"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
16 July 2007Altitude adjustmentAsheville, North Carolina — 2462.4 miles First order of business after leaving Fuquay behind was breakfast with Bigwig, who tore himself away from the usual sysadmin stuff to trade stories and reminisce about blogs gone by and stuff like that. (You could tell he was a sysadmin just from the uniform. I'll let you wonder about that.) Today's route will make life complicated for the cartographers in our midst. I took US 64 west from the Triangle to the Triad. (North Carolina: The Threesome State.) From Thomasville, more precisely, NC 109 north to Winston-Salem (didn't see so much as a pack of camels), and west on I-40, partially to see if it was as drab as Jennifer warned (it was) but mostly because Interstates have that Holy Grail of travelers: rest rooms. I was sufficiently bored by around Statesville to drop onto US 70, which was mildly entertaining for a few miles but eventually reconnected to I-40. And then, mirabile dictu, the Interstate became interesting: the ups and downs and almost-off-camber curves made poor Gwendolyn have to work for her BP Ultimate, and truckers were falling by the wayside left and right. (Mostly right.) Still no official phone coverage, but I have the little Dispos-A-Phone up and loaded with 120 units, which may or may not be minutes, so I'll at least have some form of voice connectivity for the next couple of days. I have five months to use it up. And since it has a 919 area code, it will be interesting to see how much they're going to soak me for roaming. Cute little Motorola, it is; unfortunately, its ultrasleek design makes it a poor choice for leaving it on the car seat. One good curve, and NC has plenty of them, and the phone is under the seat. (Another disadvantage of automotive leather.) A thunderstorm brewed up about ten minutes after I got here; the rumbling seems so much louder than usual. Of course, I'm in the mountains: I'm closer to the source. Random statistics: I have spent $274 so far for gas. Total expenses, here near the halfway point, are hovering around the $1000 mark. Posted at 3:52 PM to World Tour '07If you plan to stick with T-Mobile, you should consider getting a phone with 850 Mhz band. I'm surprised that you are having such trouble with 1900 coverage, as Asheville shows to be blanketed with 1900 roaming coverage. T-Mobile has no native network in NC, but uses Suncom for roaming there. Perhaps your old phone or SIM is having roaming issues. I know a few people in NC who have great success roaming with their T-Mobile phones. Posted by: Scooby214 at 4:28 PM on 16 July 2007I've had no issues roaming off T-Mo native this trip: the phone picked off a signal in north Texas just fine. Eventually I'll have to go to dual band, I suppose. Incidentally, the Dispos-A-Phone is labeled as GSM, and it has bars out the wazoo here in Asheville. When I get to a point where I can whine to T-Mo Customer Care, I will ask them where all the 1900 went. Posted by: CGHill at 4:35 PM on 16 July 2007I've heard anecdotally that some people use the move to NC to get out of their T-Mobile contracts by arguing that since the vendor doesn't provide service in the state they need to be set free. Posted by: CGHill at 8:20 PM on 16 July 2007 |