Being with your own kind

We all need to be with friends, family – our own kind. Rocky was nothing without Bullwinkle. Simba could not have aspired to be King without Mufasa. So it is with an RV. Lulu was doing okay in the driveway but it was time for her to be with her own kind; in a full fledged RV park. Okay, maybe I'm personalizing her a little too much. It was time to move so the house could be occupied by it's new tenant.

Last Monday we started our residence at the Wilderness RV Resort in Ocala. We still plan to be here in Ocala for a while yet, what with Jenna's graduation still a few months out. I've read to always be wary of any place that calls itself a “resort” but in this case they're close. They have 2 pools, 2 dog parks, game room, workout room, etc. It's nice. It's clean. More importantly, it's reasonably priced. It's not Disney World but then again we don't have to deal with constant helicopter over-flights either.

To make this work (the whole live on the road thing) I had to ensure I had reliable internet for my medical transcription gig. When I first came up with the idea 5 years ago the technology involved buying a satellite dish and subscribing to a service. They were sold by a company in North Carolina. You would go to the Charlotte Motor Speedway where their offices were for two or three days of installation. The cost was a couple of thousand dollars but you had internet anywhere as long as you could get the signal which meant no trees could be present within 20 degrees of the horizon in a southern exposure. Not bad. How many times would I want to camp near trees. Probably never.

Times have changed though and as most of you are aware technology has advanced a bit. Instead of hauling LuLu to North Carolina I just went to my local Verizon store and got a MiFi. It's a little gadget smaller than deck of cards that pulls down a 3G or 4G cellular signal and creates a personal wifi space wherever you are (hence the clever MiFi name). I typed my medical reports all last week at the park and it worked flawlessly – and yes safely encrypted. Margo can even surf the internet while we're driving down the road. How's that for “how far is the next Cracker Barrel”. It set me back less than $100.00 and the internet plan is the same amount I was paying the cable company. Oh, and it works under trees. Friend, blog reader, (and Verizon guy) Scott knows what I'm talking about. I swear Scott, I would have bought it from you had you not gotten yourself promoted and moved....

Now we have 30 amp power, A/C, the smell of other peoples bar-b-que grills in the evening and the all around ambiance of everyone around you having a relaxing time. It does suck to have to work and see all the folks in vacation mode around you but then again, they have to go home soon and back to their hamster wheels. I finish my lines and step outside to my picnic table and enjoy.

Game room, gym, laundry. All the comforts of the wildnerness"]

"Not bad for a back yard."]