First, we missed our exit to the Slabs, and almost ended up in Quartzsite. Drove about 25 miles out of our way.

Next, when we were in search of water, we took a wrong turn and drove another 10 miles in the opposite direction. The small road we were on was so flooded from the recent rains, we couldn’t find a dry enough place to turn around.

Once we got to the Slabs, I opened up our door, and saw hummus everywhere. Good thing the flour didn’t spill too!

As I proceeded to clean up the mess, Jim tried to turn on the Motosat dish. Guess what? That pain in the ass dish is acting up again, and won’t go up. Thank Dog we have Internet redundancy with our MiFi setup. If we couldn’t get online to manage Tripawds, we would be on our way to the nearest service shop. Apparently our F2 motor is dead . . . again.

All this, during our first day back on the road. In the past, I might have fallen apart at so many mishaps in one day. Because when you’re new on the road, multiple screw ups in one day happen a lot, and they can be upsetting. At least to me they were. Jim’s always been a little better about not letting them get him down.

But after almost three years on the road, I’m happy to say that we are both able to handle these things with a smile.

A few cocktails also work wonders.  Good thing we’re stocked up.

When I was Satan’s minion in Fernley Nevada, we were camped across from Julia, a 77-year old fulltimer who roams the country with her cat and two dogs.

I admired her fiercely independent and self-reliant nature, and we had a lot to talk about during our downtime when we weren’t chained to Satan’s workshop. I knew I liked her when she said she preferred to boondock, even at Slab City.

Even in our modern world, many people are still shocked to find women traveling alone, and few women I know would consider it. In our two years on the road, I’ve only met one other solo woman traveler, Eva from Portland. I wish more women would find the courage to explore this lifestyle, because it doesn’t have to be a lonely or scary journey. As Julia says in my interview with her, there are numerous groups devoted to solo RVing, and you can always bring a dog along to keep you company.

Here are some valuable tips and insight that Julia has to offer to potential women RVers:

René read it first. She’s a much faster reader than I am, and suggested I write the review – hence the delay. Perhaps she knows a bit too much about my sordid high school daze. Or that I would just love any book filled with drug references that starts off with a thrilling scene straight out of Scarface. Nevertheless, I did. Love the book that is.

But even more than learning the meaning of perico, I enjoyed discovering the truth about just how safe it is to travel through the Sierra Madre, not. The books subtitle gives it a way – “Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre.” But it doesn’t quite begin to describe the crazy deadly adventure Grant dragged himself on, deeper and deeper into Mexico’s mountainous region known mostly for marijuana plantations and cocaine production.

Any history buff interested in Pancho Villa will enjoy reading God’s Middle Finger; because in it, Grant follows the trail of the legendary bandido. At points, a bit too far.

This book is also a must-read for any RVer considering one of those caravans through Copper Canyon. Yes, it is definitely better to travel in numbers. And yes, the dangers have been much worse in the past. But if Grant’s tale about the Copper canyon train being held up by narcos pissed off at regional authorities is any indication, I won’t be going anytime soon. I’d much rather just read about it.

From the People’s Guide to Mexico Copper Canyon Tourism Page …

“In the unlikely event of a train robbery, be calm, quiet and cooperative. In other words, don’t argue; just hand over the loot.”

The book does serve as a good guide for anyone who dares to travel off the beaten path south of the border. It offers much advice similar to the above that just might save your life. Like … be sure to speak Spanish, don’t look anyone in the eye, and never turn them down if they offer you a drink. And if they do, prepare to get muy intoxicado before saying goodnight.

I also like any book that talks about places we’ve been. And after reading this one, I’m glad we didn’t walk much further than we did away from the Plaza in Agua Prieta on our five dollar Mexican vacation last year. Or places I would love to see, and this one does a wonderful job vividly illustrating the beautiful terrain of the Sierra Madre and the drunken religious rituals of the Tarahumara Indians.

Once discovering how the opening scene winds up at the end of Grant’s book, one can’t help but wonder why he traveled so compulsively on such an uncertain path. He answers this question quite succinctly early in chapter three …

“I felt a rush of excitement, a sensation of being fully alive and immersed in the present moment.”

This too, is is the driving force behind my wanderlust.

Grant’s adventures might make a great movie. But without being the first hand documentary that this book is, it would most certainly end up being one of those “You should’ve read the book first” flicks. I’ll gladly settle for this Amazon video which sheds some light on the reasoning behind Grant’s chosen title for God’s Middle Finger:

PS: For anyone who might be wondering how I embedded this video from Amazon.com, when Amazon’s media Share link does not include object embed code, never underestimate the power of your browser’s “View Page Source” function!

