Bill Joyce

I have been using the RVillage Thousand Trails group for my posts.  

I once supplied the microSD card from my car dashcam to the police for an accident we witnessed.  When the police gave us back the microSD card by mail, the video file that mattered was overwritten.  I now carry an old Android tablet to save copies of the video files on before giving it up to the police.  

Otherwise my dashcam footage has been useful for making my own videos and documenting bad driver behavior for my own amusement. 

21 hours ago, Twotoes said:

I need new kitchen chairs, mine have no spring left to the padding. Where can I find some?

We got new foam and fabric and installed these ourselves with new staples.  We liked our kitchen chairs and now they match the rugs better.  Upholstery shops have the foam and can usually cut the pieces using your old foam or the chair bottom as a template.  

Another 17" deal, $400 direct from HP - https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-laptop-17z-ca300-touch-optional-1d3e3av-1 . 

So far I have found this $479 deal on a 17" laptop:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/inspiron-17-3000-laptop/spd/inspiron-17-3793-laptop

Otherwise I have no seen other 17" models under $600, but that can change over the weekend.

Comcast is known to be the worst.  They were caught providing different customer service to politicians in the Washington DC area than to normal folks.  I know they were a pain to deal with when my mother had them.  

Some households have multiple people in them with multiple 4K HDTVs, streaming shows and doing video chats (Zoom, etc.) for work and school.  For those households, 1.2TB might not be enough..   I know RVers, mostly working RVers and/or with home schooled kids, using 100s of GB on cellular plans.

On 11/11/2020 at 5:13 PM, whj469 said:

I want a 17 inch screen on my laptops not 14 or 15.

Watch for sales on Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving.  That is typically when more feature packed, like 17", laptops go on sale.  Ultrabooks are a kind of laptop that is small and light, so 17" models are rarely included.  Then there is the LG Gram 17, which is light but not small.

Yes, most Rite Aid's can be used as Amazon pickup sites along with the lockers.  We used the Rite Aid's  in Blaine WA and Warrenton OR this summer.  Unfortunately Rite Aid is not as many states as CVs and Walgreens. 

21 hours ago, Mr. Camper said:

According to early reports the Pfizer vaccine requires the 2nd shot to be about 3 weeks later.  The Moderna one is closer to five or six weeks between doses.  As of this posting I haven't heard any details about the time each vaccine will be effective.

Moderna shot spread is 4 weeks, but has better storage requirements since it only needs to be kept at -4F or colder, so it will be available at more pharmacies than the Pfizer vaccine.  Pfizer can be kept refrigerated for 5 days,, while Moderna can handle 30 days, so both can be taken somewhere to give shots.  These are just the first two, there will be more.  At least one of the others coming only needs one shot.  

On 11/15/2020 at 2:12 AM, Veronica Monet said:

What about Red Bluff, CA to Eureka, CA?  That is CA Highway 36

No, 36 is narrow and no fun at all.  It gets down to one and a half lanes, with no center line   There are no services for much of the route.  

CA 20 is the best route between I-5 and US101, the exit is at Williams CA.  There are some grades between Williams and Clear Lake, but the elevation is under 3000 feet.

There is a CVS across the street from our winter campground, which is probably where we will get the vaccine..  My wife and I have decided that if we get the first shot somewhere, we will stay put long enough to get the second shot at the same place to make sure our paperwork trail is clean.  There are going to be more than one vaccine,  so you want both shots to be the same. 

Hanna Park, also a city of Jacksonville FL park, is 50AMP full hookup and just south of Mayport.  The campsites are not on the beach, but the park has a large beach you can walk, bike or drive to from your campsite.  We have stayed many times and people are openly drinking alcohol at their campsites and no one seems to get in trouble.   I think Hugenot park used to be dry camping only, so it must have been upgraded.  Hanna park used to only have some 50AMP,  but they upgraded all sites to 50AMP a few years ago.  

CA20 is your best route between I-5 and US101. 

Sharkbite fittings did the job for us on our 2004 RV.  My wife didn't like the faucets she found at the hardware stores, so she ordered what she wanted on Amazon.  

My mother always wanted to visit Vladivostok, to see her father's grave, but never made it.  He died on a business trip when she was young and ended up buried there.  A friend found the grave while there and gave her a photo.  

Another thing is does this only happen at one camping spot or multiple places?  If only one camping spot the problem might be outside.  

docj: The Chromecast he mentioned does not send the video from the hotspot to the TV, it pulls it down from the internet using more data. 

I can also recommend Mobile Internet Resource Center and their guides.  For plans check out this guide - https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/guides/top-cellular-data-plans-for-rvers-cruisers-verizon-att-t-mobile-and-sprint/  or this 12 minute video from another source -

.https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/guides/tv-movie-entertainment-on-the-road/ is their guide on streaming.

For routers you can use a Wifi Ranger or something else like the Pepwave Surf SOHO we use.  If you are looking for something small and low powered, look at USB powered travel routers, which are $25+ and up.   We have a GL.iNet one and a Hootoo one and TP-Link and Ravpower also have them.  There are many comparison reviews on the internet, just search for "travel router reviews".  

The files and photos have been gone for a while on the Yahoo groups I am a member of and that has made most near useless with almost no activity.  A few have moved to groups.io, but for most the information is lost or saved on someone's personal computer.  

Being an Army brat I lived in many places while young, including France.  My mother is a war bride that my father met and married in China.  My mother made it back to China many years ago and could not recognize Shanghai, where she lived throughout WW2.  Coming back from France we drove from New York to Washington state, where I grew up, but I was too young to remember that much of the trip.  As an adult before RVing I had been in 14 states, including Alaska and Hawaii, the Caribbean and 5 European counties (France, Italy, Malta, Greece and Turkey), plus Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica.  

Since RVing we (now all trips include my wife) have camped in 49 states, 6 Canadian provinces, along with day trips into Mexico.  Now that we are part timers we have visited Taiwan and plan more foreign trips and to get back to Hawaii.   

We always traveled, by car, by air, by cruise ship, so we both realized that RVing would work for us.  We part timed a while, then full timed for 15 years and now travel 6 to 7 months in the RV avoiding the Arizona heat. 

We walk a lot, sometimes we even hike, over 15,000 steps a day.  We explore the trails when in National Parks.  I do have to be careful because I inherited my father's bad knees.  My father thought his Army career had messed up his knees, so I wish he was still alive to tell him it was not the Army.  Still JimK would look at me and think I didn't exercise.  

"A park employee told me I could not do that as there was a state law preventing the TC being on its own in the RV park.  I called BS on that and eventually got them to admit it was just a policy their park had, but it still prevented me from doing the outing I had planned that day."

This was policy at a park we go to for many years and no one currently involved seemed to know why, so eventually they got rid of the rule.   They suspect it had to do with towing companies unable or unwilling to tow out a truck camper after being abandoned.  Now at that park many come in for fishing season towing a boat trailer and leave the TC in the campsite.  

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/guides/mobile-internet-security/ is on just this subject.  

Ya for Michael!

My wife still has one laptop that has not updated to 2004,.  It does show it on the Windows Update page, but a check for updates does not install the feature update.  All the other Windows laptops we have with us are running 2004.