Hanging out in Bismarck

Right at the moment, I’m plugged in to the Internet at a cheap little hotel in Bismarck, North Dakota. Interesting, isn’t it, how sometimes the most obvious things are done by the less than obvious places? What I mean is that I’m sitting here in a very small hotel room that only costs me $39, plus $5 for my dog. But for that price, I get free local phone calls, a gazillion TV stations, including a couple of movie channels, and, best of all, free wireless Internet.

That’s right...all the things that always cost a lot more at most of these places come as part of the package here. It’s nice — especially the Internet. I just turned on my Mac and bingo! I’m hooked up and able to get my mail and surf to my heart’s content. I’ve even logged into Messenger but wouldn’t you know it, none of my family seems to be on line tonight. Oh well.

This is what communications should be like. For the weary traveller, an easy-to-use connection to the web is a godsend. It’s so nice to be able to check mail and make sure things are OK back home. And wireless makes it so easy. No messing around with dial-up and long distance and all that fun stuff. And the free local calls is a nice touch as well. Paying some hotel $1 just for picking up the handset really makes me mad...

The only one who seems PO’d by all this is Blue. She hates the noises my computer makes when I’m on-line and she spends most of the time trying to hide in the bathtub, or claw her way out of the doorway. Oh well, she’ll settle down eventually.

As you may have gathered, I decided to head back home to Ontario today. I left Regina about noon and I’ve decided to stop for the night here in Bismarck. I was going to try and travel a lot further today, but I’ve decided to hit the hay in favour of an early start tomorrow and a long day then. I’m heading home via Chicago, then Detroit and into Hamilton. With any luck, I’ll be home sometime on Friday.

Well, I wanted to take advantage of this nice connection, and I’ve done that. So I’m off to watch the baseball playoffs and fall asleep...I’ll come back on if the next hotel room is as thoughtfully laid out.