Sunday, August 20, 2006
Musings
Today is Sunday. We are in the last week of our trip, and it's hard to
believe that we have been on the road for three weeks. It seems both very
short and like forever. We packed more of the sights we were interested in
to the first half of the trip, and we have had a great time. Since we left
Santa Fe, we fell like we've been sprinting toward the East Coast. We've
had long driving days from Santa Fe to Oklahoma City to St. Louis and,
today, a short drive to Santa Claus, IN.
We adapted very quickly on our trip to living in less than 200 sf of space.
This morning I suggested to Denise that we could save a lot of money by
moving into a 250 sf apartment. I am sure she was rushing right out to
check the online apartment listings because she ran away from me saying 'See
Ya.' Seriously, we have gotten in to a routine. Since we've been pretty
mobile, and generally not spending more than a night or two in any one place
(with a couple of exceptions), we've kept things stowed away in the RV.
This suits my nature well as I do the same thing at home and at work. But,
it surprises me how well Denise and the kids now put things away right after
they use them. I wonder if that will carry over to home. I doubt it. I am
sure that everyone is looking forward to leaving things around our house
once we get home.
Denise needs caffeine! Denise generally doesn't drink anything with
caffeine. But, when she drives, she drinks tea or Diet Coke. She says she
needs the caffeine to stay awake while she drives! I know that the scenery
got a little boring in the West, but that's a little scary. She's going to
drive in the morning now so that her caffeine influx from her morning tea is
fresh in her nervous system.
I learned that our kids can actually get along. Since Ben, our 13 year-old
son, generally doesn't like to play with Sam, his 10 year-old sister, we had
some tense times early on in the trip when Denise and I really needed them
to play together and not bother us. However, one benefit of this trip has
been that they learned to get along. OK, not all the time. They need to
get one or two fights out of their system every day, but they also learned
to play together, watch the same movies, and sometimes even wrestle
playfully on the bed in the back bedroom!
Somehow I thought I would have more free time while Denise was driving. I
haven't read nearly as many books as I thought I would, nor watched as many
movies. I have spent time keeping up with my email and reading the news
(online, via downloading the Boston Globe digital edition). But, the hours
on the road fly by. I don't have that recollection from when my family did
a similar trip when I was 11. We are much more entertained in the RV than
in the back of the station wagon.
The kids are really looking forward to the RV park in Santa Claus, IN. They
are (supposedly) the #1 RV park in the nation. When we travel, I am always
amazed at how much the kids like staying in our hotel room vs. getting out
and seeing the sights. We shifted our travel plans slightly to have one
extra day in Santa Claus, IN so that we could all relax a bit, play extra
mini golf at the RV park, and take in the water park next to the RV park. I
hope the weather holds up tomorrow (Monday) so we can have fun at the water
park.
For you techno-geeks out there, I have to say that the Verizon Broadband
Wireless service is pretty darn good. Most of the RV parks offer Wifi, but
I have had trouble at several of them (weak Wifi signal, no signal at all,
problems getting onto the Internet with no one able to help, or very limited
Internet bandwidth). The Verizon service comes in at about 140 kbps when
you are driving just about anywhere, although there are a few dead spots.
When stopped in one place in a big city, you can get upt to 500 kbps. Now,
this isn't like our cable modem at home, but it gets the job done. We've
been able to download music and videos into iTunes for our iPods (or to
watch The Daily Show and Colbert Report), keep up with our email, upload our
photos, post our blog entries, etc., with only a modicum of patience
required. It reminds me of those old dial-up days. It's interesting to see
the kids react. Their expectations are much higher. They think it is
really slow and kind of stinks, rather than marveling that it works at all,
as I do.
Well, onto a game of PC Monopoly with the kids while Denise drives for a
while. We've still got some fun ahead of us in Santa Claus, IN, outside
Cincinnati, and in Gettysburg. And, we should be able to watch the
Yankees-Red Sox on ESPN tonight at the RV park. Ben and I have enjoyed
seeing the Yankees score lots of runs in the first three games of the series
(sorry, Mike T). We'll see if it keeps up.
