T Minus 2 Days and Counting

Thank you all so much for the great positive response to this blog. I suspected it would fill a void and it seems I was on the right track. It is especially nice to hear from parents of kids that I have gotten to recognize from their trips down the food line, or seeing them in sectionals.

If you haven't seen them yet, check out the pictures here from the dress preview show from New Hampshire last week. Thanks a bunch to the photographer. It always amazes me how much different the corps looks when in uniform--and the way the demeanor changes--wow!

I was expecting a call from my son over the weekend and sure enough, the phone rang at 11:15 or so on Saturday nite. He quickly said the parade in Quincy went well and he was doing laundry--then "ok...the police are showing up now.." Turns out they were doing laundry late and the attendant decided to leave it open later than normal for them and left....problem was, she left the alarm system active and sure enough, the alarm went off. We were concerned that there would be a bad situation if there were only a couple of kids there but Zac said it was an entire bus load! Can't imagine what the responding officers must have had going through their minds as they drove up...."holy cow, Danno...an entire regiment knocking over a Laundromat in Quincy at 11:30 Saturday nite!?"

Last word was, they were trying to track down the attendant to turn off the alarm.

So...two days to go now. I've gotten pretty good at packing now since doing five weeks last season plus all the camps over the winter. Packing isn't significantly different than going for a week or weekend now. Its not quite like packing for a sailing trip across the ocean since I don't need to take all my survival gear, tools, etc, and I can replenish or replace anything I forgot.

Airbed, sheet, blanket, pillow. 12 pairs of undies and socks, five shorts, dress slacks, two pair shoes, shower stuff, as many tee shirts as I can fit in, 1 long sleeve shirt, couple of hats, sunglasses, driving glasses, contacts, more sunglasses, sunblock, tunes, laptop with/gps, small flashlight, earplugs, laundry detergent, shower gel, powder, razor, clippers, etc.....

Yep...the pile is growing.

Since I also drove last season (both the souvie trailer and the U3 sleeper), I put together a nav system. I had looked at a lot of the small dash-mounted GPS nav boxes available. I'm pretty familiar with GPS since I have used it for years on-board the boat so knew what they did and how they were used. I was not satisfied, though, with the small screens--It was difficult to see and use, especially when moving. So, I added a system to my laptop and brought along a flexible nave table that mounted between the seats on the floor--worked in both vehicles, and was sturdy enough to carry my heavy Dell Inspiron 1100 without incident. The software I chose was CoPilot Navigator 9 --similar to the MS streets and trips but rated more highly for its en route user interface by some reviewers. It provides all of the planning and routing functions, turn-by-turn voice directions, and, the big, laptop screen is very easy to see. I have run it now for perhaps 15,000 miles of active navigation and it is way over 99% accurate and extremely helpful. I'll be using it again this summer if needed but travelling in the convoy doesn't generally require it. They now have Navigator 10 released which offers additional features and road updates. The best part of the Co-Pilot system is the cost---including the small USB hockey puck GPS receiver, it was $60 bucks!

I could also recommend StreetAtlas 2009--another PC-based navigator--it is extremely good and only slightly more expensive.

Back to packing.

Curt