Sunday, November 23, 2008 - Foscue Creek Park, Demopolis AL
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Mist at dawn - Foscue Creek Park, Nov 22, 2008
My frustrations with a slow connection
In general I've been quite pleased with Verizon's Broadband plan in the year or so I've been using it. It has it's limitations like all cell based services but over all the coverage has been pretty good in my travels about the country. I haven't encountered too many areas with painfully slow or no access. Foscue Creek Park is in one of those areas.
Service here is in Verizon's extended network and of course there is no EVDO high speed access. That's usually ok - but here the connection is slower than I usually encounter in areas lacking EVDO coverage - slow to the point of frustration.
When I called a friend a couple of days back I discovered my cell service suffers from an annoying latency problem. I'm not tech savvy enough to know, but I'm guessing that latency may be slowing my internet access.
In any case, the lousy connection here is interfering with the online activities I've come to rely on since upgrading from my old dial-up service. I miss having access to audio and video now that I've gotten used to listening to or watching those videos you find all over the web these days. But more than that I miss listening to my favorite radio stations on the iPod Touch I picked up this fall.
Most frustrating.
Night camp
Site 45 - Foscue Creek Campground, Demopolis AL
- This is a well maintained US Army Corps of Engineers campground with level paved sites, most with full hookups
- Many sites overlook the water of the inlets off Demopolis Lake on the Tombigbee River
- There is good biking on the park roads
- The campground is pretty full Thanksgiving week and is generally booked solid the weekend of the Demopolis Christmas on the River festival in early December.
- Poor Verizon cell phone service - access is via Extended Network, roaming
- No Verizon EVDO service - access is via the Extended Network and service varies is slow but reliable
- Only 3 miles to Wal-Mart and other services in Demopolis AL
- Find other references to Foscue Creek
- List the nights I've camped here
- Check the weather
- Reserve a site
- Get a map
Heliograph routes of the 1890 Practice
The date was May 15th, 1890, and the Army's Department of Arizona had just completed a major heliograph practice; it was, in fact, the largest the world had ever seen. I call it the "Volkmar Practice", after the man responsible for it, Col. Wm. J. Volkmar, the Assistant Adjutant General and Chief Signal Officer for the Department of Arizona. Although the practice lasted only sixteen days, preparations for it took months of reconnaissance and preparation. Involved in the long range signaling maneuvers were twenty-five heliograph stations stretching from Whipple Barracks near Prescott to Fort Stanton near Ruidoso, New Mexico. My guess is that close to two hundred men were involved, both cavalry and infantry.