Questions about sending text messages?

Today I took a drive to the mountains and there was no data connection. The phone still worked but I think it was roaming in analouge mode. Driving in these areas makes a good idea to have a printed map, and or a stand alone GPS like a Garmin because of the built in maps and it not requiring a data connection. Okay anyways there are some contacts that have iPhones and I tried to text one person and the iphone kept on thinking and thinking until a few minutes later I was given the option to send the message as a text message and not as a imessage. Is there a wa this could have been avoided sparing me the 2-3 minutes of wait time for the iphone to figure it out that I lacked a data connection? Thanks

Well, you could have turned off iMessage when you knew you had no data connection in the settings, but other than that, no.