No internet!

How life had changed! We have been RVing for30 years and until recently, we rarely had internet access. We most often stayed in state parks and forest service campgrounds. When we stayed in commercial campgrounds, to get our email we had to go to the office or the office porch to plug into an outlet on the pay phone or be close enough to use their WiFi. Once in Alaska we even used the fax line in the harbor master's office. In Prince George, British Columbia, they gave us a suitcase which supposedly gave us internet access. We never got it to work.

We could get our email in these situations. How many of you remember email you could download, then read after you disconnected to the internet? We would compose responses then go online in the park office to send them. Today, we have to be online to read the email and to compose and send the response.

We used a pay phone to call for reservations. Who heard of researching local attractions or hiking trails on line. We called home once a week to find out if everyone was OK.

Today, we are used to internet access almost everywhere we go. We can talk to family and friends day or night and are online in our RV, as we drive down the road—everywhere.

That is, most of the time. For 5 days we are at Rifle Gap State Park. We have not been here before but it is great—huge sites, good views, full hookups. But we don't have internet or cell phone access. It is Father's Day and we expected a call from our sons to John. Good luck. We can't call each other here in the park. So no one else can reach us, that is for sure.

As we did in years gone by, we will go somewhere each day to check our email and make any phone calls we need to make. How often in the past did I go to the park office where we were volunteering to check our email. One park where we volunteered, the only cell phone access was down by the lake. Another time, it was crossing a bridge over a river as we entered the park. We would stop there and I would call the bank's automated system to check all the checks that had cleared the account. In Montana, we drove into The Dallas several times a week to check the internet and make phone calls.

Ask me if I am nostalgic for days gone by and happy to be repeating the situation. Not on your life! However, we are going to England for 2 months this summer and know that at times we will be in this same situation. At least it is good practice.

We do have TV reception here, but without the internet, would you believe we actually played Gin Rummy this afternoon. And it was fun! I don't think we have done that for 6 years.


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