So, I always make it a point to make sure ours is current before calling for support. I also turn to others for help. Like Sean who had this advice regarding the best positioning for quick access…

“Try increasing the size of the search window, especially in azimuth. The internal compass, like all compasses, is prone to a lot of error, and sometimes even the declination table is off. So it is possible that the bird is sitting there a few degrees outside the window, and the mount will search the whole window first, before expanding to a broader search.

Calibrating the compass also helps – the real way, which involves turning the rig around an exact 180° – especially if it has not been done in a while.

Lastly, be aware that if you park such that the bird is nearly directly above the way the dish points when stowed (usually directly aft), then the dish will search all possible elevations at a few degrees azimuth before spinning all the way around to try all the elevations at ~360° azimuth. This can add significant time to the search. We try to avoid parking in this orientation, and, if we want to stop someplace just to put the dish up, I even try to park such that the bird will be found in the first ~90° of azimuth – saves time and wear on the drive motor.”

Well, it turns out that compass calibration isn’t even possible with our dish. One expert installer informed us that only older systems have a compass.

But we recently tested Sean’s parking position theory when it took forever for our system to identify any signal. We had inadvertently parked with 91W directly to the rear of our rig. Sure enough, when we relocated and parked pointing a little more West, we were online within a couple minutes. This position works best for us anyway, especially when boondocking. Doing so prevents the dish’s large shadow from covering our solar panel throughout the day.

So, we have a new Maps page to commemorate the occasion. All our original travel maps from Phase I are still available to show where we’ve been. And now you can see with a quick glance at our new full-time RVer visited states map.

I’m just happy I didn’t have to manually design this map. While my search for a WordPress visited states map widget for RVers ended with me wondering if I’m the only out there who thinks such a plugin would be really cool, I did come across a couple websites for automatically generating colorful RVer maps of visited states ready for use on any website!

I used this visited states map generator to make the map above. Here is another RVer map maker that includes Canada and Mexico. Those Geeks On Tour folks even have an RV map making tutorial video showing how to use the latter on rv.net. Making the map was simple, the hardest part was figuring out where we’ve been. But that’s where those early maps proved helpful.

So, 36 states down, only 14 to go – though I’m not sure how we’re getting the rig to Hawaii. Aside from leaving the mainland, and navigating a few congested New England states, we can now say we have been just about everywhere, except the middle. Well, that’s what this whole phase II thing is all about, or perhaps Phases III and IV. Now that we have a home base, what’s the hurry?

Neal mentioned how the height at which the seed pods begin is an indication of that season’s snowfall depth. Based on a recent weather report from home, sent to us by Codie Rae’s people, I’m starting to believe him…

Red Feather Lakes: Snow and areas of blowing snow before midnight, then snow likely and areas of blowing snow after midnight. Low around 14. Wind chill values as low as -5. North northwest wind between 14 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

Needless to say, I believe we left just in time. Based on the reports we’re getting from back home, we would have likely been stuck there quite a while – if not all winter – had we not pulled away when we did. That, or we would have been digging out the trailer to hit the road.

But we haven’t exactly headed to warmer climes, yet. Our second night here in Fernley, our hose froze. We had forgotten to leave a faucet dripping overnight. Keeping the water moving through the hose will help it from freezing solid and ensure you have running water in the morning. Insulating the hose with foam pipe-wrap available in the plumbing section of any home supply store also helps. As does having water in your fresh water tank as a backup.

How quickly we forget these things after staying put for a few months. I remember first seeing an RVer fuss with a frozen hose at a riverside park in Ashville, NC two years ago and laughing. The other morning it was my turn. After struggling to thaw things out enough to get our water flowing, we have now practiced these precautionary measures I preach. Good thing René hadn’t yet begun her early morning shifts at the Amazon warehouse!

We left Red Feather on Saturday, after a light snowfall that seemed like Mother Nature’s final warning to get out before it was too late (and no, Balloon Boy couldn’t have helped us either). As soon as ascended the 10,000+ foot Rockies heading West, the sky turned dark, then snow, sleet and wind followed. Strike One.

Ignore Native Hitchhikers at Your Own Risk

We hit the Utah state line at dusk, looking for place to boondock. But the welcome center was quite unwelcoming, with it’s ban on overnight camping, so we jumped back on I-70 to find another spot. We had forgotten to fuel up then, but freeway signs said a gas station was ahead, so we weren’t concerned. We exited to fuel up, but when we got to the station, our jaws dropped. The pumps were closed. Permanently. Strike Two.

Our Dodge’s Distance to Empty readout said we had 110 miles left on the tank. The next fuel was 65 miles away. In 2 years and 35,000 miles of fulltiming, the only other time we pushed the envelope like that was in Texas, and we made it. So we kept driving, holding our breath and trying not to panic. As we got back on I-70, we drove past a hitchhiking Native American, who gave us a long look as Jim muttered “Sorrrrrrrry guy.”

