Delayed Departure

Christmas Morning – No grandkids this week as we don’t want to infect them with whatever we have. We did spend last weekend with them at a mini-family reunion.

We planned to leave here Sunday morning. First, I got a cold and of course I passed it along to Dorothy. Plus after four months of dry and temperate weather the winter rains have arrived. We just do not care to drive in the rain for days while feeling poorly. So we will wait until we feel better and the cold air arrives. And so it goes.

It will be a fast paced, for us, trip to the Pacific coast. We have 8 stops planned – most will be one-nighters, some could turn into two nighters.

Each year, we leave in a little worse shape health-wise than the year before. Really good that we retired at 60 or we would have missed a lot. 55 would have been better. Dorothy wanted to make sure her hiking boots were in the Jeep. I silently rolled my eyes.

Dorothy has been mentally ready to leave for weeks. If she was not still in PT and that she feels it necessary to spend Christmas at home, I am sure we would have already left.

This trip will be different than any previous one, as we will be spending part of it near major population centers with friends. Of course, there will also be some boon-docking in the outback.

Running Necked

Now that Millenicom is history we are going to leave home without a “guaranteed” on-ramp to the web. Since we were home during the transition to Verizon, we had the plan on vacation. Why pay $90 for limited slow service, we had 10x times faster unlimited cable service for $25?

So we lost the lower conversion rate and would now have to pay the full rate and probably under a contract. Since the next trip is only going to be about 4 months, a contact does not make any sense at all. Plus Verizon only allows a vacation of three months, so we would be paying for a service we would not use most of the rest of the year.

On our last trip, we said we would not surf so much. We failed. Most every morning we spent 90 minutes goofing off. This time, without the temptation, we can get up, get dressed, enjoy a cup of Joe outside and get to our morning activity much earlier. Just like the first two years we traveled. Those trips are filled with some great memories.

Free Internet access is available so many places now. I think we will be able to get by just fine. But, just in case, I will have the modem and router with us.