7-13-12 Friday (We’re Tethered)

Ever have one of those days where everything seems to go wrong and then it’s to the point of asking in your head, “what else can go wrong” but you don’t ask out loud because some crazy rule in your childhood says never to ask that out loud and then the next day while blogging and typing in the date of the post you realize that it was Friday the 13th but then you remember that some of the bad things that happened to you weren’t nearly as bad at what happened to the people that “caused” the bad thing to happen to you?  Me too.

It was a simple plan really.  We were going to Augusta this weekend.  I had put in a request to get off work a couple of hours early.  On Thursday night Jim and I packed everything we could into the Mazda.  We had that bitch slap full too.  It was just a lot of stuff like supplies for making the sewer connection more permanent and other stuff for Jim that I’m sure we don’t really need.  I brought a nicer set of towels and things like that.  Anyway, on Friday Jim took the Jeep to work, I took the BMW and as you know, the Mazda was packed in the garage.

While on a break at work I saw a news story about a deadly accident on I-85S involving a tractor trailer.  One death, several injured.

My planned departure time was 3:30.  I was stuck on a call and didn’t get off the phone till 3:45.  The traffic to go home was horrendous.  What should have taken 15 minutes actually took me 50 minutes.  I had to pee so badly.  If I had been stuck much longer, surely Jim would have had a wet BMW seat.  3/4 of the way home a torrential rain let loose.  That was the moment of “what else can go wrong”.  I finally made it home and then wasted so much time mapping an alternate route.  With Jim’s emailed suggestions and Mapquests ability to tweak the route by dragging part of it, I was finally ready to go.  I shuffled cars, packed the last minute stuff and then set out to pick up Jim from work.  The route I was able to go got me there so fast, it was amazing.

So what else could go wrong?  Nothing.  That was it.  Yeah, I made it sound worse than it was probably because 1- Isn’t that how journalism sensationalism works?  2- It’s how I felt at the time.

We stopped for dinner in Columbia, SC at a Five Guys.  They had an outdoor patio that could accommodate Dasher.

When we arrived to the resort I realized we had forgotten our key to the gate.  Yes, we have to unlock, open/close the gate as we enter/leave the RV section.  It’s not a big deal as we don’t plan to leave too often.  We had to go back to the road, out and around which seemed like it took forever to stop at the front desk to get an extra key.

Unpacking the totes of crap from the trunk was pretty quick and easy.  We put away what we could, changed to swim trunks and went to the pool to cool off.  The pool is open 24 hours which is nice since it was just about 10pm.

The resort provides free wireless internet.  The last time we were here it was so incredibly slow we researched the use of carrier pigeons instead.  Warning: this might get too technical.  I’ve mention on a prior post about using a free Android (link to program from Android Market here) phone program called EasyTether. I’ve used the free “lite” version a few times here and there.  Sometimes it was a pain because my laptop wouldn’t recognize the connection or whatever plus I only needed it when we moved for a short time.

 

I used the “lite” version again and it worked great except some websites (Google, Facebook, Gmail) wouldn’t work.  Upon further research I discovered that it’s restricted NOT to work on HTTPS (secure) sites which are most of the ones I’d typically access.  I also found that getting the regular version is on $9.99 per copy.  A one time fee.  Not monthly or anything.  I bought two copies (for each phone) and it works just as fast as our internet connections at home.  Love it!  Jim even streamed youtube.  We’re also on a grandfathered unlimited data plan with Verizon!