Well, we are almost down to the wire. There are only 18 more days until the tour begins and 14 days until my scheduled departure. Final orders have been placed and most items received. I have a cook set to get locally and and initial supply of food to buy. Of course, I have to setup and pack the quad. Will all I have fit. That is to be determined.

Two of the last items purchased are components that I hope will allow me to blog, providing I have Internet access. They are the PowerGorilla & SolarGorilla. Together they should give me up to 5 additional hours of computer use. With daily sun, I expect they will sustain me through our camping periods. I did not use the rack discussed in the above link. Rather, I designed a mount for the top of the trailer. It is functional and looks okay also. Here is are a few pictures:

For some reason the adapter that should work with my HP dv7 Pavilion Laptop does not work. The laptop get no power from the PowerGorilla. I tried it with my other laptop, the SCEPTER Control Laptop. It works! I’ll just have to install key software on it. It is more compact and lighter, but has a smaller screen. Lighter is good. The final step is to decide exactly where I will place it. I need the quad to determine that—soon.

05/27 Update: I asked for support yesterday. Today I have another tip coming that may resolve the problem and save me have to install additional software on my other laptop. I hope.

If the other tip works, I’ll use it at some other time. I will take my small/lighter laptop on tour. I plan to use an external HDD for ease of data transfer. I have several software packages to install on the LT that I will take with me.

I  have completed software installation [including 5 additional browsers]; iStore for my iPhone; Garmin Maps, MapSource, WebUpdater; Quicken; Microsoft Office; Windows Live Writer; and more. As of this 05/28 a.m., I’m operating on the little laptop and will through tour completion.