I remember when we had to schlep our laptop up to the RV park’s office and plug in to their phone line in order to use dial-up to get online.  Then came Wi-Fi.  You could browse the Internet from the comfort of your parked RV.  We even got a Datastorm Satellite dish that gave us high-speed Internet *wherever* we were parked – in the middle of the desert, or in the most remote national forest.  What luxury that was.  We live fulltime in our motorhome and we need to work to make our living.  Our work is primarily on our website so it’s important that we be able to connect wherever we are.

Then came cellular datacards, and cellphones tethered to our laptops, we could be connected to high-speed Internet while driving down the road! How wonderful right?

NO.

I didn’t like it.  I’m a geek, but I have my limits.  It’s one of my guilty pleasures to be a passenger in our RV and simply enjoy the ride while my husband does the driving.  This is a time when I have permission to *not* work.  I enjoy watching the scenery and daydreaming about oh so many things.  When we’re driving down the road in our self-contained cocoon-home, the outside world disappears. No stress. No worries. Just us and the rhythm of the road.

I don’t want to give that up.  How about you?

The cellular connection to Internet does work great – I succumbed to the dark side once in a while when I needed to answer some emails, or had a deadline for some other web work.  I was glad to be able to get my work done without sacrificing our planned destination. 

Now, with a Smartphone in my pocket, I find myself checking my email and looking at my calendar, almost unconsciously, even while we’re driving down the road.  The Smartphone is just so quick and easy.   I find it to be a small intrusion into my traveling reverie, but I appreciate that it allows me to accomplish the necessary tasks without getting out a real computer.  I can put it back in my pocket and return to the hypnotic hum of the wheels on the road.