Wednesday, July 27th...getting close

This morning, I finished everything I needed to do at home before I go, most of all it paperwork that has accumulated for months.  I am ready to devote full time to doing the final planning, preparing and packing to get on the road.  It should take me no more than five days from here. Let's see how good I am at predicting that. Most of my preparing these last several weeks, besides my physical therapy, the Defender and Donner, has been trying to get in the frame of mind for this long, long trip.

The sign that I am close is that I ordered the satellite phone today.  No sense paying $5.00 a day for it to sit at home. That's always the last thing I order.

Tomorrow, I get my last haircut until who knows when.  The only barber I trust with cutting what hair I have on the road is a guy named Henry in Port Hardy, Vancouver Island.  I'll probably take a detour of 500 miles or so just to have him cut my hair.  Across the street from him just so happens to be one of the top four bakeries I have come across in North America, the Market Street Café, or something like that.

Donner's skin infection from his allergy exploded all over his body despite the medication he is on.  He is not scratching himself, probably because he has lived with it untreated for so much of his life. My rule will be to get on the road, and if affects him, turn around and come home to start more serious treatment. In the meantime, I ordered a new Big Kahuna portable shower to wash him once a week until the weather turns cold. I bought my original one in 2013 for Leben, who had a similar problem. It takes up space almost one cubic foot of space in the Defender, precious space, meaning something else will have to go, but that's not the biggest problem I have to deal with.

I spent hours yesterday trying to get Donner's Sport Dog Tek-2 radio collar up and running, probably bringing the total to 10 hours. I got through the labyrinth of steps one has to go through and got to the last and most critical step, track Donner (within 10 miles) but he did not appear on the screen.  See my below email to sport Dog to see what I figured out

I also did something for the first time.  All of the music I take on my iPad is from my iTunes library that I uploaded myself from DVDs. Today I downloaded five songs (all Oldies) not already on my iPad. (One can go broke doing that, I figured.) I had no idea how easy it was and only for $7.00 .  The songs?  Country Road (John Denver), Sounds of Silence, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, and I am a Rock (Simon and Garfunkel), and North to Alaska (Johnny Horton).  The last song I will play if and when I get to Kitwanga BC and the intersection of Highway 16 (Highway of Tears) and the Dease Lake Highway (37).  There's a sign at that intersection that reads, North to Alaska.  Go look it up and Google Earth for yourself, street level. (See coordinates below.) It only seems fitting, therefore, to play that song then.

Tonight I have to decide if it is time to upgrade my iPad since I only have 33 gb on it and my music takes up quite a bit.  I need to make sure I have enough space for photos and videos, all of Donner.

Back to my chores.

ED

From: ed mulrenin
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2016 1:37 PM
To: SPORTDOG
Subject: Where's Donner?

Below is a Google map that shows in the black box roughly what appeared on my TEK-2 tracking screen.  I am in that red box marked ED in the Georgetown Waterfront Park.  Donner (dog) with his collar on and paired was about 20 yards away from me (to the left) in the spot marked D.  (My home is the spot a few blocks to the right marked with M.)  I saw on the screen a whole line of red rectangles, which I put in below. 

Here's what I think.  I think that because that river is on the take-off and landing path for planes at National Airport, and because the White house is just a few blocks from me, I think those red rectangles on my screen are radio frequency jammers and are preventing my Tek-2 from working in downtown DC. Fortunately, I hope I'll never have to use it here.