2017 Travel Plans

Our travels for 2017, as planned, is broken up into three segments.  Above is the first segment which will take us as follows:

Over to Deland Florida to see Marcia’s brother Dean and wife Caryl

Up above Jacksonville to see Marcia’s friend Gerry

Up the Georgia and South Carolina coast just because we can

Through the Smokey Mountain National Park just because we can

Up to northern Indiana so that we can visit Marcia’s family there, friends in the Chicago area…we will be in this area for a week or so

Up into Michigan (where we will see more of Marcia’s family) and into Norther

Michigan where our travel will slow up a bit

From Northern Michigan we will decide if we indeed go into Canada as the map shows, or if we stay in the states and not go over into the Dakotas…it will all depend on time.  By mid-June I need to be in Little Rock for another annual exam.  This is a bit early, but we don’t intend to be near Arkansas again this year, so mid-June is the projected date.  It will include a visit in Kansas City with my son Ryan and probably other family I have there…just don’t know if that will be before or after Little Rock.  We also want to have some front-end work done on the RV in Little Rock…mainly brakes and boots.

The second leg of our trip will be at very casual pace, especially when we get to Colorado.  The map above just shows us going through Colorado, but in reality we will zigzag through parts of the state enjoying the cool Colorado weather, the pretty scenery, and just enjoy the time there.  Because some of the roads I hope to take are closed for winter still, Google Maps won’t let me plan a route through them.  It is likely that some places will be visited while on day trips…the route will be fine-tuned as we go along.  The only time schedule is essentially being in California by late September.  Some of what we want to see are as follows:

Rocky Mountain National Park

Pike’s Peak & Colorado Springs area

Many locations in the Rockies such as Aspen, Glenwood Springs, Vail, Breckenridge and Keystone.

We have already visited southwestern Colorado a few years ago.  On our way to Utah we will probably end up on highway 40, which means there will be some high elevation involved with our travels since some of the elevations are in the 11,000 foot range.

Salt Lake City to see my daughter.  We have visited many places in Utah, and Marcia has never been in the Northeastern portion. 

The Third part of the trip is the trip home starting the day after Christmas.  This trip will need to be a little flexible too since we need to allow for winter weather.  Essentially we have to be back in the Condo in Holiday by January 6th for a doctor’s appoint that Marcia has on the 9th, which gives us two extra travel days in case there is bad bad weather along the way.  We plan to stop in the Phoenix area for a couple of days and there should be some time built in there to meet up with people who might be in the snowbird region of Q, Yuma, Tucson, etc.  Overall I am figuring on another 9,000-10,000 miles, which is far short of the 16,000+ we did last year going to Alaska.

Of course, as with all of our travels, plans are made by man…but it is always in God’s hands…

New Verizon Jetpack

Being a bit old school, I still call our Verizon Jetpacks “AirCards”.  So when I went into Verizon store near our condo, I told them, “I lost my AirCard out in the Walmart parking lot about an hour and a half ago…I need to cancel that one, and get another one.”  The man and the lady at the counter looked at me like I was nuts.  “Do you have a prepaid plan?”   Nope.  I give the lady Marcia’s phone number, which is the main number on the plan, and I tell the guy, “I think you might call them ‘Jetpacks’.”  As he looks over our plan he says, “Oh, heck, all we need to do is to replace what you have with a new Jetpack!”  I reply, “Uh, don’t we need to cancel that old Jetpack so that someone doesn’t use up all our data?”   He replies, “When we activate the new one with the same info as the old one, it will make the old one unusable.”  Ok, we are getting somewhere.  Now, I am thinking two things…do they have any in stock…and how do I get out of here with out spending an arm and a leg.

Verizon has three good AirCards/Jetpacks now.  The 6620L (above left), the AC791L (above middle) and the newest 7730L (above right).  The latter two are 4G only, while the 6620L is both 3G and 4G.  As we travel, we have found that there are times that all we have is 3G.  It might be slow, but it works.  Although the new 7730 is suppose to bring in 4G from a longer distance away…it can’t bring in 4G if there is no 4G available.  So I picked the 6620L, it meets our purposes.

So next, what was it going to cost us???  Skruffy was ready to fork over as much of her piggy bank as she could, but I was hoping that it would not need to break into her stash.  New 6620L Jetpack list price is $199.00.  “IF” we go under a 2 year contract, the cost would come down to $49.99.  However, Marcia has been a Verizon customer for over 10 years…she estimates it was probably 15 years.   He said, “Listen, I have a deal for you.  I will waive all cost except the mandatory $30 activation fee, put you under a 2 year contract, and you need to agree to the $5 per month replacement plan.  ‘IF’ you decide to cancel the plan, you can do so after 30 days.”  DEAL!  Skruffy can keep her money, I can handle this!!!

Was back to the condo within an hour, box in hand.  Thirty minutes later I had the network name in, the password in, and had connected both computers and both Kindles to the new ‘AirCard’.  Then I turned it off…it is ready for our next trip. More about our next trip next time…let’s just say, “Two weeks from now, we will be in Florida, but we won’t be in the Condo.  And when we leave, it should be for the rest of the YEAR!!!!”

Note:  You can see that I smoothly skipped over the part pertaining to "ME" loosing the AirCard in the Walmart Parking Lot.  I learned that from the various Main Stream Medias...if you don't want to talk about the "problem", just ignore it as though it did not happen... (they all act this way...frankly, I think true trusted journalism is a thing of the past)