Frugal RVing In South States - Ebooks

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Slightly Longer Landing

After 4 days in Three Hills and a wonderful time with family, we headed down the road only a couple hours, and landed in the booming metropolis of Cereal Alberta (population of approximately 200).  This is the location where we spent the 2 years preceding our move into the rig, and the residence of several of Ken's family.

I have submitted my resume to the museum in Three Hills, and will do the same in some of the local shops and such.  Depending on the outcome of this pursuit, we shall determine where to hang out for the summer.  

For now the plan is to hang here for a couple weeks before we go to collect Smokey and the camper.  We can then park where ever  employment takes us, and on my off days, we can do a bit of exploring with the camper.

On a different note, we decided after a bit of time in Three Hills hunting around for hot spots and fighting sun glare across the truck dash that we are not content with that approach anymore. (Okay, we are spoiled, but we want to be able to use our own living room rather than driving hither and yon in the mad hunt.)  We do have the Wi-Fires, and they do improve reception of the signals, but the absence of signal can't be fixed by increased range.  

Instead, on Friday we ordered an air card from Telus.  They have 3 different levels of service, but it is defined by byte usage, and I haven't the slightest clue how it translates into online usage.  We are starting at the lowest level for now, and will upgrade as needed.  The price choices are $25, $30, and $60, but the megabyte levels elude me right now as they meant nothing to me.

We were told it would take 3 to 5 business days to arrive, but it actually got there (to our Cereal address) on Monday.  We were very impressed.  So far it is working out fine, we are sharing it between the 2 laptops.  You can set a password on it for safety.  That way, if your air card should be lost or otherwise acquired by the uninvited, they can't use your air time without a password.

As for the RV site in Cereal, we stayed for one night at $20 for 30 amp and water.  They have a central dump site, but especially with the size of rig we have, and when compared with Three Hills having the 30 amp, water, individual sewer, and wifi (by now it should be set up) for $25 (or pay 6, get the 7th free works out to $21 if you stay 7) it felt a bit insulting to pay.  

Instead, we have landed in a friend's yard.  Here we have water, 15 amp service, and although we still have to move the black water to the dump station, the grey we can just let run off into the parched raspberry patch.  We do have what my parents called a blue boy for hauling the undesirable effluent, and we will just hall it to the campground's dump station.  

Pictures pending of this area.  

 :-)

But for now I will bid you,

Adieu
In the meantime, 

2 comments:

  1. Please keep us updated as to how the aircard is working. I'm thinking of getting one of those but am looking for more testimonials.

    I'd be very careful how much surfing I do if I was on the most minimal package; it's meant for people who do mostly email and only light surfing. Skyping could end up costing you an arm and leg; I'd check with Telus how that factors into your usage levels. I'd hate for you to be stuck with a huge bill at the end of the month!

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  2. Will do. I managed a bit of a deal that isn't always accessible, but having been a long term telus mobility customer and finding a friendly tech to discuss options with, I was able to get unlimited minutes for the minimum rate for 3 months, then we can assess usage. He says overuse so that you can estimate better. Generally that isn't available except to 3 year contracts signers. So far so good. Basically, if you can get cell signal (there are 2 types, and the higher level is the required one) you can receive air card signal. Cereal is not known for good cell signal until recently, and we get on with no problem. As for speed, it is 4 x faster than telus lite, buy stats.

    We are still going to use the wifire as once we are off unlimited, we will seek free signals first before plugging in except for things like banking.

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