Yellowstone National Park, Part Last

The rain has continued throughout this day, so we took the opportunity to get some of those chores done.  This will be our last stop at a town of substantial size until we cross the Canadian border.  We were busy making final preparations.

My list of chores were all along the lines of general housekeeping--menu planning, cooking, light cleaning.  Laundry was on the list, but I didn’t get that one done.  I did, as you can see, get the rest of the Yellowstone photos organized and posted.  I also spent a great deal of time catching up with the blogs I read.

Gene’s list consisted of phone calls mostly.  While in Canada, we plan to use our Capital One card for all charges because it doesn’t have that added foreign transaction fee added.  However, you never know when there may be an emergency and we would need to use one of our other credit cards.  Gene called all the card companies to notify them we would be in Canada for the next few weeks.  I think the credit card companies call it “fraud management”.  We have in the past had a card refused because the transaction was so out of the ordinary for us.  We want to avoid that happening.

He also called Verizon to have Canada added to our cell phone plan.  We’re very dependent on the phone for calling about road conditions and verifying that campgrounds are open.  Then, of course, there are the calls we want to make to family and friends as well as any emergency calls we might need to make or receive.  Adding Canada to our phone plan was a necessity, even if it cost $20/month.

We did not add Canada to our Verizon MiFi plan.  We will be solely dependent on finding WiFi along the road either at campgrounds, libraries, truck stops, or coffee houses.  There may be days I’ll be unable to post due to lack of internet connection.

Gene also had a trip to the bank planned, but finally decided that was not necessary.  He did run down to Radio Shack and pick up some batteries for his electric ear.  We haven’t talked about that much in a while, but he has been wearing it more frequently of late.  For the complete electric ear story click here. (Feb 18, 2010)

After dinner, we mapped out a plan to get us from here in Helena to Kootenay National Park in British Columbia.  The time is close and we’re excited now.

Tomorrow we will tour the Montana State Capitol and maybe the cathedral.  There is still rain in the forecast for tomorrow, but not as high a percentage as today.  Rain or shine, we’re going.

That’s it for today. Thanks for tagging along.