West Bound and Down

After renewing our spirits and getting some much needed rest in San Antonio, we were ready to load up our vehicles and begin our journey west toward El Paso. Up to this point of our trip we really hadn't had to worry about anything other than fuel and a final destination for the day, since everyone had been sick. Each evening Jennifer and I would plan out a route that allowed for four to six hours of driving that would ultimately end at a hotel in which we would make reservations in advance for. This guaranteed a warm and safe place to rest and gave us the best chances to recover quickly from whatever it was that we all had.

Leaving San Antonio, now feeling renewed and rejuvenated, we were ready to become a little more cavalier in our travels again. We knew that we wanted to visit our friends in Tucson and that we had to be in NV in thirteen days, so we were pretty fluid from here on out. Trying to keep with the four to six hours of driving that we had been doing, we figured that would place us somewhere near Fort Stockton, Tx for the evening.

I have to say, I very much preferred traveling the western half of Texas, compared to the Easter half. I’m sure they both have their good and bad but it seemed like west of San Antonio the landscape started to dramatically change and we could tell by the terrain that we were finally entering into the southwestern region of the U.S. The humid marshlands and green landscapes of the east were beginning to give way to the arid and rugged brown terrain of the west. A change we welcomed.

Just before arriving in Fort Stockton, we scoured our maps looking for public land or national Forrest in which to stay on. Unfortunately, like most of our trip through Texas, there was nothing close by. Switching over to iOverlander, the only options we were presented with were hotels, street camping, a Walmart parking lot or the Hilltop RV Park. Not wanting to stay in a hotel again and definitely not wanting to deal with the Walmart parking lot, we chose to check out the RV Park. Pulling in and surveying the grounds, we instantly realized that this was not the place for us. The RV park being almost completely full, more than $40 a night with massive fifth wheel campers, golf carts and people all over the place, this was definitely not the environment we were looking for.

Retreating back toward interstate I-10 in defeat, Jennifer had noticed an old metal shop like building down the road that had a few sporadic campers throughout its lot. Pulling in to check it out, we noticed that there was a faded sign above on the front fascia that said Hillside RV. This looked more like an abandoned commercial lot than a campground. Could it really be? Confirming on Google maps, yep it was an actual RV park. As we were attempting to find any information what so ever about check in and fees another couple had approached us from their camper further down in the lot. This was their third or fourth time staying here and they said they much preferred the privacy and the quiet over the resort like atmosphere up the road from which we left. They said “Pay box is on the side of the decrepit building and the owner used to show up in the morning with donuts. He’s an older gentleman and we’re not sure if he makes it around too much anymore. There’s bathrooms, showers and laundry in the building, but we’re not sure if they still work… We usually just park our rig, place some money in the pay box and enjoy the evening.”

With the surrounding views of the area, almost no one there and the only noise being that of the passing traffic on I-10 in the distance, this sounded like music to our ears. “So how much is it to camp?” I asked. “We don’t really know.. It’s not posted anymore so we usually drop a $20 in the envelope and place it in the pay box.” They chuckled as they replied. As they turned to head back to their RV we thanked them for the information and we started to scan the lot for which site we wanted to occupy. Dropping our fee in the pay box I contacted the phone number that was listed on Google and left a brief voicemail stating who I was, which site we were staying at and for how long, just for good measure.

With the van all set up we took a walk down the road to stretch out our legs from the long day of driving. The sun began to hang low in the big Texas sky and the colors were absolutely mesmirizing. Off to the south we could see storm clouds and small flashes of lightening. The wind was starting to pick up, the air was starting to cool and all of it was headed in our general direction. Out of nowhere, we started getting hit with patches of heavy rain and wind gusts over 40mph. We quickly dropped the top, secured anything outside that could be turned into a projectile and took shelter inside of the van. Twenty minutes worth of excitement later we were able to crawl out of our hiding place and resume the evening. Jennifer whipped up a delicious dinner inside, we enjoyed the finally bits of that big Texas sunset and finally succumbing to the exhaustion we all felt, turned in for the evening to get some much needed rest.

Off To A Bad Start

Our trip west to Nevada didn’t start exactly as we’d hoped. Before we could leave Virginia, we needed to wrap things up on our rental home and do our final walk throughs with the property management. This meant we needed a place to stay, since we couldn’t be in the house and all of our things were in a container. So we rented a cute little cottage on the York River. However, cute doesn’t always mean a good idea. Well that’s not fair, it was a great place to stay, just not at the time we did it. You see, the cottage was built in the 1920’s and it wasn’t what I’d call thermally efficient. If you don’t know what I’m getting at, it’s a really nice way of saying it didn’t hold heat very well and it was frickin’ cold in Virginia that week! We did our best to stay warm, but ultimately Jennifer and the girls came down with some nasty head colds between the cold nights and all of the running around we were doing trying to get things done. This ultimately affected the first 3 days of the trip. North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Louisiana were just flashes in the pan as we blazed southwest chasing warmer weather. We had every intention of stopping in New Orleans along the way, but with highs in the low 30’s and 20mph sustained winds meant it was a no go with sick kids. The first few days were literally spent driving and our nights were spent resting and recovering in hotel rooms. Not a very glamorous start, I know.

