My hubby says that big trucks usually have gps devices so they can easily access all the essential information like lane width, load limits and overhead clearances. The Source is a great right place to go if you are looking for garmin truck gps units. There you can find not only trucker gps but also two way radios and other trucker related accessories. Feel free to check it out for yourself.

My hubby and I will be taking a trip to Chicago one of these days. I need to renew my passport. When I renewed it five years ago, I just sent the application in the mail. For some reason, personal appearance is now required, which I think is so absurd. My hubby could not believe it when I told him about the application process last night. It is such a hassle to say the least. We will have to travel almost 1300 miles round trip to get the passport renewed. I need to get my passport renewed this year because we are planning to take a trip to the Philippines early next year.

Now that the winter season is just around the corner here in northern Minnesota, we need to start preparing for the cold and frigid season ahead. Today I asked my hubby if we needed to put the cold weather survival kit in the car yet but he said not quite yet, but soon.

When I first got here, I kept begging him to let me get a job outside of the house but he really did not like the idea. Now that I have been here a couple of years and have seen how scary it is to drive on the roads here in a snow storm, I know why he has been so reluctant.

We don’t go out much in the winter anymore but since my hubby has been having some medical problems lately, I think that we should think about joining a roadside assistance club. Sometimes we have to drive a couple of hours to reach his medical provider and it gets a little scary in the winter time, especially on some of the back roads. We will have a winter survival kit but it would be nice to know that if something were to happen to the car or we slid off the road that we could simply call our roadside assistance club and someone would be there to help us very quickly.

I already bought my plane ticket for the last leg to Butuan but it was a real hassle. There was supposed to be a direct flight from Cebu to Butuan the next day but because it was Good Friday, there was no flight. Since I didn’t want to stay in Cebu for two days, I decided to take the flight to Manila and then back to Butuan the same day. That was the only option I had to get me there the same day but I had to pay extra. The good news is that I don’t need to get a hotel because I have an early flight. I am now all set and ready to go. I will be leaving for the Philippines in about a week or so. I am excited, at the same time sad because my hubby is not going with me this time. I will try to enjoy my vacation because after this trip, it may be five years before I can visit my family again.

As usual, my hubby and I went through a lot of hassle trying to get a decent flight to the Philippines. First, we booked a flight that would stop over in Tokyo, Japan but within twenty four hours we canceled it. The price of the ticket was OK but we were worried about getting exposed to the radiation there. I liked the Japan route because it was the shortest flight I could find from here.

Last Tuesday, we started all over again. This time we were looking for flights that went through Seoul or Hongkong. Instead of going through Manila, I will be going through Cebu. Thanks to my sister for mentioning Cebu to me. That will also save me a few bucks for my last leg.

We found a ticket from Fargo to Cebu for $1350 at Orbitz. We were fortunate and saved big time because after we bought it the price went up drastically. My hubby tried to book it online but got rejected many times. There were unexpected problems with our credit cards. We were planning on using our Discover card but the online site would not accept Discover for that particular flight. Then we tried to used our Visa card that has a $10000 credit line. Unfortunately the bank had just recently closed it due to inactivity. My hubby called our Visa card provider and got the card immediately reactivated. Unfortunately the representative forgot to tell him that they issued a different credit card for a new one. When he tried he was already on the line with the Orbitz customer representative trying to get the first card number to go through but when it wouldn’t he had to get back to the visa card issuer to try to find out what was wrong.

The Orbitz customer representative was on hold for fifteen minutes or so while my hubby was trying to get the visa problem resolved. That was so kind of him. At the end of the day, everything fell into place. I have a ticket now but I still have to rebook my hotel reservation and buy my plane ticket for the last leg to Butuan. I will probably do that this weekend. I hope that it won’t be as big of a hassle as booking my international flight. I am keeping my fingers crossed because I went through a lot of hassle booking my domestic flight online before.

I will be buying my plane ticket for my vacation to the Philippines soon. I don’t want to wait until the eleventh hour before I do that. The price might increase, especially if the seats are getting filled. My hubby and I were checking on the seat availability yesterday and there are still a lot of vacant seats. I am planning to buy a ticket this first week of March. That way, I still have a lot of time to decide whether I will shop for more stuff to bring with me to the Philippines.