One of the strange, great, things about being a rural (rural as in 150 air miles NW out of Anchorage) Alaskan (www.AlaskaTravelMagazine.com/1flying/taildragginthewild.html shows a taildragger going into our property in wilderness Alaska and our log cabin there.) is that after experiencing a couple of months of thinking to yourself— if not babbling ideas out loud— attitudes change about the value of neighbors. Even if they happen to be miles away, or a different century in time. As Alaskans we all sort of live in one big village. Mention a name in McGrath, or a prospector in Chicken, over 400 miles away, and most likely this is seen as a validation that you belong.

The really, really, strange thing we found about snow-birding across international boundaries in a motorhome is that our social network extends to some exotic places one can thaw out in the sun. Just look for motorhomers having fun, flying our North Star flag. We are easy to find as most of these places have something to do with fish. Kevin of the Canyon (a salmon bake just outside the entrance of Denali National Park) can be found standing in the surf off South Padre Island. Bob and Polly-anna of the unique cruise “boat” Valhalla out of Valdez, usually are fishing somewhere in Baja. How do I know this? Well besides running into them, I am in contact with many motorhome friends-of-friends via the Internet who know us a Barry and Bobby MaGee.

Even our Border Collie, Motorhome Maggy, gets “p-mail” from a standard poodle named Merlin who is madly in love with her. The snowbird association with our new found neighbors from Canada — Tom of Square Jaw, Arctic, Canada, a retired RCMP Mountie, and his love, Kim of the Kibbles, an extremely gifted (albeit nomadic) dog trainer. They too have joined into a unique circle of friends who send e-mails every now and then with a subject line that reads — “Coming your way, but where are you?”

My point, when rural Alaska leap frogged from static radio messages to satellite phone networks we jumped into the Internet, and have been waiting for the lower 48 to catch-up, especially when we are headed south for the winter and want to know, “Hey, guys. What’s happening?”

In our early years on the road we had to depend upon a begrudged, “modem connection in the office,” at RV parks where some are now offering WiFi at a price —when motels down the road are advertising it being free — as the cost of this service happens to be far less than maintaining a hot tub, or coffee in the morning.

Now don’t get me wrong in that being a very Scottish Murray makes me cheap. The operative word is “frugal,” which means that I can justify paying $X dollars a day for Internet access as being cheaper than spending $5,000 for a mobile satellite system. What I hate, as has happened a number of times, is prepaying to sign-up for RV park WiFi service, only to find that we were assigned a parking pad just a little too far away from the wireless service antenna. And there are no refunds!

Often the WiFi signal is enough to answer e-mail, provided you hold your tongue in a correct position, but those who want to access video information on where to go — just say for example, www.RvTravelMagazine.com— need a more robust and faster service.

So, here it comes, it’s on the way! A little Mighty Mouse music please.

The answer. Cantenna!!!!!!

I am not going to explain it further here than this hi-tech device was a plug and play experience for the Murray's, that allowed us to upload this page from our motorhome office Internet connected computer.

I would also, self servingly, like to point out that Cantennas have not yet hit the discount stores —which means our reader’s reward system would have little use. Instead, we have a bona fide “affiliate” status that, along with the money saved by ordering express delivery, could have you online in two days by ordering direct.

For our complete review of the Cantenna WiFi Booster Kit click here.

Click on the appropriate text link below to order your Cantenna WiFi Booster Antenna.