Things started to change when we hit Texas though. Temps started to warm up as we breezed through eastern Texas, ultimately stopping in the center of the state at San Antonio. Here we rented a VRBO for a few days. This allowed the kids to recover and all of us to do a reset, knock out some laundry and do a little exploring. We’d heard a lot of good things about San Antonio from almost everyone we knew, so we were keen to get out and explore the city.

The first day consisted mostly of taking care of life maintenance things like laundry and checking out Jennifer’s car that had developed a hard crank/start issue somewhere along the way from Virginia. With laundry done and a loose camshaft position sensor connector locked back into place, we were ready to see what San Antonio was about.

We started off by visiting the old Pearl brewery as the city had revitalized this district and turned the grounds into an outdoor entertainment/shopping venue filled with little boutiques and eateries. Most of this was closed early in the morning when we visited, but we hear it’s a popular place to chill at in the evenings. Next we made our way to the Alamo district. Starting at the famous River Walk, we made our way along the shops and restaurants until we reached Casa Rio, which was the first restaurant to open its doors on the River Walk back in 1946. The food was amazing and well worth the visit. After lunch, we finished walking the loop and made our way to a place I’ve wanted to visit since I was a kid.

The Alamo is an interesting place to experience. This small mission, in the heart of the bustling city, embodies everything Texas. Defiance to the end and bravery beyond comprehension. The shear scale of the Santa Anna’s forces outside of the mission walls is hard to judge with the surrounding buildings and cityscape, but the historical placards and dioramas placed around the site do an excellent job of helping you see past that. What it must’ve been like to be inside of those walls with the constant bombardment and impending doom…..

Finishing up at the Alamo, we made a quick trip back to our VRBO to let Zephyr out and take a break before heading back to the River Walk for dinner and a cruise. Yes, we did the touristy thing and took the river cruise at night. It was actually pretty amazing and we learned all sorts of interesting facts about how the river walk was conceived and constructed as well as the history of the buildings and the area. Well worth it in our minds and we highly recommend that if you’re ever in San Antonio, you do the same….

Overland Expo East 2021

Just a couple of photos that we took at @overlandexpo East 2021. Admittedly we didn’t seize the opportunity to take a lot of photos this year. We were consumed by amazing conversations and being able to meet everyone in person. We’ll never complain about that because all of you are amazing! So many great stories and travel tips. Believe me, our list of places to visit and things to do grew exponentially this year and we’re as excited as ever to get out there and see it all. As usual, the event seemed to fly by and we weren’t able to sit in on any of the classes or round tables that we would’ve liked to. I guess there’s always next year. (We’ve been saying that for four years now.) Seriously though, you all rock and we much prefer the one on one conversations around the campfires/meals with you all anyway!

The “OG” Sportsmobile that camped next to us. Fell in love with this rig as soon as we laid eyes on it.

Saturday night camp vibes!

Meeting new people in the showcase area

Walking through the vendor area

Love this Chinook Camper!

WeBoost Cell Booster, does it work?

Cell phones, as we all know, are relatively thin handheld devices. But as thin as they may be, there is a lot of technology sandwiched between the front and back. Cameras, processors, batteries and antennas, just to name a few. Those last two are what we’re going to focus on here. Antennas pick up radio signals. Not rocket science, I know. Where it gets interesting is when you start to block the antennas. You know, that really cool, super indestructible metal case that you placed over your brand new $1000 smart phone so you could protect your investment. Yeah, that blocks the cell signals. Ok, so you don’t have a metal one. Maybe you’re rocking the old school Otterbox or some other type of plastic case like a Lifeproof. Well, guess what? They affect the cell signal too. Sometimes it’s not even what is physically on the phone, it could be what’s around the phone too. Trees, mountains, valleys, buildings. Do you think radio signals pass through solid objects very easily? Think about when you’re in your car. It’s a big metal object isn’t it? Do you think that will affect the cell signal? As a matter of fact, anything that is placed on or over the phone will affect the cell signal in some way.

