We are traveling on summer vacation right now. It’s hard. It
used to be a lot easier before we had all this technology.
We have three main issues that are taking up most of our
time and energy: charging cords, cell signals, and WiFi.
Our three-week vacation apparently required a bag of
charging cords the size of a basketball, conveniently tangled and knotted into
the shape of an actual basketball. We somehow managed to get them all loose as
the miles clicked off, which was a mistake. After two weeks on the road, the
boys have managed to get us down to two cords between the five of us. I have
confiscated mine. The rest of the family is on their own. It’s like four dogs scrapping
for a single pork chop.
Our trip centered around going to Yellowstone National Park,
which the government inconveniently placed in the middle of the wilderness. And
in order to get there, you have to drive through miles and miles of wilderness
that isn’t even associated with the park. It’s a lot of wilderness.
The end result of all that wilderness is a distinct lack of
cell coverage. And on top of all that, we just added Son Number One to the cell
plan, so ninety-five percent of our data is immediately sucked into the
teenager data void. I already upgraded our plan to unlimited texts, because my
wife knows more than two people, but I can’t bring myself to go to unlimited
data. We have Verizon, and they want what amounts to a monthly mortgage payment
on a large house for the privilege of having unlimited data.
On the plan we can afford without moving into a refrigerator
box, we are allowed 8 GB of data between all of us. A GB of data is a
mysterious unit of measure that fluctuates wildly in size depending on many
factors, all of which are controlled by Verizon. It can equal as much as five
full days of web browsing some months, and as little as five seconds of a video
the next month. We never know which it will be, so consequently, WiFi is our
best friend.
Before the advent of WiFi, when traveling, you checked into
a new place, unpacked a little, then went to explore the area. Now, we check in
and everyone explores their immediate area for the little sheet of paper that
tells us the WiFi name and password. Then comes the gathering of the devices –
phones, Kindles, iPads, laptops. Then I spend the next two hours either putting
all the devices on the WiFi, or repeating the WiFi password (proudweasel264) about
a million times to those trying to do it themselves, while they complain that
it’s not working, which it doesn’t, when you spell it “weezal.”
The closer we got to Yellowstone, the sparser the cell
signals became, and the more rare the WiFi became, until we found ourselves in
a hellish three-day period in a house in the woods near West Yellowstone with
absolutely no WiFi, and one single fluctuating bar of cell service, which was
just enough to make your phone think it might be able to do something, then
eventually give up.
We have worked our way back westward toward civilization and
are now spending the Fourth of July holiday week with more extended family in a
very big, very modern house in Sunriver, Oregon. It had great WiFi… on Monday.
Yesterday, it left a little to be desired. By ten in the
morning I was on the phone with the rental agency to let them know that the
WiFi had quit and my attempts to reset the cable modem had failed. They patched
me into a call with Bend Broadband, who promptly led me through the very same troubleshooting
steps I had taken myself, then shrugged on the other end of the phone and said
they would need to send out a technician. On Friday. Between one and five o’
clock.
I guess wilderness is not the only obstacle to a reliable
connection.
But I can’t complain. Not having WiFi has been very freeing.
It has freed me from the confines of the house and the vacation activities.
The folks at this Starbucks all say hello.
Have a great Independence Day enjoying your freedom. Happy
Birthday, America!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2019 Marc Schmatjen
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