Daily Archives: December 25, 2017

Good morning La Center and Merry Christmas!

Terence and I talked about how unexpected all of this was and thought the worse weather would be driving through The previous 4 states! In the last week we have driven through the rain, a wind storm, hail, sun and snow.

I was just as terrified driving through Portland in the snow and ice as the day I drove through the Imperial Sand Dunes.

Terence FaceTimed with the kiddos, caught them up on our adventures, our ETA and let them open their presents virtually, everyone was happy. God, I really miss them. I miss them a lot! I’m afraid I may break down in ugly cry when we get home and see them.

We spent a majority of the night at the casino, which was surprisingly quiet. We gambled, had a few drinks, Terence watched a bit of sportsball and had dinner which included tots!

We made the most out of our situation and as usual everything worked out.

Terence has been using the term Instagram Filter in response to my slight disappointments in the morning. Example:

Me: I was hoping to wake up to the sunrise over Coos Bay but you can’t see anything at 6 in the morning!

Terence: Yeah, you had your Instagram Filter on.

Here’s my Instagram Filter for today:

The sun breaks out of the sky, warming up every road we get on, Christmas music playing in the cabin, make it to 3411 Cromwell with no issues, kids come running out of the house, hugs and kisses all around, dinner and drinks with the family, eating all the pecan pie and getting the kids settled in their new home.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas!! We scooted out Coos Bay’s The Mill casino early. Drove thru some nice rivers. Made it back to good old I5. Stopped over near Eugene to get kids their presents all tax free. Spent 20 minutes talking to AT&T to get new phones set up while at Best Buy, which added more time to my “quick” shopping plan. Then had brunch then decided to wait till 11am when the AT&T store opened to talk to them about getting a hot spot. Turns out they have a buy one get on phones, but you got to get a new phone line. Which is the same cost monthly as the hotspot. Ended up with a phone, it took time to set up, which again added time to my “quick” plan.

Got back on the road with Almie driving, I was trying to set up my hotspot and camera system. Figured out that I needed to turn the inverter on to use the inverter ready plugs. Duh!! Who would design an outlet that could only be used while having a loud ass generator on. So that was a good lesson. Turns out thought the base system I bought could only be connected via Ethernet, lame. I think I’m about to go back to my Blink camera system that I already have at the townhouse . I’ll add their Doorbell feature. Looks like they just got bought by Amazon 2 days ago. Maybe they’ll develop some crazy Alexa skills.

So after playing with these toys. I focus my attention on the weather. We had 4.5 hours to go with weather about 45 minute away. Sure enough we get to Portland and Almie can feel the van slide around. I quickly search and find a Walmart in Longview that has some good ratings. But that’s like 40 more minutes in the snow. We opted out if also because of the Christmas Walmart’s close early. I find the nearest casino, 15 minutes away, luckily cause it was getting nasty out there. We adventure in the Ilani casino and have a good dinner. Now back in the van waiting to get home to be kids, my parents, sister, and nephew.

Could we have made it my parents house if we didn’t stop to shop?? Who knows the weather could have came earlier. You can plan a perfect picnic but you can’t plan the weather.

Merry Christmas!!

How to Walmart Camp, courtesy of AllStays. So good I may actually pay for their phone app.

Just ran into this: how to Casino camp