Mobile Internet Options

Last day here at Thousand Trails. I've kept busy these past few days playing pickleball in the mornings with Rich and Dee Pagliaro, Pat and John Lively, couples we met here last year, and a few new players I have only just met. Managed to get out yesterday afternoon for a few groceries and a haircut too. Even washed the Vue.....no water restrictions here.

Given that we are heading off to Alaska in mid June, I've also been busy researching our options for mobile internet while on the road in Canada. While our Verizon modem works well in the USA, roaming charges would apply if we used it in Canada and that becomes quite costly. My Verizon connection costs me just over $US60 for unlimited data every month and I generally use about 5-6 GB of data each month. Uploading photographs, watching photoshop instructional tutorials and voice/video calls on MSN Messenger account for much of my monthly usage. None of the Canadian cell phone companies offer good cellular data programs. Rogers, Bell and Telus charge outrageous amounts for data plans. For example, Rogers presently offers a 3 GB monthly data plan for the exorbitant amount of $CDN 125 per month! Further, I suspect that plan only works in larger cities that have the 3G infrastructure. Much of Canada is rural with limited cell phone connectivity in some areas, so it follows that if there is no cell phone coverage in a given area, there will be no internet coverage either. Need another option.

That leaves mobile satellite internet. I've been dealing with Armand Lalonde at http://techmcw.com/ in Lindsay, Ontario. They offer both the roof mounted motorized satellite and also a tripod mounted dish version of Anywhere Internet. The roof mounted system features fully automatic setup and storage at the flick of a switch but is quite costly. Also, one needs a clear view of the southern sky in order to get a good signal. Some RV parks make finding an open site difficult, so if parked under a tree or even near trees or a building that block out the southern sky....no signal. For that reason, the tripod system looks much more promising. The basic system comes with a 74 cm dish but the coverage maps show limited or no coverage in northeastern British Columbia, Yukon or Alaska. However , the 98 cm (around 3 feet) dish should give us coverage in all the areas we will be visiting. We can also add an LNB for ExpressVu to the internet dish which could be a handy feature if we can't get a TV signal with our roof dome. Won't be as quick to set up as our plug in Verizon USB modem, but lots of RVers use satellite internet and setup time should decrease once I familiarize myself with the system. Chris and I are planning a family visit to Hanover, Ontario in late May, so we'll stop in Lindsay, Ontario to check out Armand's product line while enroute.

I've decided to head back over to Tampa this afternoon. I managed to get a good deal on a week stay at RallyPark thanks to Demond McKinley. Might even get to see Jim and Jane if they are still at Lazydays. They have a service scheduled for today before they hit the road for Alberta.

Hot and Muggy

Well pickleball was a little steamy this morning. Temps are heating up nicely and of course the humidity goes up with the temperature. We played from 8-11:30 am this morning and I was drenched by the time it was over. Wasn't just me either. Even the locals commented on the humidity. Tough life...I know!

Good news on the Lightroom front. The 2.2 update was posted by Adobe this morning, so I downloaded and installed it this morning. Works like a charm. The update seems to have resolved some operating speed issues in the previous version on my laptop. It also included the raw image processor for my new Canon 5d mark 2 camera, so I can shoot and upload raw instead of jpg now. Much better for post processing in Photoshop or Lightroom. The above cypress swamp image was a raw image that processed quite well in LR 2.2.

Buddy went to the groomer yesterday and looks all white and fuzzy, at least for a day or two. I grabbed some pictures and will post them soon.

All Gone!!!!

I spent yesterday doing some last minute stuff at the old house. One more run to the Sally Ann. We also piled a bunch of stuff at the curb just in time for garbage day today. Our neighbours are letting us keep our bicycles in their garage for the time being, so we moved all those over before noon. The cleaning crew spent a good 4-5 hours in the house and made it look and smell brand new. My son packed most of his worldly possessions in his Hyundai Accent and then we vacated the place shortly before 2 pm.

Chris and I had an enjoyable afternoon and supper with Jim Anders, an old classmate of ours from our high school days at CFB Baden in Germany during the 70s. He retired from the military several years ago. Jim came to our rescue in fact. We had a large wooden clothes rack to move to "the cave" and it was far too big for our SUV. Thankfully, Jim has a Dodge Ram truck which handled the load quite easily.

Chris is back to work today. I dropped her off and then headed to Perkins to have breakfast with my son before he headed off to Hanover. We had a good chat. Don't mind saying I was left a little teary eyed as he drove off to begin life on his own. Feels strange being an official empty nester now.

