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Table of Contents
Intro or graphic here.
Last 5 Gaming Blog Entries
Still no news
I still have nothing to say on this front. It's been a while but I just have not had any news.
Still on Hold
I just wanted to let people know that this section of the site will likely be quiet for a long time. I just do not have time to game at this time.
Nothing New Here
Nothing new to report, Gaming is on hold for now.
Starting a Play by Email Game
One of the disadvantages of being on the road all the time is the lack of ability to play Role-playing games with a steady group. After we are not in one place long enough to really play with a face to face group.
Of course there is the obvious solution of using one of the virtual table tops system. It is one I really thought about doing but once I got on the road I found that I really did not have as much time as I thought I would. I was not going to be able to play online once every week or even every other week. So this put me in a situation of what to do?
So, I decided to go back in time a bit and start up a play by email game with some of the players I had on Roll20. I was originally going to try to use the Roll20 forums for a setup game but the players were not getting notifications about posts. So, I decided to setup an actual mailing list. The upside for me being that I can easily check email via my smartphone anytime on the road and I can reply with it too.
The hardest thing was deciding on a system. It needed to be system lite for sure. After all, the Play-by Email was going to be a lot more heavy on Role-playing than dice rolling. After thinking about it a while, the final decision was to run Tremulus again. If nothing else, it provided a good story-telling foundation for the PbEM.
So far we have only gotten to the character creation and the first emails. I will post more as we play more and I will let you know how things go.
Last 5 Travel Journal Entries
Not Sure What To Do With This Site
I have to admit, I'm not sure what do with this site now. It will remain up for a long time since It's cheap to keep. But I'm not sure what to do with it overall.
No More Entries
Since we stopped traveling there will be no more entries.
Broken A Frame Trailer Jack
Well we broke the trailer jack on the trailer. I think I over extended it and striped the worm gear or something. Really hard to say exactly. I just now that I raised it up to put the trailer on the truck and luckily when it failed it was right over the ball and it seated.
Finding a replacement was both easy and hard. It was easy because we needed just an A Frame Trailer Jack that has a mounting plate with three bolt holes. It's a pretty standard item. The hard part was because we have a box on the tongue, we needed one with a side mounted crank. That was a little harder to find. When I was calling around. the places that had a side crank ranged from 40 dollars to 120 dollars. Needless to say we went with the place that had one for 40 dollars. It took all of about 10 minutes to replace.
On a side note, the place we got the jack from can also lift the trailer if we want. It's something that the wife has been thinking about. When she talked to them, they were better priced than other places she had gotten a quote from last year and they were only a week or so out. Which is super reasonable. So know we have another thing to think about.
Rethinking Starlink
Lately, we been hitting the same issue we always do. We can not seem to go where we want to go because of lack of cell / Internet Service. Right now we have two hotspots. One is on T-Mobile and the other is on Verizon. This provides us with a lot of coverage but it is not perfect. There are still a lot of areas where there is till no service.
Which leads us back to the discussion on if we should get Starlink. There are some things that make Starlink a hard thing to even try.
First of of course is the cost. Right now for RV it's about 135 USD per month. That's a steep fee per month and the one that makes it really hard to try. Still it might be worth it. And I know some people with regular house Internet that speed about that. When I cable Internet it was about 90 USD per month. So I would just be spending about 50 USD more per month. Also if we did it then I could reduce the cell bills by reducing the number of devices we have. Of course I would not do it right away, but it is something we could do after a few months of testing.
Second is the power requirements. This is a tough one since we don't really know how much power it really pulls. The specs say 60 Watts but I've seen reports of about 40 Watts. The best mitigation I could think of is to add another battery and perhaps add some solar panels. Both of which is something I really want to do anyways. I would like to have about 1000 watts of panels and a lot more battery storage.
Third is the equipment cost itself. Right now the dish and router cost about 600 USD. That's not a small thing to think about. That's a major investment. Here is where we might get lucky. My brother has/had Starlink but in his area it was over taxed and didn't work well. So we might be able to get his equipment transferred to us and all he wants is for us to pay shipping. Which I can not imagine would be more than say 50 USD or so. My brother and I would just have to deal with the hassle of the transfer with Starlink.
Speaking of overtax, that's the forth thing that we have to consider. If you look at the Starlink map you will see area where there is low availability or the need for more coverage. The map you will see depends on if it's fixed or an RV. Luckily many area that we will be are in the High availability areas. And the Low areas right now are slated for more coverage in 2023. I feel that even if we only got 5 Mbps down and up, we would do fine since that's all I normally get on the Cell hotspots and I have even worked with less.
Finally there is how much open area do you need for the antenna. You need an area that clear of obstructions. I have been using the Starlink app to figure out what we would need at places we have stop and for us what I have found so far is that the same open area we need for solar is what we will need for Starlink. That's not to say that there are not areas where we will need more, but so far where we have been for solar will work for Starlink as well.
While there is still a lot of consider, I think that if my brother can transfer us the equipment, then I think we can try Starlink, since then we will only have the monthly fee to worry about.
Camping Laws And Regulations The Things You Do Not Know
In the last two months while boondocking, we have been asked to move by various officials from various agencies.
In the first case, it was a US Forest Service person telling us that we were camping include a recreational exclusion zone and that the only camping was in the nearby free campsite. In the second case, Game and Fish came out to tell us we were camp too close to water hole for the animals.
In both cases they cited rules and regulations that unless they told you to leave, you would have no idea that they even existed. Even the officials had a hard time telling us were to find the rules or where the exclusion zone were. They would try to tell us maps that you could get online but we looked at those maps, they had nothing about those exclusion zone. Or they couldn't tell you were the regulations were actually posted.
Generally speaking, I tend to follow the guideline that if there are no signs and there is a fire pit/fire ring , then it is likely safe to camp there. It seems sometimes those sites in places that violate the laws and rules that as a camper you will be unaware of. So never assume that where you camp is 100% good I guess.
I really wish you could put in a Lat and Long in a website and it could tell you the camping regulations for that area (in general) and/or if you can even camp there. Sadly, there is not central clearing house for those sort of rules. So my take away is for everyone to be aware that even if you think you can camp or boondock somewhere, there actually might still be laws and regulations against it so be careful.
Where are We Now?
This is roughly were we are located now.