We were confident we could make it to the next station. But what we didn’t count on, was the heavy crosswinds that made our fuel economy drop faster than we expected. Before we knew it, our DTE readout just kept flashing the words “FUEL LOW…FUEL LOW…FUEL LOW”

That’s when we knew we were in trouble. The old Native had put a hex on us. Strike Three.

The engine shut down on the side of I-70, less than one mile from another visitor center and four miles from the next gas station. We rolled to a stop and I did my best not to panic (staying calm is not one of my best attributes). Jim grabbed our two cans of gasoline for our generator. Being a good environmentalist, he didn’t want to just dump it, so he thought he would give away the gas to someone at the visitor’s center then bribe another driver to refill them with diesel. He rode off into the night on his bike.

Down and Out but Not Alone

While he was gone, I stayed in the rig with Wyatt, who was doing a good job panicking for the two of us. As I looked out the back window, hoping to see a cop stop (do they even help stranded travelers anymore?), I spotted a car slowly moving toward us in the emergency lane.

The car’s hazards were flashing, then it came to a stop behind us. At that point, two scenarios are going through my mind; either he’s a psychopath who saw Jim leave and has plans to kill me, or he’s stranded too. But what were the chances that on this 100 mile stretch of highway, another traveler would break down behind us?

The chances were excellent that day.

The guy got out and went over to the rig, but kept walking. Being a lone female on the road, I wasn’t about to get out and talk to him, and figured he might catch up with Jim. I thought to myself how nice it was to have a vehicle as a crash barrier behind us.

Minutes later, Jim returned with a kind stranger from Arkansas, who was driving a Mercedes Diesel. I got out of the trailer, assured that the other stranded traveler wasn’t going to kill me with Jim and the other guy around. I asked him what happened. Apparently he ran out of gas too. As we stood outside commiserating, I did my best to ignore Wyatt Ray, who was inside, panicking and tearing at the screen door.

The Arkansasan was nice enough to come to the rig so Jim could siphon more than the 3 gallons our cans would hold. But siphoning wasn’t working. Apparently the geniuses at Mercedes have put anti-theft devices in the car’s tanks. Another strike! The stranger wished us well, and left.

Jim headed back to the visitor’s center, where a generous trucker let Jim fill up his cans. When Jim returned with diesel, he remembered: we still had a gallon of gas in our generator. By 8pm with enough fuel to get our fellow traveler started, and diesel for us, we all headed to the filling station, less than four miles away.

The stranger turned out to be a decent guy, who had a great old dog with him. I think the universe sent him our way, because if it wasn’t for him and his dog being there to lighten the mood, Jim and I might have killed each other.

Thing Couldn’t Get Worse, Right?

We said our goodbyes, and minutes later found a truck stop with a restaurant. Poor Wyatt, he was in a complete state of panic now. This is his first real road trip experience, and he was losing it.

We fed and tried to calm him, then crated him in his RV-friendly soft-sided crate. Off we went to grab a bite to eat, but with each tick of the clock, I keep hearing the warnings I got from other dog people, who said that collapsible crates won’t hold a panicked dog inside.

With food in my belly and feeling much better, on our way back to the rig, I fell into a ditch.

A wet, mucky ditch. Yep. No joke. And that’s when I lost it. I cried and whined as I walked back with my foot soaked in what I hoped was just mud.

We approached the trailer, and could hear Wyatt moving around. As Jim opened the door he was greeted by a hideous stench, and copious amounts of runny dog poo all over the floor.

Poor Wyatt, he escaped from his crate, and was so upset, his butt exploded everywhere!

Then, I really lost it. Flipped out. Cried, Threw a tantrum. Made Jim take Wyatt away for a very long time while I wet down the rugs with our outdoor shower. The trucker next to us got dinner and a show.

With the rugs outside and Wyatt tucked in for the night, Jim and I crashed hard. Late at night we heard Wyatt whining at one point, but opted to see if he would whine a little louder, figuring if he really had to go . . .

He never whined again that night. Instead, he just crapped all over the rig. Again.

Such a lovely way to wake up the next day, our second day on the road.

Keep Smiling, Keep Driving

We survived, and after all that, I think that we did pretty good. We’re still talking to each other, and I resisted the temptation to ditch Wyatt in Green River, Utah (haha, just kidding!).

Things could’ve been so much worse. In 12 years of marriage, we’ve never tried harder not to fight or bicker. And through this ordeal, we think we did pretty good. In the middle of it all, we just had to accept that no amount of screaming was going to fix the “crappy situation” we had gotten ourselves into.

Keeping a sense of humor is definitely key to living on the road, which brings with it a life of uncertainty, and oftentimes, mis-adventure.

