We have been following Josh and Jessa Works for a bit now, and they were recently visited in their travels by the Dark Rye camera crew, a publication of Whole Foods. The video really does their travels justice, and we love the inspiration.
My favorite quote from the video: “The hardest part of doing something interesting is getting started.”
We spent an evening with awesome friends in Marshalltown, Iowa. I loved the cornfields and the wind farms. The kids loved the collection of farm cats and kittens. I could stay for a month.
When you travel with as many gadgets as we do, keeping things charged is a necessary evil. Today’s must-haves include the core things we use for charging.
Yes, really. Wall plugs are often in short supply in hotels, friends houses, and powered campsites. A power strip can help you get everything plugged in, and plugging everything in in the same place can limit the number of items you forget when you pack up to go. We use an average 4 outlet power strip at the moment, but I’m tempted to try a PowerSquid.
Many of the gadgets we have use a USB cable (mostly micro-usb, and a few mini-usb) for charging. We use a 4 amp charger, with 4 USB slots. This allows charging a few devices at once off a single plug. Getting a 4 amp charger is important if you want to charge multiple (and larger) devices at once.
Someone brilliant created these 2 outlet USB devices for the cigarette lighter in your car. The best ones have a 2 amp slot for charging larger devices. This adapter is a 3.1 Amp adapter, allowing both the 1 and the 2.1 Amp slots to be used at the same time. We have two of these.
Sometimes you just need a plug, and an inverter can supply you with power on the road. You can swap out the cigarette lighter adapter for some battery clamps, which allow you to use the inverter directly from the car battery while parked. This has come in handy several times during our trip.
Most trailers and some new cars have these built in, but if yours doesn’t, it’s worth having one.
Well, that’s the bulk of it – for the record our pile of charging cables and cords is a tangled mess in a backpack. Something we’ll need to fix at some point.
It’s 9:20 on a Saturday evening, and I’m sitting on a bench, snuggling Rachel on my right, and Jess on my left. Jess has little Cara in her lap, with Andrew on her other side. Above us is a starry night sky, seen through the branches of the trees that surround us. The bench is in Kickapoo State Park, just west of Danville, Illinois. The park holds movie night on the weekends, and tonight’s movie is Toy Story 3.
The day started with a few rays of sunlight casting a dappled light on the side of our tent, a welcome sign that the scattered rain the previous night had passed. Oatmeal for breakfast, and some quiet time for the kids. Jess changed into her cycling clothes, and headed out for a ride. I opened the laptop, reviewed my most recent email, and started coding an LDAP bulk user linking utility.
Fresh local peaches purchased yesterday at a roadside stand on the other side of Illinois became a morning snack. Jess returned from her ride, a 24 mile loop that I’ll enjoy later in the day. Kids head off on bikes to play at the swingsets with the small mob of kids here for the weekend. A little more work and a phone call, some lunch, and Jess heads into town for some groceries and a load of laundry. I leave on that bike ride, then finish the LDAP tool, committing and pushing my code for review and deployment. That customer will be happy.
Fire roasted hot dogs for dinner, then showers for everyone. Jess braids Cara’s hair, and we gather jackets and blankets for the movie.
Later in the evening, Jess and I sit together looking at the night sky, and ponder.
Why is today the exception, instead of the rule?
Wait… you are going where? And doing what?