Still Winding Down

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photos above.)

We hope each of you had an enjoyable Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the day with our daughter Debbie in Huntington Beach, CA. We are camping in Perris, CA, which is about 64 miles east of Huntington Beach. Not much to do here, but it is a nice little town of about 45,000 people. The countryside here is strewn with very large boulders alongside the roads and up the hillsides. The pictures above show some creative artwork that someone used to make an interesting scene. The first picture is a “frog” painted from more than one boulder, and the second picture of “apple slices.” You can get a sense of the size of the boulders by the six foot fence in the “apple” picture. This “zoo” is only about 2 miles from out campground.

The Sana Ana winds are blowing again in California creating problems with fires. Yesterday (Friday, November 23rd) we drove into the town of Lake Elsinore to visit a Wal-Mart, a distances of about 7 miles. You know how it is, you just have to find a Wal-Mart. As we were returning, a fire truck flew by with sirens blaring. As we drove on we saw smoke billowing upward just a short distance away. Something was on fire. Was this the start of another season of fires? This morning on TV we saw that 400 acres were burning in Malibu, an area of multi-million dollar homes, some miles North of LA. Twelve homes had already been destroyed. We are keeping an eye out for the wind and the smoke in this area. So far, everything is OK and the winds are suppose to die down by evening.

If you are not familiar with Sana Ana winds, let me explain. Imagine a High Pressure system with winds turning in a clockwise direction. Now, imagine a Low Pressure system with winds blowing in a counter-clockwise direction. Now the two systems collide and the winds merge. The right side of the High Pressure system and the left side of the Low Pressure system come together blowing downward at double the force. This creates winds of upward to 50-60 miles per hour that fan the flames of any fire that is created by the dry conditions, and spreads it rapidly.

Enough about fires. Let’s talk TV. As some of you know, we are not big TV watchers, but we do like to see occasional favorite programs when possible. Our new “Winter abode” in Gila Bend has no TV signal what-so-ever and no cable. So, since Carolyn likes her sports and I favor channels like Discovery, History, Travel and the like, we thought it would be good to have some availability. So, we decided we needed satellite TV.

While we were in Quartzsite, AZ we found a satellite company that handled both Direct TV and Dish TV. I had called the 800 number for each and was told that as an RVer we would have to buy our own equipment that is usually given free with home installation. Well, as it turned out, the company in Quartzsite would give the equipment free to RVers. So we signed up for Dish TV, since it was the cheaper of the two services. We received the dish, tripod, cable, receiver and satellite finder without charge. We tried to set it up the day we got it, but it wouldn’t work. We decided that we didn’t have the right size cable for connecting inside to the receiver, and since we were leaving for California the next morning, we would just wait until we arrived at our next stop to get it installed.

We found the recommended size cable, an RG6U as apposed to an RG59U, which I had tried. We arrive at our new destination and out comes the dish, tripod, cable and satellite finder. We get everything hooked up and turn on the TV for the setup menu. We find the right numbers for Skew, Angle and Azimuth. We connect the satellite finder and listen for the strongest “beep” as the dish is moved East and West. Strong beep but no signal! We try again and again. Nothing! We check all connections. Still nothing!

We found a Radio Shack in a shopping area nearby and make a trip to talk to someone, since they are authorized Dish TV dealers. They knew nothing more than I did, and had no one to install. They suggested that I call the Dish Network Tech support. Ok, I call. The tech runs me through the program inside on the menu. Everything is as it should be. I go outside with my cell phone on “speaker” so the tech can hear the “beep” signal for himself. What we got was a loud signal that should be centered on the satellite. It was, except it was the wrong satellite! For all our trying, we could not zero in on the right satellite. The tech says, “You will have to get a local tech to help you install the service.” Great!

I find a phone book and look for satellite services. Nothing in the local area. I find a service in Riverside, CA, some good distance from were we are, and they wanted $100 just to come out. That didn’t seem like the right choice to me. So, we are still without TV. They do have cable at the park we are in, but it only has the Network channels and none of the ones we would wish to watch. We are going back to Quartzsite on the way to Gila Bend, so we decided to wait and see what can be done from the place we bought the service.

We are moving from this park on Monday the 26th to Lake Skinner, a county park, for another week before heading back to Arizona. Since we have no internet service here at the park, we have to take a 7 mile drive to put this blog online. Sorry for the delay. We’ll “see you on the blog” a little later on.

POSTSCRIPT: (6:00 PM PST, November 24th ) We took the trip out in the afternoon to find an internet “hot spot” to put up this blog, but we didn’t get there. After a few miles, we found the road blocked by the Police with a yellow tape across the road. Everyone was being diverted onto a side street. I asked one of the Sheriff’s Deputies how we could get where we were going. He said, “Sorry, I don’t know.” We tried following some cars in front. They didn’t know where they were going either. We tried on our own for 15-20 minutes to find the way with no luck. Every turn we took was blocked. We never found out what was going on. We turned around and headed back to the campground. We will try again tomorrow, Sunday.

An update on the fires: Now it appears that 51 homes have been destroyed and more than 4,600 acres burned, according to the local newscast. There is a continued fire warning out for some counties, including Riverside County where we are camping. We are keeping our eye on the situation, but for now the winds are dying down and we don’t think we will have a problem.