For the last 11 days I’ve been on a family road trip, working part time all along the way. I hadn’t really planned to work that much (it was, after all, supposed to be a vacation), so I hadn’t really thought through my internet access (big mistake). But as is typical in this industry, the minute I stepped out the door, business started flowing in a torrential rate.
Lucky for me, the first two hotels offered free wi-fi, so following up was a breeze. And the condo in Jackson Hole, WY, thankfully, had a kind neighbor offering free wi-fi which really saved the day (yeah, and hopefully he wasn’t sitting there harvesting all my passwords).
But things became dire in Yellowstone. First of all, cell phone coverage was abysmal. The only place I could get a signal was at Old Faithful, but unfortunately, we weren’t staying there. We were staying in West Yellowstone, a meat-and-potatoes forest town, five by ten blocks, whose sole economy seems to be housing tourists, feeding tourists, and selling them park tchotchkes for the long drive home.
To my horror, our pricey, shopworn hotel didn’t have internet (unbelievable). I had offers and counter offers flying about and urgently needed the ability to email. The clerk gave us a map and marked a few places around town where it allegedly existed, so we hurried to each of the three locations but could not get a connection.
Desperation set in. In the darkness of night my husband clutching his laptop, we started searching block by block, crawling the streets, trolling for free internet. (Our tween children were amused.) The hubby had some spiffy site monitor that actually detected nearby networks by strength, so we’d crawl, stop, try to connect, fail, back up, try again, fail, pull forward, fail, drive to the next house, park someplace where hopefully no one would notice, and start the process all over again. (I’m sure that biker thought we were stalking him.)
The neighborhoods weren’t working out, their signals too weak. So we started casing name brand motels. (I mean, geez, I thought everyone offered free internet!) After multiple failures, we finally cruised by the Comfort Inn. Like crack addicts after the next fix, we doggedly pursued a potential connection on three different sides of the building.
Success, at last! If we parked right next to the employee break room, we could connect to the world and conduct business as usual. If I’d have known this would be an issue, I would have stayed at the Comfort Inn in the first place. (Thank you, Comfort Inn!)
Now we’re on our way home, with internet all the way. But quite frankly, this has been just a little too stressful. I think I need another vacation! 
One comment
I remember when there were no laptops, or wireless internet, or an internet at all, or cellphones, and we conducted our business on landline telephones.(At least we didn’t have to drive around all night looking for a phone.) You had to come up with a down payment to buy a house, you could only get an amortizing loan, the only thing anybody ever flipped was a hamburger, and people bought a house with the notion that it was something to live in, and raise a family in, for many years. And if after 20 years you sold and made a few bucks, well, that was nice.
Investing in residential real estate meant buying a house for a good enough price that you could actually turn a profit on it year after year, not buying something for any price at all because you are only going to “own it” for 3 months before passing it off to the next greater fool who is willing to pay even more for it, driving prices to unsustainable levels in the process.
Such a Troglodyte I am.