I managed a nice 4 mile along along the Ottawa river after breakfast and then spent the rest of my day running errands. I returned a floor lamp we had bought at Home Depot after 3 light bulbs blew up in it and shattered all over the floor. I picked up another floor lamp with the 'touch' feature. The top of the box looked like it was retaped after having been opened before. A Home Depot clerk told me it was new and had not been returned. Imagine how much I fumed when I opened the box and found the lamp had indeed been opened and returned before. Half the styrofoam was even missing from the box! Wait until I return it tomorrow!

Finally have our wifi internet connection working well at 'the cave'. I had managed to get my cable modem working in our suite by connecting it directly to cable but it stopped working this morning and Rogers said it was because they only allowed one cable modem on a line. I would have to pay for a second line if I wanted to use my own cable modem. I talked to our landlord upstairs and am now running a wifi network on his cable at no cost at all. Can't beat that!

Time to pick up the working lady.

House For Sale

Well our house is officially for sale! I am having mixed feelings about the sale. This has been my home for the last 10 years but it is definitely time to move on. Kids are gone. Full-timing here we come!

Had to spend a lot of time getting the yard and house into shape. The winter here was really long and spring has been slow in arriving, so the yard isn't where it should be quite yet. Getting there though. I brought in a painter to repaint the second storey dormers and also the garage and main entry way. We have used him before and he has always done a great job for us. The listing hits the Internet and local papers tomorrow and we will likely have an open house this weekend. Picture quality from my cellphone wasn't the greatest unfortunately.

Chris has been very busy in Halifax. She is enjoying the visit with her daughter. She spent time straightening up her old place and retrieving some personal items. She will spend a few days visiting her parents and then return to Ottawa on the weekend.

Our motorhome is in fine shape at our storage site in Sarsfield. I am thinking of just leaving it outside instead of putting it in a quanset as we initially planned. Friends have said they stored their motorhome inside over a few months in the summer and wound up with a lot of rust on the chassis as a result. Apparently the dampness comes up from the ground unless it is stored on a concrete slab which resulted in their having to replace a fair number of hoses and clamps, etc. If any readers have any advice on inside versus outside storage, I'd be grateful if you could please share any insight in the comment area of this blog entry.

Lastly, I updated the operating system on my HTC TYTN 2 smartphone to Windows Mobile V6.1 today. It wasn't exactly a painless procedure but done now after 3 hours of installs and reboots. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier, or saw I thought.

TTN Forest Lake

We were on the road by 10 am this morning. We only had a short 200 mile drive today, so we left a little later than usual.

Most of today's drive was along I-85. We stopped at the Flying J in Blacksburg, SC to top up with diesel fuel and unleaded for the Vue. Diesel was down to $3.979/gallon ($1.05/litre), the lowest we have seen since last fall. Unleaded was $3.429/gallon ($0.905/litre). Still considerably lower than in Canada. We also checked out a Waffle House for lunch. Enough said on that one. Won't be stopping there again anytime soon.

The drive was great. Traffic was moderate and moved along quite well. We stuck around 55-57 mph and just watched the countryside roll on by, averaging a whopping 9.3 mpg!!! Not bad really when you consider how heavy we are and pulling another vehicle as well. Doesn't take long to blow through $200 or more at the pumps either and of course that will increase the further north we go. Oh well, it is still a great life! We heard truckers are doling out over $1000 per tank full these days. Ouch!!!

We arrived at Forest Lake just before 3 pm and were able to check out a bunch of different sites because the park is only half full. We found two nice sites near the pickleball courts. We couldn't get level on A-20, so we opted for A-18. As you can see from the photo, we are in a well treed site, so no Canadian satellite TV for the two days we are here. Antenna works great though, so we will survive.

The park is very well laid out among Carolina pine trees. The 2 outdoor pools are not open until Memorial Day. Too cold anyway. Last night, it got down to 36F here!!!! Brrrr!!!!!! This afternoon we were closer to 70F.

According to our Garmin Nuvi 760 we are 800 ft above sea level and our GPS coordinates are:
N 35 degrees 51.625', W 80 degrees 23.823'. Punch those numbers into Google Maps for a good idea of where we are.

Our Verizon U-720 modem works well from the confines of our motorhome. NationalAccess though, no Broadband.

Lastly, I added a traffic meter to the blog yesterday. It displays a list of where people accessing our blog are from. I thought it would be neat to see that info. Please sign our guest book too when you drop in. Repeat entries are fine. You don't need to leave an email address if you don't want to, but all comments would be greatly appreciated.

