Back in the U.S.A. (and a thank you to Chuck Berry)

Yup, we're back!!! Been too busy to blog and will continue to be busy for a bit until we arrive in Maryland next week. We've:

• Had a family outing in Florida
• Met a couple traveling to Cuenca the following day
• Met another considering retiring to Ecuador
• Met with my BFF of many years - we hadn't seen each other since 2001
• Drove to TN
• Spent 2+ days getting rid of mouse sign and more mildew than you can imagine (still fighting it)
• Getting tires lined up for the Freightliner (tomorrow's chore)
• Getting a recall done on the Harley Tri-Glide
• Enjoying my birthday
• Unpacking all the goodies that had been shipped to my brother in FL
• Tomorrow is also laundry day - going to the laundromat since our dryer still is kaput (have 6 large baskets full of stuff...eeek!)
• Went on an all day group motorcycle ride to benefit the Tennessee Firefighter Memorial (below is a slideshow of a few photos from our SmugMug album).

We will check back in once we are settled in Maryland. Ciao!

Karma! (but not the Buddhist doctrine)

As full-time RVers, we needed a way to connect to the Internet while traveling. Since 2006, I had a Verizon Aircard with unlimited use. It was wonderful but for $70 a month, we opted to drop it when we moved to Ecuador.

We have DSL when we are on our property in Tennessee and we hop on to our stepdaughter's WiFi when parked in her driveway in Maryland. But last year we realized we were going to have an issue when parked in Stu's oldest daughter's yard in Delaware. She is a on a pay-as-you-go Internet plan and it was inconvenient for her and us to constantly have to add use.

So we've been watching for a good WiFi pay-as-you-go for us, not wanting to sign up for a contract. When we read about Karma, it sounded like a good plan for us.

When we checked it out a couple of months ago, they were sold out and anticipating having more available in August. Visiting their page a couple days ago, we found that we could pre-order and it should arrive early on in our visit to the states this fall. Of course this is only good in the US and only where they have coverage - and they do have coverage where we need it in Delaware.

When you buy data (in GBs), it never expires. At $14 per gigabyte, its data prices are more expensive than some other alternatives , but less expensive than places like hotels and airports that sell WiFi access. We love its "buy it and forget it" model for data usage, which allows you to truly pay as you go for your data.

If you have a need for "sometime" data access and don't want a monthly contract, check out Karma. (And we will report in after using it this fall while traveling and parked in Delaware.)

Helping a child discover her heritage...

We have good friends here in Ecuador, retired teachers, that adopted two wonderful children years ago. As these children approach their teens, Mark and Sherry are trying to show them their heritage.

The first is Tali who is from China. Sherry and Tali want to participate in the Heritage Tour sponsored by the adoption agency that was used. This special opportunity came up sooner than anticipated and the costs were higher than expected.

We have donated and ask if you can find it in your heart and pocketbook to help this adorable little girl with her trip, even if only $5, please CLICK HERE, where you can contriburte and read the whole story.