A twenty year adventure and more

I’ve gone through a lot of different ideas for things to take:

folding keyboard for this blog? Nah, I’ll just text thumb it.
Mini photo printer for the kids digital pictures? Maybe… Lets see if we have room first.
A rain skirt to keep my legs dry? Heck yes! That one made the cut

I have purchased a few necessary thing for the trip including:

-Two multi-country power adaptors (with a theoretical power converter function, though I think nothing we will bring will require conversion, most things have a built in converter these days – which is why there are always big blocks on your computer, apnea machine and etc). These were found on Amazon but made by a Victoria, BC Canadian Company called Ruxin.
-Four “carryon sized” backpacks, though one may get returned before use. We got them from MEC (now Mountain Equipment Company – that was a shock to see it’s no longer Co-op – sadness), with the boys choosing more bag first, backpack second options, and me choosing more of a backcountry backpack option for us two girls.
-Two rain wraps as mentioned above. These were from Amazon, very likely manufactured overseas. Foolishly, I dropped the ball as I had wanted to get them from Taiga Works, again Canadian, but I ran out of order time. Not to worry Taiga, I’m still going to buy some of your overmitts for the kids for winter.
-Two “windproof” (uh-huh?) compact umbrellas made by a company called ShedRain out of Portland, Oregon. They have been making umbrellas – only umbrellas – for 75 years!! That’s three generations of umbrella manufacturers! If you’re really into umbrellas, check out their website for a smorgasbord of umbrellas, but we got ours at Costco.
-Two Miady power bank back up batteries for our phones/reading devices/digital cameras, purchased on Amazon.
-a few items of clothing as well such as extra socks for the kids, two sweaters for the kids, rain jackets (all MEC gear), and two t-shirts and two sweaters for myself (I’ll just have to decide which one comes).

On the note of power banks, the kids are not bringing any devices, and we are only bringing our cell phones for the purposes of finding our way and getting there. We are however, bringing reading devices. We have three Kobos (one vintage one from 2010 that came fully stocked with over 700 books of all genres – such a windfall! Thank you Jessie!), and one Kindle that I borrowed from friends. The plan is to download a plethora of books (aka that 2010 Kobo) onto each device, and grab a few freebies off of Amazon for the littlest, plus a few Lonely Planet style travel books so we can read up on some basics of the places we are going to visit while on the train. We’ll also bring some games (monopoly deal, dominoes in deck-of-cards format, and maybe Bananagrams – though this is a large-ish and heavy game for backpacking, and requires data to see if Xu is a word – ps. it is), and of course there is always homework and gaping out the window.

Three weeks without devices or computers?! Let’s see what happens next!