Saturday, August 8, 2009

Red Rock RV, Island Park, Idaho

The morning broke in Pocatello, with the weather changed to a much cooler experience.  Long pants were sorted out of the back of the closet.

I had decided that the Camry needed its oil changed.  It had almost 5K miles on the synthetic that I put in in May.  I drove back over to the Wal-Mart store like I was a local.  We had been there last night, when we went for supper.

We found a Texas Road House, and enjoyed the Texas experience, Idaho style.  There were several 10 gallon hats on patrons, as Texas doesn’t have much over this corner of the world.

After the oil change, we were on our way for the last 150 miles up here to Island Park, Idaho.  We are 20 miles out from West Yellowstone, Montana.  That is the Northwest entrance to the park.  You drive from Idaho, into Montana, and then back into Wy0ming, in about 40 miles going into the park.

We are at the Red Rock RV park on the South shore of Henry’s Lake.  There is a large meadow between us and the Lake.  We are surrounded by mountains on all sides.  We face West with our windshield, which makes a large picture window facing the continental divide.  Red Rock Pass is a few miles up into these mountains.

There is no noise here of anything, except the laughter of campers sitting by fire rings, outside.  The wind blows off of the lake and we have had the misty mountain rains for part of the afternoon.  The lady at the office speculated that it may get as cold as freezing before morning.

I am aware that it is hot, hot, hot back in Kansas, but up here at 6500 feet we have none of that sensation.

We hung out around the MH this afternoon, once we arrived and got set up.  We have been driving since we left Kansas last Sunday, so we need some down time.  None of the days was over 350 miles, but this is a 26,000 gvwr truck, and does drive and ride much the same. 

We have managed to get the King Dome figured out enough to watch the Direct TV, since there would be absolutely nothing to pick up with an antenna.   Our T-Mobile phones simply say, “no service.”

The park does have Wifi, but we are far enough from the office that it is quite weak.  I got out the repeater, and set it in the back window of the rig.  I does repeat the office signal, and sometimes allows a connection.  Slow!

I then set up the Verizon Air Card and its router.  I was blown away that we have two bars of signal!  It seems to come and go, suggesting that it is picking up a tower at some distance.  It must be on one of the mountain tops, but it does work quite well at times.

So T-Mobile is a bust, but Verizon is a possibility.  Still pictures here are going to be trouble to load.

Retired Rod

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting about the signals you get, we'll be out there in that area next year and I was wondering about the service I'll get. We have Direct and Verizon. I have very good luck with the verizon air card.

    Happy Trails,
    Chris

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just for your info, RedRock RV Park has installed a new mesh wifi system in mid-August (2009) and each site now has a great signal and the software manages it to allow each camper to get a fair share.

    ReplyDelete

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