe you should get your head out of that dark stinky place and learn something about the world. And if the audiology clinic slackers had changed their message to something like: "The clinic is closed but we will see you from 10:30 to 11:30 at the parking garage" The I would not have made a 70 minute round trip drive and would not be making another drive in a few days.

I've been calling the VA in Gainesville FL trying to get an appointment at the audiology clinic where I'm service connected. Called them at least six times over 6 weeks as we moved back down to FL. Never got anyone to answer the phone or return the call. Finally decided that I'll just go there when we get back which we did Friday. Went down to the hospital this morning finding a strangely empty parking lot. Hiked to the entrance walked in to find a guarded table blocking the way. Was refused permission to go to the Audiology Clinic since I did not have an appointment. Explained the multiple calls and zero call backs. Got the 'mechanics shrug'. Finally they admitted that audiolgy has a one hour clinic from 10:30 to 11:30 AM in one of the parking garages!? One of my hearing aids is kaput and I'd already sent it in for their one time repair offer. And I think I'm eligible for a new set anyway. What do you have to do to qualify for the out of VA doctors? I don't recall the name of the program. I guess I'll have to go down to the parking garage to see what's up. I'm thinking about complaining to my Congress critter who is a lame duck right now.

Well we were somewhat limited this time out, we had to be back for the start of school so my wife could retire. Next time with working solar I think we will aim for 4 to 6 days boondocking if our water discipline will sustain that..heh. My wife liked the two week stay at a cg in South Fork so we will likely doing more of that sort of thing too. I wasn't all that fond of South Fork itself tho, we'll look for a spot further west next time I think. And maybe we can even try out an Escapee park or two.

You do need to slow down though, with your wife retired, find a comfortable pattern of travel.... 2-2-2 Pretty much what we did, we spent 2 or 3 days at most places, looking to increase that actually and tried to keep moves to less than 200 miles. The travel days stretched out a little at the end since we had appointments we needed to make next week and needed to get back. Looking at the RVTW log we stayed at 35 cg on 87 days or an average of 2.5 days at each. And some of those were one day transist stops, we stayed at 13 COE cg and di 2 or 3 days at each and did some boondocking spending 3 or 4 days at least at each spot.nd there was the 2 week stay at South Fork CO CG to CG we actually did 6649 miles the rest is travel out of those cg. That averages 189 miles a move.

ah you guys are right and the reason I was hesitating, I really don't want to do a long drive to CO and then turn around and come back. NC/TN/SC it is I think, not just for the color but to explore the area. We've been thru there but have not spent any time there except for a three day stay in a TN state park last June. There is that NP that we haven't seen in SC (I think) Congaree that I want to visit too. Looking at the nps.gov site there are actually a lot of sits in SC, mostly battle grounds. I'd like to see FT Sumpter anyway. And another national trail. Overmountain Victory.

We've done that up to the end in Virgina years ago. Colorado/New Mexico? I'm tempted but NM is still in full panic mode the last I heard. 14 day quarantine. We spent almost a month in CO this summer, two weeks at South Fork, the main thing that deters me is the long drive out and back from Florida. We've been to GSMNP several times but that area and east is interesting.

OK we got our start full timing in late May and are now about back home after roughly 10,000 miles. FL to ID and back, including 13 COE cg and a month or so of boondocking. My wife has to finish three weeks at her job in order to retire. Then we'll head out in late Sept/early Oct for another7 weeks or so. My wife insist on the holidays at home with the kids and grandkids. So we have to return for late November to late December.. So where to go, back to CO for the aspen color change? Or right now I'm toying with the idea of North and South Carolina maybe Tennessee, where we have had only slight experience. I thought about it for a summer trip but they were still in the midst of their lockdown. Any suggestions?

First fishing licenses, it depends on the park. Yosemite for example you need a California license, it Yellowstone: As for modifying the title of the thread: at the time it was correct and thus should be left as is for historical purposes.