New Toshiba Laptop

We both decided to have a rest day from our usual fitness program today. Chris's shin is still a little tender and I could use a rest day too.

We watched as Dennis and Barb Johnson hooked up and headed north this morning. Our little corner on G loop at TTN Orlando is pretty sparsely populated these days. We have made many new friends these past 6 months.

We headed up to Clermont this morning and stopped in at Best Buy where I picked up a very nice Toshiba Satellite A-305 laptop on sale. The motherboard on my Qosmio was fried and it would have cost almost what I paid for the new laptop to repair it. Figured why bother repairing a 3 year old laptop. It hums along pretty well with 3 GB of RAM running Windows Vista Premium.

Unfortunately, our Verizon PC5750 air card is incompatible with this laptop as there is no PCMCIA slot. So we stopped in at the Verizon store at The Groves and bought a new USB720 modem. It works very well and can be moved from computer to computer much more easily than the air card.

Of course, we just had to stop in a Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries one last time before heading back to TTN Orlando. We'll have to work it off tomorrow.

Our favourite furball goes in for grooming tomorrow morning.

Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries

Yesterday, we took a run up to Winter Garden to go to the huge mall again. Forget the name right now, but we have been there quite a few times this winter. The Barnes and Noble store is still not open but the rest is pretty well up and running.

Our visit there accomplished two things. First, I had Geek Squad at Best Buy look at my Toshiba Qosmio laptop. It died on me almost 3 weeks ago now. What I thought might be a seized up hard drive, may in fact be another bad mother board. I had the original board replaced under warranty over a year ago in Ottawa. Seems like I may be going through the same steps again. I definitely won't be buying Toshiba again. Geek Squad couldn't get the parts in before we leave for home, so repairs will have to wait until we return to Ottawa.

The second reason for our visit to Winter Garden was to pay a visit for lunch at Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries. Truly, the best burgers we have ever had, requiring at least four napkins to wipe your chin. One must unhinge one's jaw to take a good bite as well! A treat every now and then is perfectly fine! Besides, we have been exercising regularly............... Maybe there was a little guilt there, but that soon vanished once we chowed down.

Please click on the title of this blog entry to visit the Five Guys website.

We Saw A Wooly Mammoth!!!

We were up bright and early Sunday morning in order to get Sarah to Tampa International Airport for her return flight home. We left at 5 am and took Hwy 64 west over to I-75 and then onto I-275 and over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to the airport. Traffic was very light so we made good time. Chris picked us both up a Starbucks coffee and muffin for the drive back to Wauchula. We were on our way home by 7 am and made it back in time for pickleball. Our thanks to Jim and Jane for kindly offering to look after Buddy for us overnight. It made the trip into Tampa much easier.

Chris and I spent almost four hours fossil hunting in Peace River yesterday afternoon. It was our best day so far. In the photos, the largest item you can see in the upper left corner is the tooth of an adult wooly mammoth. Next to it, in the centre, is what we suspect is the jaw bone of a baby wooly mammoth with one tooth still in place. Another partial mammoth tooth on the left below the large tooth. The remaining items are a variety of shark teeth, some fossilized turtle shell, as well as what I think is a claw, perhaps from a turtle.

We had no idea exactly what we had until Jane had a good look at our haul this morning. We were really hoping to find a spear or arrow head but I think some wooly mammoth remains rank right up there as well! I'll have to do a little online research to confirm.

Pickleball for me this morning while Chris cleaned up the inside of the motorhome. She's so good to me! Then back to the RV to get things packed and ready for our drive into Lazydays. We were on the road out of Thousand Trails by noon and pulled into Lazydays at 2 pm. Our rig is ready for a 3 day stay to repair a superficial scratch on the driver's side which I caused last summer at Fanshawe Conservation in London, Ontario.

We plan to overnight at Lazydays tonight. Tomorrow, we will spend cycling and beachcombing at Fort Desoto, before heading back to Wauchula tomorrow afternoon. We will spend 3 days in a park model home while our Bounder is repaired.

We did a little shopping in Brandon this afternoon. Given the recent hard drive crash on my Toshiba laptop, I am a little more diligent about backing up our data. To this end, we purchased a Western Digital 250 GB USB hard drive. It is larger than we will need...for now. The nice thing about this USB hard drive is that it draws its power from the laptop, so there is no external power supply and therefore it takes up less space. Very important in an RV where space is limited.

