We got up at at’em at 5a.m. with the hopes of being ready to leave by 6a.m. having packed as much as we could the night before. We ended up leaving our house by 6:15a.m. By 6:30 a.m. we were at the local gas station realizing I did not have my Visa with. So we backtrack ten minutes home. The two minute stop took about ten as I could not find my Visa. So we figured we would do without.

Before we leave the second time we realize that the bike rack needs adjusting. Somehow in going about adjusting it Amy and I put two huge gouges in the paint on the bumper. Darn. No biggie, it is a rental.

Adjustments made we head on. Another ten minutes down the road and we realize we still need more adjustment of the bike rack. Stop, Adjust, and we are off again.

Fifteen minutes down the road we realize the Garmin GPS is low on battery, pretty odd since it is plugged into the car’s accessory outlet (aka cigarette lighter). After a bit of fiddling (while trying to drive of course), I realize the tip of Garmin’s power cord plug is gone….as in there is no way the connector is going to provide power. No biggie, I have my laptop with the Garmin’s USB plug that also charges. All we need to do is plug the laptop into the 12v/cigarette lighter/ac adapter then plug the Garmin into the laptop. Of course life is not this simple, the 12v to ac adapter will not work and there appears to be no reason why it should not. The unit has a green light and a red light, the red light is on so it has power.

So now we are cruising along with the laptop running on battery to charge the battery of the Garmin which we need/want for navigation. All of these little things happening in our first hour of travel seemed a bit discomforting.