FAP (Fair Access Policy) n: A download threshold assigned by Hughes to each HughesNet service plan that limits the amount of data that may be downloaded during a typical day. A small percentage of subscribers who exceed this limit will experience a temporary reduction of speed.

Ha! Temporary? Reduction? Like I said, Ha! You definitely know when you’ve been FAP’d, because your connection will crawl to a virtual halt. Without warning. And it can stay that way for up to 24 hours.

Our service plan comes with a daily download threshold of 375 MB. Every once in a while, if we don’t pay attention to how much time we spend online – or what we download – in a given day, we may get FAP’d. But during our stay at Landa it happened a number of times. Enough to think someone was piggybacking our network. But we’ve learned to lock it down tight, and one look around made us really question if any of our neighbors were capable of hacking us. So we sought a better method for monitoring our daily HughesNet account usage. Here’s what we discovered …

Our fellow full-time geek friend Sean, of Our Odyssey told us about the HughesNet FAP Monitor. This Windows-only utility displays an icon indicating your current HughesNet usage status and warns of any imminent Fair Access Policy violation. We’re no dummies, but had a terrible time getting this to work on Rene’s machine, but with Sean’s perseverance we got it configured and working. For a while. One day it just stopped working. And we gave up trying to fix it after discovering various discussions about HNFP not working.

The one thing the HughesNet FAP Monitor was good at, while it worked, was making René obsessed about our current FAP status. So I quit trying to make it work after finding a better solution. One that works on my Mac (or any machine) and isn’t always flashing in my face.

The Greasemokey Firefox Add-On allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. And the Hughes Usage Calculator script will customize the display of your Hughesnet account information page.

This method lets me check our threshold status, when I want to. The script adds a “Remaining (MB)” column to our HughesNet usage page with convenient color-coding to indicate when we should step away from the computers for a while. It was simple to set up, here’s how …

1. Use Firefox
2. Install Greasemonkey
3. Install User Script
4. Submit Your HughesNet Site ID
5. Bookmark Your HughesNet Usage Page

This isn’t to say we’ll never get FAP’d again, but at least we can easily monitor our usage now without getting all obsessive about it.

Since drafting this post we have discovered an even better way to avoid the FAP. We have gone redundant, and now also have a Verizon Wireless MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot. This allows us to spread our bandwidth usage over two different accounts. It also gives us two methods to connect, in case there is something blocking our satellite, or we have n cell phone coverage. More about this later…

But in all this time, we only needed to acquire a few household things that we had put in storage. They were:

• Two kitchen serving spoons
• Some dish towels
• Drink pitcher
• Toaster
• Cookie tray
• Rechargeable batteries
• One Pillow

Keep in mind that this is just household stuff. The clothes we’ve acquired along the way are a whole different matter . . .

I’m kinda proud of what we’ve lived on for the last two years. One rule we’ve lived by for the fulltiming RV lifestyle is, when it comes to kitchen stuff, whatever utensils we have in the rig must serve at least two purposes. A single use tool has no place in the RV galley. In our new home base, I think I’ll stick to that rule.

The best advice we got for packing? Carol White’s Live Your Road Trip Dream book. Don’t hit the road without it.

Say what, you say? It’s been quite a learning experience really, which I care to share in depth someday. But for now, I’ll just tell you what it means…

We just completed our migration of Tripawds to the WordPress MU platform, but RVblogz was my first WPMU installation. You say what again? Basically, it means we are now offering free blogs for tripawd lovers and full-time RVers.

Yes, we announced RVblogz a long time ago, but the recent migration to WPMU has enabled us expedite blog creation and offer much more robust features for RVbloggerz. In fact you can get your own free travel blog in seconds, now that we have automated the blog creation process. Well, WordPress MU has, but we made it work!

If you want to check out a fine example of how full-timers are using RVblogz, check out the Purcells On Wheels traveling family blog! Or, how many of you have heard of the Killbarney project?

Rebuilding the Tripawds community has been exciting, as Jerry’s discussion forum members have grown to 800 strong. Now they can all have their own three legged dog blogs. And with the RVblogz Communities feature, members can create their own mini-facebook, all about RVing. OK, well maybe not. But in addition to easily publishing a travel blog with over 100 themes to choose from, you can create your own little RV community with a message board, Wiki pages, and news items.

There’s much much more we will let you read about RVblogz. But why not sign up for your travel blog now and join the community? Or join Tripawds so you can chat online with us in the new and improved Live Tripawds Chat.

So much to tell, such little time … just wanted any readers we have left to know why I’ve been such a stranger lately. And now that we’re headed back to ranch so I can work the Vickers hay harvest, I may become even stranger yet. If that is at all possible.