SATELLITES, TUZIGOOTS, & JEROME

WEDNESDAY NOV 28/07

YABBA DABBA DOOOO....WE GOT OUR SATELLITE SYSTEM UP & RUNNING TO-DAY....but, more about that later.

Was surprised to see clear skies this morning because they were predicting a bunch of cloudy days. Always colder when it's clear. We're just going to have to get a little smarter about our morning walks. The trail we headed out on this morning at 7:15 lead around to the west side of a series of high hills. Although the sun was over the horizon we remained in shade for two thirds of our walk. It felt so cold our noses were running & the dogs were sneezing. Even saw some cows with heating pads. We have to remember to walk on the east side of the hills in early morning so we catch those warming sunny rays. We did manage to see some long horn steers & a Javelina. (pronounced Hav-a-leena) Javelina's are wild pigs & it's important to keep your distance.

Kelly had phoned a Radio Shack store in Cottonwood a few days ago to see if they could recommend anyone familiar with satellite systems & they gave her a name of a fellow from Camp Verde not too far away. His name was Bob Link, so Kelly phoned him & he agreed to come over & help us with our system. Bob arrived about 9:30 this morning & promptly set to work checking to see if our system was set up right. And, to my relief, it was. All my wires were hooked up correctly, tri-pod was perfectly level, my azimuth, elevation, & polarization numbers matched my dish set-up, & I hadn't made any mistakes. I was sooooooo relieved that the problem wasn't my own fault. Bob re-checked all the numbers & then began scanning the sky for the satellite. He scanned, & scanned, & scanned, but no satellite signal. He was frustrated too because Bob is retired from Aerospace & in his retirement used to install satellite systems so could "nail the bird" anytime within minutes. He rechecked all the connections again & then finally turned to us & said......"call your tech support, there is something definitely wrong here." Kelly got on the cell phone & within minutes had Todd from Tech Mobile in Lindsay Ontario on the line. What ensued was a lot of checking & re-checking both the software & the hardware. Bob got on the phone with Todd as they went through a process of elimination procedures. Try as we may though we still could not find the satellite. Todd finally turned it over to Armand & Armand tried switching us from the G16 satellite to the SatMex 5 satellite & said, "try that." BINGO!! we were on:)))))) After a month's frustration we were finally on the internet. Armand was puzzled as to why we couldn't get onto the G16 satellite before but I was just happy to be on any satellite that worked for us. What a great feeling & the internet has been working perfectly for us all day. To-morrow we have to make a few physical adjustments to the hardware outside on the dish to hone in our Star Choice television reception. That could be another challenge but for right now we're on the internet & that's all I really care about. A big thanks to Bob from Camp Verde & Tech Mobiles, Todd & Armand for all their help. Your patience is much appreciated.

We had hoped to go to Sedona to-day but by the time we got the satellite problem squared away it was early afternoon so decided to see a couple things around Cottonwood. Drove over to the Tuzigoot (pronounced Tooz-i-goot & is the Apache name for crooked water) Indian Memorial which is not far from where we are & walked around the ruins. It dates back centuries & centuries. The Indian dwelling were excavated & rebuilt back in the 30's.

From Tuzigoot we headed west up the winding mountain road to the little town of Jerome. This is a place that has to be seen to be believed. I have never seen such a quaint little town like this before. It's the one with the narrow streets that I came through with the motorhome a few days ago. Trendy little shoppes on narrow little roadways. This is a real hippie & artsy type of community a little reminiscent of Yorkville in Toronto back in the 60's. A very homey place with some of the buildings & flowers reminding me of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico because of the architecture & the way it's built on a mountain side. We had read about, The Haunted Hamburger place so decided to stop in for a burg. We weren't that hungry so decided to split a burg & fries platter. The burg & fries were good but we didn't feel it was right on their part to charge a dollar to "split the order!!" A bit cheap I'd say.
Jerome is located on the east side of Mingus Mountain so by late afternoon as the sun settles in behind the mountain range, the temperature plummets. We were dressed lightly because of the hot sun earlier in the afternoon so we piled into the car, cranked up the heater, & headed down the winding mountain road back to our snug little motorhome in Dead Horse Ranch State Park. Happy to see our internet satellite system was still purring along & all was well. And for me, it will be nice going to sleep to-night knowing that I didn't screw up the satellite system setup up after all.................... Aw yes, I'm back in the good books again:)) Well, at least till next time.

Oh, & by the way......we made a classic campers embarrassing error to-day. In parks like these there are dumpsters located at various locations & it's common for campers to set a bag of garbage on the hood of their car & drive it to the dumpster. Notice I said, the hood of the car!! Somehow the bag of garbage got placed on the roof of our car & you remember the saying, "out of sight out of mind." Well, you guessed it, we drove right past the dumpster & into the town of Cottonwood.........with a bag of garbage on top of our car. No telling how far we would have gone if it hadn't been for the woman turning a corner & hollering at us as she went by. Something about dumb Canadians & "a bag of garbage on your roof!!"