When we got back to our RV, I cranked up the generator and fired up our two air conditioners. Looks like the rear a/c has gone out now. Front one works fine but the rear one won't come on. Breakers are all okay, so not sure if we lost the capacitor on it or not. Something else for Lazydays to check out while it is in the shop.

The Fridge Is Full

Things are definitely thinning out here at Peace River. Our new friends, the Gundys, packed up and headed for Orlando. We'll see them again in early April before heading home. Seeing their kayaks, has Chris resolved to buy two of our own once we get home. There is certainly lots of places to use them down here.

Saturday turned out to be a wet and dreary day in most of Florida. Pickleball was rained out in the morning. We went for a run around the nature trail instead between rain showers and then stopped by the to see the dedication of the new mini golf course, aptly named "Puttersville". The workers have done a great job putting the 9 hole course together. There must have been 100 people at the dedication. We all enjoyed cake and watched Debbie shed more than a few tears as she gets closer still to her last day as manager.

I played pickleball for an hour after lunch until the skies opened up yet again. Chris went to Sweet Bay to load up on groceries ahead of Sarah's arrival at Tampa airport tonight. Turns out her flight has been changed and she won't arrive until after midnight! Ugh!! Thankfully, Jim and Jane have agreed to look after Buddy during our absence.

Jane and Chris have planned our Easter feast for later today. Turkey with all the fixings! Yahoo! Hoping it dries out long enough for us to be able to eat outside.

I spent alot of time on the computer yesterday. When I synced my smartphone to Chris's laptop, I lost all my contacts and phone numbers on my phone. Thankfully, I eventually found a backup copy of my address book and have managed to reinstall all the names, phew! Now if I could just figure out how to use activesync via bluetooth......

Chris spent the afternoon beading. She enjoys being creative and has made some very nice necklaces and bracelets. Barb, Jane and Julie are also into it. Look out when they all get together!

Happy Easter

A friend sent us this today and it made me laugh. Hope it does the same for you.

Not much going on here at Peace River. There are many lower meadow sites vacant now and new arrivals seem to get a sewer site right away now.

Rained heavily this morning so no pickleball until this afternoon. Chris and I went for a walk/jog around the park on the nature trail. Definitely a little cooler today after the rain this morning. Won't be long before it warms up though.

Looks like the hard drive on my laptop has seized up so Chris's HP will be doing double duty, at least until we get back to Orlando and I can take mine into Best Buy to see if it is worth repairing or not. It was making weird noises for about a week before it finally seized up. I had already backed up my data. Will lose some stuff but nothing too important anyway.

Chris is looking forward to her daughter Sarah's second trip to Florida this winter. She arrives in Tampa on Sunday and will stay with us for a week. Hoping the weather is a little warmer than it was back in February so we can visit some of the beaches around Sarasota.

We head home April 25th but will be taking our time heading back to Ottawa. On the way back, we'll check out some other Thousand Trail (TT) parks in the Carolinas and Virginia, as well as some Resorts of Distinction (ROD) parks in Pennsylvania, New York and Ontario, and a Resort Parks International (RPI) park in Georgia which are all part of our TT membership. The Chesapeake Bay area should be very interesting. We'll enter Canada at Niagara Falls so we can see Lindsay and also visit relatives in and around Kincardine before heading home. Should be a fun trip.

Take care everyone.

TTN Orlando Bound

We left Ottawa on Nov 13, 2007 in our 2007 Bounder Diesel 38N towing our Saturn Vue. Weather was cold but roads were still bare and dry for the most part. It would appear that we got out of Ontario just in time as some nasty winter storms were soon to roll through.

We headed out Hwy 417 and down to Hwy 401 to Hill Island where we turned south into NY state on I-81. Our plan was to average 250-300 miles a day and to make use of Walmarts, Flying J gas stations and Cracker Barrel restaurants for overnight stays.

We stopped in at a Verizon store in Watertown, NY to buy a PC5750 data card to use with our laptops for a connection to the internet. Took about an hour to get it sorted out. We managed to get National Access all the way down I-81 and I-75 into Georgia. Once in Florida we were Broadband access all the way. The cost is only $59.99 plus taxes per month which we thought was pretty good. Besides, we wouldn't have to rely on wifi anywhere, which in our experience can be iffy at best with very slow connection speeds. With our data card, we have 24 hour internet access from virtually anywhere. I also managed to set up my Verizon account so that my monthly bill comes to my email address and not in the regular mail. Far easier to keep on top of our bill that way.

