Technology & The Golden Age

Technology,  I use a lot of it too! 

Hood Canal WA, it just looks good!

I have a smart phone (that's really a computer) in my pocket that can take pictures & I can call people with it too! 
It's my address book, my calendar, my calculator & a place to keep notes just to mention a few.

As a 'plus', it acts as my gps, it shows me a good map of where I am, it shows me where the gas stations are & what fuel costs there. I can find assorted campgrounds  and free places to park over night . The phone even has games if you want.

Gasbuddy app on an Android phone.
The blank station didn't have a report
in 48 hrs so the price went blank.

I have a Garmin GPS. It's a stand alone tool who's only job is to tell me how to get somewhere and what's around me when I ask it. 
Well, it's also an accurate speedometer too.
It doesn't need the internet, it just needs the sky & its memory card.

One of the most valuable features is finding a grocery store in a strange town. 
Before the gps days I'd have to stop & ask where the grocery store was... 
Walmarts & rest areas also at the touch of a button.  Good places to know about it you need a spot to stop for the night while you're traveling.

After a stop at the POI Factory  my gps can show me the places from "Diners, drive-ins & dives" that's along my route!

I have a Kindle Paperwhite to read books on. Not the same as a real book, but good enough.  I can read at night or in the day, I have a lot of books with me that take up no space and with the internet, Amazon & the Gutenberg Project  I can get almost any book I want to read!
Plus there are a lot of paperback exchanges all over the country.

I have a mifi to give me internet most of the time.  Being hooked to the internet is a big part of this being the "Golden Age."

I have a Rand McNally road atlas because sometimes you just need a map. 

Most of the time you need to check on where the gps is sending you, because me & the gps sometimes have different ideas about the "good route". If I don't check every so often I'm sometimes really not happy with the machine picks!

The best maps of the states are the ones they give you at the first rest area in a state if you come in on an interstate highway.

My computer  

I have my computer too. It does this writing, it stores the pictures I take (with digital camera & a phone I take a LOT of pictures), it keeps track of the places I want to go to and the assorted tips I've picked up along the way. The computer also plays movies & can do television.

I have a wonderful companion & wife, we have a camper that meets our needs, we have electronics/technology & the internet, we have reasonably good roads, plentiful gasoline. I can still walk, remember my name and I get money sent to my bank account every month!  With a credit union that does "shared branching" I'm almost never too far away from my bank no matter where I am in the country.

I am living in the "golden age" !!

Another day at the diamond mine

I finally made it to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas. It is a place I wanted to visit since I'd heard about it. 
Dig for diamonds?  I'd like to try that!

First impressions of Arkansas...it's a nice looking state & the lady at the visitors center was especially helpful when I told her where I was going. That was a good first impression for the state.

Arkansas was green, the diamond mine was on the far side of the state so I saw a bit of it & I saw the "White" river.

There was camping & motels aplenty in the area. A good sized parking lot and a water park if you're not into digging.

You pay your $10 and head into the diamond mine.

The path to the fields

They have videos of how to do it & you can rent equipment if you want.
We rented the screen boxes to wet shake for the stones. 

It was interesting and a lot of people were into it. Whole families, retired folk & everyone in between.
Those who looked like they did it a lot had chairs with umbrellas, shovels, buckets, wagons and all sorts of screens for filtering out the dirt.

The diamond field is plowed

The digging wasn't hard, the sun was not too bad and the wash table (if you're washing for the stones) was at a good height.

A washing station & directions

No we didn't find a diamond but we had fun looking. Crater of Diamonds State Park was well worth the trip!

What we found, no diamonds. They have someone who'll look
through your booty & tell you what you found.