Trip Report – Final Thoughts

To be really successful, any trip should not only be fun, it has to be educational. 

Here are a few things we learned on our trip last month:

The saying “Everything’s bigger in Texas” doesn’t apply to Bluebirds – we saw Bluebirds in Georgia that were over twice the size of the ones who nest in our barn.  We also noticed that Georgia Cardinals are orange compared to the ones we feed at home.  The Cardinals at the Boggy Thicket define red, they are a true, brilliant red their Georgia cousins just can’t match.

With the slides closed on our 5th wheel, it is impossible to open the cabinets above the kitchen sink.  Much of I-22/US78 west of Birmingham has been recently repaved and is some of the smoothest highway we travelled, but there are sections of I-22 so bad that the cabinets did come open and dump bowls and coffee cups on the floor.  Zip ties between the cabinet door handles cured that, and a package of 100 at Wal-Mart is a lot cheaper than replacing another coffee mug. 

Along that same stretch, the microwave even opened up and ejected the carousel plate!  Those plates are pretty generic – according to the internet, the one that broke fits several hundred models from dozens of manufacturers. I had another carousel plate at home from a microwave I’d replaced, but of course, it wouldn’t fit.

Since we were mostly staying in state parks that don’t have Wi-Fi, and we were going to have to pay bills on line, I took the advice of rv.net friends and bought my own Wi-Fi hot spot, and it worked like a charm.  Internet speed was as good as, and sometimes better than the DSL we use at home.  The clerk at Best Buy who sold it to me was very helpful, and we compared rates on several before I settled on a unit from ATT.  I asked him of he sold a lot of them, and he said no.  “That technology is  so three years ago.  Everyone now just uses their smart phone.”