And They're Off!

Last minute preparations for our trip have kept us both busy all week...and hopefully the glitches we have encountered will be our last. The worst of these was when I turned on my computer today - or should I say TRIED to turn on my computer today - and it was dead, broken, caputz - it had CEASED TO BE!

I panicked. Called Judith in tears. Hyperventilated to the point of almost passing out. Not so much because my stupid cheap piece of shit computer was dead, but because it was dead with my book on it; the book I have spent the past 10 years writing and the past 12 months finalizing.

Apparently – and fortunately - my computer automatically saves things to the Cloud. I cannot say I actually understand this cloud…I have visions of fluffy white things with angels and hard drives….Anyway, I rushed off to the place I bought it (the damned thing is only a year old) and they were, as expected, useless, so I went to a little computer repair shop and walked up to the geekiest guy I could find and said, “Please, I beg you, be my hero today.” And five minutes and $20 bucks later it was fixed!

On that note, I am done with cheap computers! They make them to break! Disposable computers that last less long than bananas. I asked the computer geek (who I adopted and named son number 4) what computer I should buy, and interestingly he told me the same thing as my computer engineer son number two told me: Lenovo Think Pad. So…as soon as I get home from my trip south, I will buy one. In the meantime, I will regularly ensure my stuff is backed up in heaven, er, the cloud.

Tomorrow we head to Abbotsford where we will spend the night eating cheese, and then we are off at 3:30 to Bellingham.

We will be flying on a small Cessna 206 and Judith hates little planes, so I am glad it is only a short flight. I will be sure to tell her that I learned to fly Cessna’s when I was 18 so if the pilot has a heart attack she will be in good hands. (I won’t tell her the story about when I landed the plane on my first solo and nearly took out a dozen people and a few planes….)

The first few days of our trip will be spent in the Olympic Peninsula hiking in the rain (I brought my Hunter’s rubber boots). If it is super cold, there is a chance we will move faster down the coast than originally planned. We both love hiking but hate the cold. (On the other hand, there will be mushrooms growing in them there hills and I am hell bent on becoming a mycologist over the course of the next 4 weeks.)

Wish us luck and stay tuned for lots of mushroom pictures! (OK, maybe some ocean, forest, and mountain pics too and maybe when I am up in the Cessna I will take a picture of the Cloud!)