Great, so we’ve established that objects and even your environment can affect cellular signals. Ground breaking stuff, I know. But did you know that it will directly affect how long you can use your phone too? What a lot of people fail to make a correlation between is that other thing I previously mentioned above. The battery. Think about it. Have you ever noticed when you have poor cell reception, your battery dies a lot faster? Your phone is constantly looking for the best signal it can get. Switching from frequency to frequency searching out that high speed LTE signal. All the while, you battery is slowly creeping down. I bet you didn’t know that if you have poor cell coverage, you can actually prolong your battery life by switching off 4G LTE and leaving it on 2G/3G. That’s a little pro tip for you.

Cell boosters, let’s start off by stating what a cellular booster does. I’m not an expert by any means, so we’re going to keep this as simple as possible. An exterior mounted antenna picks up a cellular signal and sends it, via wired connection, to the booster module. The booster module then amplifies or “boosts” the signal and sends it, via wired connection, to an antenna mounted in the interior. This antenna then transmits the cellular signal wirelessly to your devices. That’s about as simple as I can make it.

Here’s a scenario. Let’s imagine that we’re rolling along in our car and we notice our cell reception is just teetering on one bar of LTE. We pull over and step out of the vehicle. Alas, we have three to four bars of LTE. So what gives? Like I said before, anything around the cell phone that stands between the antenna and the radio signal will affect the strength of the signal. The big metal box on four wheels that you just stepped out of is no exception. Now let’s look at the same scenario, but with a booster installed. One bar of LTE, we simply switch on the booster and boom, three bars of LTE. Pretty cool huh? The booster basically takes the affects the car has on the signal out of the equation. It’s almost like you’re standing outside.

To be 100% clear here, cell boosters boost signals. They do not create signals or connections. So if you don’t have a signal, guess what, you still don’t have a signal even with the booster on. You may get lucky and pick up one bar, but it’s unlikely. Oh, and speaking of bars of service. It’s a lie. That little icon at the top of your phone is there to make you have warm and fuzzy feelings inside. Don’t believe me? Have you ever had a hard time pulling up a webpage or loading an app, even though your phone says you have a good LTE connection? Yep, that’s what I’m talking about. If you want a real representation of what your signal is, just google “cell signal in dB” and you’ll find out how to pull it up on your phone. WeBoost also has a good write up on this on their support page.

One other thing I have to give WeBoost credit on is how easy they make installing and setting up the booster. Each component in the box is labeled in order of installation, making it a foolproof install. The hardest part we had was figuring out where we wanted to mount the exterior antenna and how to run the wire inside. They have some great reference video’s on their webpage and YouTube channel to help with that as well.

So the burning question still to be answered. Does it work? It does exactly what they claim it should do. In every test I have performed it has increased the cell signal profoundly. Does that mean I am able to pull up the weather app or Instagram or Google maps anywhere that I am. No. Just because my cell signal increased, does not mean that the data will always increase. That has more to do with the frequency channels that are available or provided by the cell tower in that area and what your phone can use. I’m still rocking an IPhone 8plus. A little out dated I know. Admittedly, it’s falling behind on the bands/channels that it can take advantage of these days. Cellular providers are always updating their network and adding bands/channels to help improve their speeds by spreading the load out. Something that older phones cannot take advantage of as they do not have to provisions for these new channels. What I can say is that there was a very noticeable difference when using my daughters IPhone XR. I was able to pull up maps in more locations and faster than I could with my phone. Either way, this was not an issue with the cell booster, as both were connected at to the same booster at the same time. Even with my older IPhone though, everywhere I tested with my signal was boosted, I was able to place a voice call.

So there you go. You made it through my very long winded write up, just to tell you that it works. The next obvious question is “Should I spend $500 to get one?” If you’re serious about a cell booster, then I’d say yes. This is without a doubt the best one you’ll get for the money. But you really need to look at why you want one. If it solely for emergencies, I’d almost suggest you buy a Garmin InReach instead. The booster is just that a booster. Nothing in, means nothing out, not something I’d trust my life too. But if you’re somewhere where the cell service is spotty/weak and all you need is a little boost, then I say go for it. As a matter of fact, we have a friend that has a cellular hotspot that he keeps next to his interior cell booster antenna. He shuts off all of the cell antennas on their phones and connects them to their hotspot via WiFi. This allows the hotspot to take full advantage of the cell booster signal while still giving voice over WiFi and data to all of the devices connected to the hotspot. Genius! It’s little things like that idea that really show how the WeBoost can shine!

In an attempt to remain transparent, I want you to know that the unit we tested was provided by WeBoost in exchange for testing and writing of a review. In no way did they influence any of the information provided in this article. The results that we experienced are what we have conveyed above. That being said, the choice to to purchase one or not rests solely upon your shoulders. It is an excellent product and we have enjoyed it’s use. But we also do not turn it on all of the time. It is just another tool that we use when the time arises. This article is true a true representation of our experiences with the installation and use of this product.