Why I Finally Ditched Firefox After Years of Loyalty

Have you ever realized how easy it is to fall into a tech rut? We stick with what’s familiar, whether it’s the same brand of cereal or the same make of car. For me, that rut has been Mozilla Firefox. I’ve used it for what feels like forever. Honestly, I can’t even remember when I started, but it has been my go-to browser across Windows, Mac, and my phone. Back then, Firefox felt fast, feature rich, and easy to use. Plus, it offered something I really wanted: the ability to sync bookmarks between my iPhone and Windows. That was a game changer at the time. Of course, now every modern browser does that, syncing bookmarks, autofill, and passwords so you can pick up where you left off on any device.

But last week, things changed. Firefox started driving me crazy. Pages were slow, the spinning wheel was constant, and overall performance just wasn’t great. This wasn’t just on one computer, it was happening on both my work and home machines. So, I decided to do something radical for me: give Google Chrome a full day test drive.

At first, I only installed Chrome on my work computer. Sure, I’ve used Chrome, Edge, Safari, and others over the years, but never as my primary browser for an entire day. This time, I committed. And wow, within the first hour, the difference was obvious. Pages loaded faster. Everything felt snappier. Out of curiosity, I tried Safari for an hour too. It was also faster than Firefox, but Chrome still felt like the winner. Then I gave Microsoft Edge a quick spin and again, super fast. No surprise there, Edge and Chrome share the same Chromium engine.

Here’s the thing: I’ve always had multiple browsers installed for testing, but I never thought about switching permanently. After this experience though, I officially moved to Chrome on all my devices. There’s a small learning curve, figuring out where settings live and getting used to tab behavior, but overall, I’m impressed. Websites load noticeably faster, and the whole experience feels smoother.

Thinking back, it’s funny how far browsers have come. I remember using Netscape Navigator way back in the day. Mosaic too, in the early 1990s. Netscape launched in 1994, and I stuck with it for years. Then came Internet Explorer. I used IE for a long time, mostly because some sites wouldn’t work on anything else. Eventually, I switched to Firefox, and now here I am, making the leap to Chrome. Will I stay here forever? Probably not. Tech moves fast, and I like to keep an open mind.

So, what about you? What browser do you use and why? Do you stick with one across all your devices or mix and match?

This might not be the most thrilling topic, but it’s part of my tech journey, and I wanted to share it. Until next time, have a great Sunday and an amazing week ahead!

Capitol City Charm: A Des Moines Weekend

Trip to Des Moines, Iowa

We left for Des Moines, Iowa on Friday morning. We dropped Oliver off where he would stay through Sunday and we were on the road by 7:30. We drove to Des Moines with Erin and Greg and then met up with Laura and Jason where we had lunch and stayed at a Airbnb. We had a great time! We toured the capitol, went to antique place, did a lot of walking, and then we ate and drank a few different places. So much fun! Carrie and I were so tired when we got back home that we both took long naps Sunday afternoon into the evening and likely going to bed early this evening.

State Capitol in Des Moines, Iowa

We met Laura and Jason at El Bait Shop and then we headed to the capitol to look around. Carrie and I had been there before (back in 2016), but we wanted to show the others the beautiful capitol in Iowa. The clear blue skies made the capitol stand out against the dark blue background. It was fun going through and seeing the different areas of the capitol. We toured all the floors we could access which was cool. We decided doing a guided tour and looked around on our own which is what Carrie and I did back in 2016 when we toured their capitol.

Drinks at Speak Easy

Oysters on the Half Shell

Group Selfie

We finished the weekend Saturday night at a speak easy. A few of us had a wild night on Friday, so it was low key on Saturday night. The drinks were good and we had a good time hanging out together. We are already looking forward to our next trip back to Des Moines, Iowa and talked about going earlier in the season. We lucked out with the weather for our trip as it was sunny while we were there. A random rain shower moved through on Saturday late afternoon, but that was about it.

Great time and Des Moines was good to us once again. I look forward to going back in the future.

Different Kind of July 4 Celebration and Driving Around Kansas Camp Sites

July 4 celebration was a little different for Carrie and I this year than previous years. We decided a few weeks ahead of the holiday that we would drive around Kansas to look at camp sites. This was really more to help our our dog, Oliver, who is afraid of thunder, loud noises, and especially fireworks. We thought it would be a good way for us to check out various camp sites and also get Oliver out of the house and away from our neighborhood where fireworks can go off into the late hours of the night.

We started off visiting Cross Timbers State Park located on Toronto Lake in Woodson County. We drove around looking at various locations and found a few good spots. The first camp site we visited, Manns Cove Camp Site, was not ideal as we could not see the lake from the camp site, but we found other locations that would work. Good views of the lake and tree coverage to keep us cool tent camping. 

As we reviewed the spaces, we thought about making a trip to Cross Timbers State Park in the fall to see the lake and tree coverage. Toronto Lake is in the woods with heavy tree foliage, so we thought a fall visit would be fun to see the area, hike, and camp in cool temperatures. We noticed a few different spots to hike while we were driving around, so that was interesting to see and something to look forward to check out in the future.

