All’s well that ends well

It wasn’t exactly an uneventful 217 mile drive yesterday from Acworth, GA, to Cordell Hull Lake, TN.  I didn’t get on the road until 11:00 (very late for me) due to more rain pouring down.  The drive to Chattanooga went smoothly.  That’s where I headed off for over 100 miles onto some of those ‘blue roads’ that many others are fond of.  Me, not so much.  It was quite scenic, but the curvy, windy, steep graded roads didn’t afford me much time to enjoy the scenery. 

It was on one of those curvy grades that a great crashing sound made me jump in my seat.  Good thing no one sits in the copilot’s seat, or their arm might have been broken as the entire MCD shade mechanism fell down.  Uf-duh!  Then, five minutes later on another curve there was another crashing sound.  This time it turned out to be my pots and pans drawer flying open and spewing out its content.  It’s not like I was recklessly driving those curves either, as the folks in line behind me could attest to. 

As a counterpoint to my white knuckle drive, I stopped at a little local gas station that I could easily get into and out of to fill up.  The lady working inside said she already set the pump to just go as soon as I drove up.  I knew I’d need almost $200 in gas, so that was really appreciated.  As I went to pay, a local gentleman asked me if I wanted to see the two groundhogs he had just trapped.  “Uh, no thank you.”  I was sorry to disappoint him, but when I’m in travel mode over nerve wracking roads I’m too wired to enjoy the moment.  Guess I should work on that.

After some nasty turns on really skinny roads in a little town, I eventually found myself in the middle of nowhere.

 

Thankfully, the sign I was looking for appeared and I let out a great sigh of relief.  It turned out no one was on duty on Tuesdays, so I had to try to find site #135 on my own.  I sure would have liked a map to look at. 

 

Obviously I found the site and backed in without too much trouble.  Sadly, I had no cell phone service, no internet reception, and after four hours of trying to set up the DISH, no TV. 

On the bright side, this is the view from my rocker.  After another couple of hours of trying to get DISH reception today, I settled on only getting satellite 110. I gave up on finding 119.

Some folks have asked about my trucker’s antenna and amplifier, so here’s the jury-rig I did today.  Normally I put the bottom extension ladder on and Velcro the pole to the ladder.  Today I had to improvise as there is a steep drop-off at the end of the rig and there is no way I can put the ladder extension on.  My Blue Ox hitch for the toad was at shoulder height for me.  Instead, I crawled under the motor grid and used Velcro to hold the pole there.

Inside, the amplifier is attached to the inside of a cabinet below the entertainment center. 

 

I snake the inside antenna and wire to a convenient location by the window on my dining table.  I put my aircard on top of it.  I still wasn’t receiving any signal, but noticed that the two green lights on the amplifier were red instead.  I figured out that it was caused by a poor connection at the back and fixed that.  Took me until tonight to figure that out.  So now I have roaming coverage, and will try to publish this post.  I doubt I’ll be able to keep up on the blogs I like to read for the next week since Sprint is being a pain about my unlimited roaming coverage. 

So, I sort of have TV, and sort of have internet.  It’s amazing to me how it picked up my spirits so when my connectivity was partially restored to me.  When I was working, a week away from everything was heaven on vacation, but I’m not on vacation; this is my life.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

PS.  I obviously can’t post any pictures, so I had to remove them.