My best guess is that nobody knows.

I've watched over the years as satellite dishes have shrunken from the size of wading pools to salad bowls, now being parked on a roof truss instead of looming large as a major landscape element or roof ornament. As an Airstream aficionado, I have seen many mobile satellite dish applications in action. Many people who travel often want all the comforts of home and, increasingly, they are not being denied. A quick peek into an RV campground will soon leave you convinced that Mobile America is as well informed as the rest of us, which means that they are absolutely up to date on the fine details of the current diversionary high-profile murder trial while the Military Industrial Complex, as accurately predicted by President Eisenhower, dictates all aspects of our lives and foreign policy with an endless cycle of weapons and war.

Reflection of Dish from my Airstream's Finish

Enough of reality and headlong back into diversion.

I have writing deadlines to which I adhere, this sometimes being the only glue that binds my time, the starch that sticks the days together into weeks and months, and then seasons. Yet in this digital age my office should be anywhere my fingers can punish a keyboard and my copyboy the Internet. Based with this understanding I acquired a broadband satellite Internet system that will soon allow me to be published from anywhere I can pull my Airstream Office and see the Southern sky.

Thus armed with the promise of boundless digital bliss I pulled into a reserved campsite in a semi-remote area of Southern Oregon. There was a resort with a fine restaurant within a short walk and I was eager to set up our site and get online with the new two-way satellite Internet system that I had purchased. But first, there was the simple matter of backing a 26 foot trailer, pulled with a very large Surburban, into the designated slot.

I will not bore you, dear reader, with the potential complexions and complications of backing a 26 foot trailer into a campsite made to fit a horse and bedroll, nor unnecessarily laden you with the peer pressure exerted by dozens of near professional rig-drivers who, once safely tucked away, man the lawn chairs and place bets on the next hapless traveler that attempts to snuggle their trailer into a narrow niche outlined by trees of unforgiving size and robustness. Spooky, my ever-faithful dog, sprung into a fit while I was backing in, his front and rear legs locked, bouncing fore and aft like a fifty pound cricket trying to avoid a one ton toad's tongue. How could I let something like that distract me while money was changing hands around me and tree trunks, branches, rocks and posts threatened to impale my truck and trailer at any moment?

The good news is that it appeared that I intended to park to the extreme on one side, this to afford me a more expansive entrance to the trailer door. The fact that I couldn't open the driver's door was downplayed as I attended to all manner of vehicular checks and monitoring, this all done from the inside until, after examining eyes had wandered, I exited from one of two doors that could be opened.

When reading about the campsite on the Internet I presumed that an electrical hook-up would be at hand, this to power the slew of electronics that comprise my digital entourage. I do not yet have a generator nor solar panels, though given the tall stand of trees in which I was parked; the latter would have been of little use.

Regardless, I pulled an inverter out of my bag, plugged it into the cigarette lighter and had enough A/C to give things a whirl. I winged it for a while, then resorted to manuals heavily laden with electronic/magnetic jargon describing events about which I never received a merit badge. After a few short hours the only communication I had was with two squirrels, which were romping madly in the broad branches that completely blocked the Southern sky.

The batteries of both Lucy the Airstream and Ricky the Surburban were draining fast, so I thought it best to give things a rest and settle in for the evening, which, loosely, meant going out to dinner at the Resort. Some hours later, as drained as the batteries it was back to Lucy to slumber and recharge.

It was sometime during the night that my wife, Annette, thought it best to check the outside lights, such were my admonitions to conserve what power we had. Not being familiar with the trailers lighting system, she dutifully turned on, then off the porch light while activating the floodlights fore and aft. This final drain overwhelmed Lucy's charge, resulting in the loss of heat in the middle of the night, the electric blower having churned to a stop.

Beginning the next day with a satellite dish pointing at a tall grove of trees, numb hands and feet and not enough juice to run a crystal radio, we did the next best thing: A long walk along the lakeshore and playing fetch with a stick and Spooky in the waters of the vibrantly blue lake.

Upon returning home, I hooked everything up to recharge, once again confident, at some point; I'd lock onto the desired satellite. Just as I had flicked on the last switch, the phone rang, a question from a friend asking how went the world of geosynchronous satellites?

"It's really no big deal," I explained. "All you need is some Southern sky and some electricy, sort of like a hot date in New Mexico." I figured that was all he needed to know.

(Lance was last seen towing Lucy towards Mission Control near Houston. The way he tells it, they need his help in repairing the Hubble, but you know how he magnifies things. You may reach him camped out on the ridge by pointing your dish to: lance@journalist.com. As an afterthought you should know that Lance finally figured out how to find the correct satellite, locked on and hit the Internet with gusto, though at least one of his emails got lost in outer space. If you'd like details on how to achieve a 2-way broadband satellite link in the midst of nearly nowhere, just give lance a shout. Also feel free to visit his website to sample some stories that are sure to make you laugh: www.lancepugh.com).