Well they must have decided it in favor of the Feds, because you do need a federal permit, only, to fish in the NPS parks.

No roof rack, canoe tied down upside down with rope. Kid sitting on top of canoe holding on to rope, like a bull rider.

No overhanging limbs. It was the height that I was concerned about. Transit van plus canoe was I'd guess 8 ft or so, they weren't driving that fast but 10 mph plus an 8 foot fall equals something damaged. No camera handy of course and they were too far away for a cell phone.

We did 4 days at Jug Hollow in Flaming Gorge before getting to the Pinedale area

We were boondocking at New Forks Lake north of Pinedale WY and one afternoon I saw one of those tall Ford Transit type vans go by with a canoe tied on top and what looked like a 12 yo girl not tied on top of the canoe. They were driving slowly, maybe 10 mph but a fall from that height and speed would not be good. She was having a fine time tho and gave me a wave. I think they were looking for the lake tho and they went the wrong way, so afew minutes later back they come. Girl still on top. And turn down the right way to the lake. Now I was worried but they were too far away to do anything, on the scale of 10 I'd rate that road as a minus 1. Really very terrible. I half expected to see paramedics heading into the cg. But no a few minutes later back out they come but now with two girls on top. My wife had come out by then and said if we were back in Florida she would have to call the police. She works for the school system and has to report such incidents. LOL. There was no phone signal anyway

We just spent 4 days at New Fork Lake north of Pinedale. First: The FS cg is horrible, I dubbed the road into the place 'break axle lane', huge ruts, giant potholes and very narrow. Second: However the area out side the FS CG is all boondocking and quite nice. There are lots of fire rings. Plenty of trees. And lots of room. The road in is OK. You can walk to the warmish water lake from the boondocking area, there is a beach area all around the lake. The road up to the narrows CG is heavily wash-boarded as is the road to Green River lake, we did not check out the cg up there. There are boondocking sites all along those roads. Third there are dispersed sites along the river. Coming from Pinedale turn right after the Warren Bridge onto the Warren Bridge road, there are at least 7 sites with camping that have fire rings and tables. However these are popular with boaters. Some sites have one spot others have multiple spots. There is a sign at the turn off Warren Rd telling you how many sites at the spot but people camp wherever there is a flat spot. I think Monday thru Wednesday would be your best chance to find a good spot along there. I have photos but it's almost impossible to load them here

Whats the camping environment like in Minnesota and Wisconsin right now? We will be in Montana Monday and I want to return to FL via Hwy 2 then south once we get to Minnesota. So far we haven't encountered anything more than minor irritations in the states we've been thru. We slipped thru NM before that governor cracked down again. And the worst thing we've seen was closed visitor centers, restaurants, attractions and such. We have to be back in FL, in mid August, so my wife can work for 3 weeks and retire from the school system.

Not that we camped in but Freecampsites shows 9 boondocking spots west of Gunnison off Hwy 160 around the Curicanti Reservoir. One of those was our backup spot in case Needle Creek didn't work out. Those all seem to have short approach roads too.

We spent 3 days around the Fourth boondocking at this site. 38.353685, -106.557284. The road in is SR 45 and there are a number of turns on the gravel road into the site, but they are all clearly marked with a small needle creek reservoir sign. There are two gates that have to be opened on the road and closed. And the last 3 miles the road deteriorates and is quite rough, with one hairpin turn, and a tight fit thru a cattle guard. So use your judgement about what you want to pull down there. There is also a shallow creek crossing and the road gets very slippery when rained on. This is a long approach road at least 10 miles. The site we got, number 4 was one of the two actually on the lake, sort of. The other I think was number 6. There are only 7 or so sites, several way too small for an RV. All other sites were taken when we arrived at 3 PM on a Thursday. Our site was excellent tho, good view of the lake, very quiet and no one within 500 feet of us. We were perched on a rise off the lake with a good view. Fishing is apparently very good, they were catching something that looked like trout to my uneducated eye. There are some steep hiking andd OHV trails in the area. Water was too cold for swimming and the banks muddy and slippery. The lake was way down. The only other excellent site looked like number 6 which was on a peninsula in the lake at the far end away from us. Now the last night some fellow, I think from number 6, seems to have drowned in the lake. We woke up about 1 AM to many flashing red lights and people walking along the lake edge with flashlights and shouting. The gave up around 4 AM and the divers were out at 9 AM the next morning., This was the 4th of July evening and we heard a lot of shouting and what sounded like a long string of gunshots from the other end of the lake. I don't think we would return to this location because of the uncertainty of finding a good spot after a 20 mile drive from Gunnison followed by the long gravel road.

