Over winter break, I spent nine days in a winter wonderland… sort of. I mean, 11 family members, one boyfriend, one gassy dog and no cell signal was bound to produce some complaints, though maybe not the ones you would think.
Beech Mountain, N.C. is beautiful and not the place for a tech mogul. The cabin we stayed in was 30 minutes from a cell signal. We had to drive down winding roads for half an hour to reach a what passes for a town. The only indication of this “town” was the telephone poles that would suddenly appear. If you were to keep driving down the mountain for another 20 minutes, you would reach the tourist hub: the last stop before you are cut off from a grocery store. No signal, no big deal, right? You could always use Wi-Fi calling, right?
Wrong. The three story cabin in the woods surrounded by bare trees had one weak router. There were four laptops, seven cell phones and a PSVita all connected to this router. Slow connection was the least of our problems. We couldn’t even communicate with each other if we went out on our own porch.
And this was one of the best things that could have happened to us.
Instead of playing Trivia Crack, we were forced to ask each other questions about current events or the select few movies we had access too. Instead of being on Facebook or Instagram stalking strangers, we were compelled to learn new things about each other and our family history. No online poker translated into lots and lots of UNO. When we wanted to stream a movie, we all had to use one laptop and hook it up to the T.V. in my parents’ room. Then we would all pile up on the floor with blankets and pillows in front of the T.V. No phones at dinner. No phones during the New Year’s Eve show.
The stark contrast to the urban nature Miami provides was refreshing. The seclusion forced us to communicate and really enjoy our quality time together. Miami is a place where everything is ‘Go! Go! Go!’ but up in the mountains with loved ones, I had to stop. Hours went by without me even thinking about my phone, calendar updates or emails. The most action our phones saw was to take pictures documenting all the time we didn’t need them as a distraction or means of amusement. The time we spent in the tech desert reminded us to just live!