The next camp site we checked was located at Fall River Lake and included the Fall River State Park. Traveling to Fall River State Park from Cross Timbers State Park took us deep into Kansas countryside. Cell signal completely stopped working, but luckily, our GPS continued to work and had us going through fields, gravel roads, and single lane dirt roads as we passed by fields and country houses. 

We really liked this camp site and had fun looking around the spillway that was partially open as every lake we looked at during the day was way above their normal lake levels. Some areas were completely covered with water or could not access the area we wanted to check, but we were able to see all of the spots we wanted.

We found Fall River State Park various sites that we would love to check out in the future. The camp sites at this location, as well as the first site, were not nearly as crowded as we thought they would be on a holiday. They were busy, but not overrun with campers. Both sites included many RVs but the primitive sites were not busy at all. It was nice though as we were doing the whole day to get Oliver out of the house so he would not have to hear fireworks that all State camp sites prohibit fireworks, so that was nice we did not have to worry about loud booms while we were in the various camp sites.

We found a nice little trail to follow down to the water and the state had done a lot of work to make the trail accessible by all. A path where a wheel chair could get down to the water although it was still being worked on and washed out from the flooding, it appeared as though they were going to pour cement and make it accessible all the way to the dock. With flooding, the path to the dock was underwater (picture to the left), but we could see how they were making progress and going to have it be a nice set up with wheel chair paths all the way to the dock. 

We will be back to visit the Fall River State Park site in the future. We enjoyed the area, the camp sites, and views from the sites we visited.

Our final site to visit for the day was located at El Dorado Lake. El Dorado State Park is the largest State Park in Kansas. We had about a 40 minute drive from Fall River State Park to El Dorado State Park.  Carrie drove while Oliver and I snoozed. Of the three lakes we reviewed through the day, I was excited to be at El Dorado Lake. I had driven over it for years when going to Wichita to visit my sister over the years and always liked how the highway went over the lake. It was fun seeing the camp sites. Again, we found that on this holiday, RV sites were crowded, but primitive camp sites were mostly open. 

Carrie and I stopped at an open camp site to have a picnic. Like the other two lakes, the area was flooded and so the camp site we found in primitive camping was not reserved or we thought was not an option to reserve. The grill for the site was partially in the water, so it was a perfect spot for us to spend a while enjoying the cool July 4 weather at the lake.

We had cheese, crackers, and grapes. It was perfect! I could have spent a longer time at the lake, but we wanted to try and see my sister in Andover. We had not given them any heads up as we were not sure of our schedule from going from lake-to-lake, so we ended up not being able to connect with them. We headed on home after finishing the site review at El Dorado State Park as we were unable to meet up with Jen and her family.

We had a great time on our July 4 camp site visits. We left the house later than we had expected as we left about 1. We got back to Topeka around 10:30 that evening. It was a wonderful drive back as we could see fireworks being fired from El Dorado, Emporia, and Topeka. 

What a wonderful time spent driving around the state of Kansas. We enjoyed our time together as we searched out future camp sites. I think we found some good options for next fall/spring and look forward to being able to visit them in the future. Carrie and I talked about our camping at El Dorado State Park that we would be able to invite Jen and Kent out to our camp site to eat with us. I think it sounds like a fun time and look forward to being able to do so in the near future.

What Kansas camp sites have you visited? Which ones do you like? Any recommendations for us to check out in our future camping adventures?

Cleaning House and Thinking About Future Kansas Camping Locations

A quiet weekend for Carrie and I cleaning to spend Saturday. More cleaning planned for Sunday. Camping the past few weekends have left us to the point where we need to spend time getting the house back in order. Following our camping trips and knowing that we would be camping again soon, we would leave camping supplies by the kitchen door. 

We spent the day Saturday getting things organized and put away. Not very exciting, but we did spend a little while looking at a Kansas Wildlife and Parks that researched Kansas State Parks. We signed up for the Kansas magazine to get future information about Kansas Wildlife and Parks. I believe Carries’ Mom found the magazine and gave it to us. Carrie and I read through the entire magazine looking at the various State Parks and reviewing those we have already visited (my blog posts Lake Melvern, Lake Crawford, and most recently Milford Lake) and thinking about those we have yet to visit. 

As we reviewed the Kansas Wildlife and Parks, we thought that we had been to some of the largest camp sites in Kansas, but realized we have not even scratched the surface. The largest camp site in Kansas is El Dorado State Park. Totally makes sense as I have always been in amazement when driving to Wichita and going over the El Dorado Lake that I-35 goes over partially. I look forward to our visiting El Dorado State Park at some point in our future camping visits. Plus, we picked out many other sites to visit in our future camping.

For now, our camping adventures are on hold. We were lucky with our last camping adventure (Camping in Hot Temperatures) and hot temperatures, but feel it is best to hold camping until temperatures drop in the fall. That does not mean we are not looking at locations and planning for future camping adventures.

Where is your favorite location to camp in Kansas? Please comment to share your recommendation for where to camp in Kansas. 

For now, stay cool through the summer months and until next week, have fun!