This last week we have really tried to slow things down knowing we are going to be here in Palm Springs until January 12th.  It has actually been really nice to not run off site seeing every day.  The weather is beautiful and the campground is pretty nice.  We have stayed busy taking Gizmo for walks, running in the evenings and hanging out by the pool mid-day.  We have taken advantage of the local events and we have registered for the Wild Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day.  The sense of community appears to be very strong here in the Palm Springs area with lots of events on weekends (craft shows to dog adoption events) as well as lots of holiday events.  I really think I could enjoy spending entire winters in this area.  

Those of you who know me, know I am a bit of a “techy” and love my techy gear.  Of course most of that gear requires the use of data.  The current campground we are in only has wifi at the lodge area (no where near our RV) and the connection is about as slow as dial up.  We have relied on our Verizon data plan on our phones for the bulk of our data.  We have a 15GB Share Everything Plan and it looks like we are going to finish this month right around 15 GB.  The extra 1 GB Verizon gave out for Thanksgiving was a great treat for us!  We use our phones and the hotspot on our phones pretty liberally for checking email, updating Facebook, blogging and general “surfing the web”.  The area we try to be cautious is updates and big downloads.  We have all updates shut off from the auto setting and only update manually.  We plan a trip to a “free wifi” hotspot area for these updates.  I have found that McDonalds and Sams Club are pretty slow wifi spots for downloads.  The best find we have had so far is the “Time Warner” Hot Spots.  We are still Time Warner customers so it allows us to access their hotspots that are located throughout the USA.  Time Warner has it’s own app that you can use to find their local wifi hotspots.  There are well over 30 within a 10 mile radius of our campsite.  The use of this is free but it does keep track of how much data you have used to show you how much they are saving you.  We have used over 3 GB of data for big phone and computer upgrades in the month of November.  We are currently considering purchasing a “wifi ranger” that can pull in and boost wifi signals from miles away.  We have found out we are much more likely to use wifi than watch TV.  We are completely satisfied with the TV antenna that came with our RV.  Out here in the desert it works great and pulls in upwards of 20 digital channels.  We are considering getting an antenna for the house when we get home.  It is so nice to get TV for free!

On my next update I will tell you about some of the apps we used for our cross country trip.  I can’t imagine traveling without a smart phone.