Changes in Latitude (thank you to Jimmy Buffett)

These changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes,

Nothing remains quite the same.

Through all of the islands and all of the highlands,

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.

"Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes"

When we moved from the northern hemisphere to the southern, from the USA to Ecuador, we definitely changed both our latitude and attitude.

But the only constant in life is....change.

We never intended to stay in Ecuador permanently and after analysis, we have met our financial goals. We still have things we want to do in the US, while we have the health to do so. Plus we want to do more travel and it's easier and often cheaper to do it from the US.

So, long story short...we will return to Cuenca in the middle of November as planned. But we will be selling everything and returning to the US and our RV lifestyle at the end of the year.

We will miss the many, many friends we have made but we will be past our two year anniversary and our visas will still be valid (as long as we return every 18 months or less OR unless the rules are changed). This was not an easy decision to make but we feel it is the right one for us at this time in our lives.

So as of January 2016, we will be RVing full-time again, based out of Clermont, FL for the winter. Current plans are to enjoy our winter there and at the end of March we will take the rig back to our property. From there we will fly/drive to Tampa to begin our European vacation. We are taking a repositioning cruise from Tampa to Barcelona.

• Tampa, FL
• Key West, FL
• Funchal, Madiera, Portugal
• Malaga, Spain
• Barcelona, Spain

We spend a few days in Barcelona and surrounding before taking a 10 day Mediterranean cruise.

• Barcelona, Spain
• Marseilles (Provence), France
• Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy
• Rome (Civitvecchia), Italy
• Naples (Capri/Pompeii), Italy
• Crete (Heraklion), Greece
• Rhodes, Greece
• Athens, Greece

Neither of us has ever been to Europe so we are really excited about this trip. We will return to our property in TN for the summer and do our typical fall visit to the northeast.

Life is good!

   

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.)