Friday August 23, Anacortes

It’s been a day where we have ticked off a lot of the boxes of things that needed to be dealt to before we start out road trip. We all went across to Tulalip this morning and the first stop was the Verizon store to get all our communications organised. It took quite some time, but the end result was worth it. When we first travelled in our RV in 2008, the cost of getting mobile wifi was prohibitive, so we relied on finding free spots and campgrounds which had wifi, often these were extremely unreliable and we wasted a lot of time. Today we have purchased a small unit the size of a cigarette pack, called a JetPac which is a mobile hotspot and is powered by a rechargeable battery just like a phone, at a one off cost of $99. Then we just purchase a prepaid monthly allowance which is not on any plan, and we can run up to 10 devices off it at once…..if we had them!!! It is 4G enabled so when we are in those areas our speeds will be super fast, will keep you posted as to how it all works out. We also reactivated our cellphone, our niece Nicole organised this phone 5 years ago with a pay as you go plan and the phone is still running perfectly. We seldom use it but it’s really good to have in an emergency.

I needed new sandals, and our first stop was at a really huge outdoors store called Cabella’s – it is just new and probably the biggest we have ever been in, but no sandals as all the winter stock is now in store. So off to the nearby Outlet Mall and after checking out about 6 stores finally found a pair which will be just fine. Really had begun to think I might be out of luck.

Back home and finished packing the van and getting everything organised, now all we need is a trip to the supermarket to stock up on supplies.

We are spending the weekend here and Sherry has a number of things planned, then will get the new windscreen installed on Monday before heading down the island to catch the ferry to Port Townsend to spend a few days with our friends Witta and Dick in Sequim and then the road trip will really start.