At Flaming Gorge--Jug Hollow there must have been 40 to 50 RVs in the area. But the area is so large that our nearest neighbor was so far away we could just see his roof. However there was one section around a cove without a drop off to the water that probably had 15 RVs packed into a small area. Not our idea of boondocking but maybe they were family/group camping. The whole area at Jug Hollow might be 2 or 3 square miles. We did explore a few more areas and found some very isolated spots in water level coves. Maybe next year. We haven't done the Green River area yet tho we tried to drive over Union pass a few years ago. Snow blocked and we actually pulled some guys p/u out of the snowbank blocking the road. The dispersed camping area again looks to be very large so I do not expect a problem. That is closer to Hwy 189 but I suppose if you really want to get away you could go up toward Union pass there are many meadows up there, might be soggy tho. Shadow Mountain of course is crowded, we got the last open spot over the Fourth weekend last year. I think there are only 15 marked sites. But reportedly there are more higher up the mountain but I had no desire to pull my TT up that steep and very rutted track. There are at least two other boondocking areas in the Tetons, one further north off the highway. Something ranch, I don't recall the name. And Grassey Lake road in between YNP and TNP.

We stayed at Shadow Mountain there last year and are in WY now at Ft Bridger and headed that way again. We just left after four days at Flaming Gorge east side (on the UT side) boondocking and it was a fantastic spot to stay. Right on the water and the nearest other RV was maybe 300-400 feet away. We scouted out other spots to stay at for next year there. Flaming Gorge is a camper's dream, there must be 20 or 30 FS campgrounds and maybe 50 roads marked for dispersed camping. Weather in the 80's in the day and cool in the 50's at night. About 6000 feet. Our next stop is boondocking on the Green River north of Pinedale WY, then either the Tetons or maybe Idaho/Sawtooths

OK let me finish this up with a surprise ending. I've spent the last three weeks on and off chat with visible. At least 7 sessions including two supposed transfers to 'network'. No joy whatsoever. Finally after all this their 'network' people email me and say your phone does not work because there is no Verizon service where you are. And that's with my wife sitting next to me with her phone on Verizon working fine this whole time. Thru GA-TN-AR-OK-NM and CO So they had worn me down and I decided I needed a working phone no matter what. So this afternoon I contacted their sales chat and set up getting a new Moto G7, which is what I have now, with a new sim. She tells me log off and then come back and I'll be able to order the phone and sim. $189. Just before I do that I decide the swap sims with my wifes Moto G5, her sim does not work on my phone. So I think the phone is kaput, I'm signing back on the Visible app to complete the order when I notice I have three bars of signal!!? So sticking her sim in and then putting mine back in fixed my phone and saved me $200. LOL One comment if you ever have to contact visible tech support the visible app chat is the only way that works....I tried all the others. And their techs are helpful but not so effective maybe. Most of the time I waited between 5 and 20 minutes to connect on chat.

Are you in for a big surprise and an 1985 unit too.....heh

Yeah I can't see it unless you stay at least 5 days. There isn't that much to do unless you get into exploring backroads, there are some of those in the area.

We drove by that yesterday there are several BLM sites around here and a BLM office in the area too so you could probably boondock.