We basically drove for 6-8 hours a day for 5 days, staying overnight in the above mentioned spots. We had absolutely no problem obtaining permission to stay at either Walmarts or Cracker Barrels. In fact, we have decided we like the Cracker Barrels better as the lots are much quieter. Walmarts tend to have delivery trucks coming and going at all hours of the day and night which makes it hard to sleep. Not complaining, just stating the obvious. We always buy groceries/supplies at Walmart when we stay there and we also have supper at Cracker Barrels if we stay there. Great food and the prices are very reasonable too.

Traffic was fairly light for the most part on the way south until we got into the Knoxville and Chattanooga areas. Atlanta was also very busy but traffic moved along at a good pace. We averaged 55-60 mph most of the way and about 7.5 - 8.5 mpg in our Bounder. Diesel fuel was much more expensive this trip than during our trip to Hershey, PA in July/August 2007. Most we paid was $3.45 per gallon at the Flying J in New Milford, PA. Prices seemed to settle around $3.25/gallon soon after that.

We didn't experience any warm weather until we got into Georgia. In fact, we saw a few flakes coming through VA and TN in the mountains. We need the propane furnace all nights until we hit GA.

We spent 3 nights at the Georgia Veterans Memorial State Park in Cordele, GA on US280 just off I-75. It is a fabulous park. Our site was right on the water overlooking Blackshear Lake. We walked for miles with Buddy, our 14 year old Bichon Frise. Signs warned of alligators in the lake but we never saw any at all. We watched squirrels scurrying about the pecan trees in search of nuts for the winter. Many blue heron and other water birds also in the area.

We left GA on Nov 20th and headed south into Florida, overnighting at a Cracker Barrel just off I-75 in Ocala. Again a very nice spot and reasonably quiet too. We had a beautiful day for our entry into Florida. We stopped at the welcome center on I-75 to pick up a few brochures and to also have our complimentary grapefruit juice. We were up bright and early on Nov 21st, as we were both eager to get into TTN Orlando.

We used an old Sony Viao laptop to run the Microsoft Streets and Maps GPS program. It worked well for the most part although the directions were hard to hear at times over the road and air conditioner noise in our motorhome. The computer is also only running an Intel P3 processor, so it was quite slow at times and even froze up completely on more than one occasion. Kind of a nuisance really, as it always seemed to freeze when we needed the last few turns into our destination.

We turned south on Hwy 27 after heading east off I-75 at exit 329. Passed through Clermont and saw Bee's RV Resort which is a campground we will visit from Dec 5-12, 2007 after our two weeks at Thousand Trails in Orlando. We arrived at TTN around 11 am which is located just north of Hwy 192 on the east side of Hwy 27. Our GPS got us close enough but the address I entered came up about 1/2 mile short of the actual turn into TTN. Good thing we kept our eyes open and we both saw another motorhome with toad ahead of us that turned into TTN as well.


We were amazed at the size of this resort. Over 730 sites in all. We settled on lot D110 in the treed area of the park. Other loops have paved pads but are in full sunshine all day due to lack of trees. D110 is a 50 amp site and we had lots of trees to shade us for part of the day, plus our satellite worked fine for most ExpressVu channels. We are also close to the lake, where we are told, it is possible to see the nightly fireworks displays from Disney World. Haven't seen them yet though because we can't seem to stay awake long enough for them!


We have been out exploring the area and found several grocery stores as well as a Walmart, Camping World, hair dresser, etc. We are both back into our fitness routines as well. We run, swim/bike on alternate days. There is a nice 5 km route leading out of TTN and across Hwy 27 into a residential area. TTN has 2 25 yard pools which are not used very much. We swam in the heated one the other day and tried the unheated one this morning. It was still 75F, a bit brisk to start, but fine after 4 lengths or so. This past weekend was Thanksgiving in the USA so we could smell turkey cooking all over the park. Today is Sunday, and many rigs are leaving for home or other camp grounds. Lots of spaces available here.


Buddy seems to be settling in nicely. He is getting walked every day, sometime 2-3 times a day. He is a little dirty but happy nonetheless.

Daytime temps so far are in the 75 - 80 degree F range with lots of sunshine. Night time dropped into the 50's the other night. Only had the propane furnace on once in Orlando and given the daytime temps this week, I don't think it will be on again any time soon.

Chris and I took Buddy for a stroll around the park after lunch. We wandered up to the main store for an ice cream cone and stumbled onto this gopher turtle sitting in the grass nearby. We've seen a few of them around here. They burrow into the ground like a gopher, so that explains the name. Lots of wild turkeys around here too but too far away for a good picture unfortunately.

Well, Grey Cup is on today, so time to relax in the sun and enjoy the game.

More later