T-Minus 5 Days... Preparations are in full swing

We're really getting excited now! We've been preparing the car (oil change, brakes, other minor repairs), packing whatever items we don't need to use before we leave, and setting up the gadgets that we hope will help make our trip enjoyable.

We've got the cargo pod secured to the car and we can still drive in and out of the garage, but we'll have to keep an eye out for some places such as bank drive-throughs that might not have enough clearance.

Some of the electronic gadgets we've set up include:
- Solar panel battery chargers. I picked these up fairly cheap in the hopes that they'll help keep our car battery up-to-snuff when we're out in the desert southwest. They suction-cup to the windshield and feed juice to the car battery through the power outlets.









- MP3 player to cassette deck adapter. A $10 solution to the problem of what to do when there aren't any good radio stations available. We can plug in an mp3 player and it sends the music through the car stereo. We can also plug in the laptop so when the kids are watching DVD's on it we can play the audio through the car stereo.













- A power inverter to run 110 volt devices. I also have a deep-discharge AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) battery strapped in to the rear area of the car. This battery will run the 12-volt cooler when the car is not running. I'm using a battery tender/charger hooked to the inverter to charge this battery while the car is running.

I've been doing some testing of all these gizmos, but not a long-term stress test. I hope I don't have any surprises...

More pictures can be found by clicking on one of the flickr pictures in the upper left corner of the blog.

It's almost time...

T-Minus 14 days and counting!  We're gearing up for The Great Wild West Road Trip and we're really getting excited. Here's hoping that we can actually get everything ready by the time we need to leave.