Wes Storytelling Series - Volume 2

I  explained to Tori that there once was a time when each phone call cost a quarter and you couldn't leave the box until your phone call was completed. She said "That doesn't make any sense" (Picture taken from my iphone - New technology Looking back to old technology )

Sandy's forever fitness membership

Often times, when we get to a new city,Sandy and I will quickly get our bearings for good places to get our running in for the week. When traffic is too busy on the nearby streets or it is colder outside, Sandy calls a local fitness gym nearby to ask if she could do a week "trial" before signing up for the full year. They usually accept the offer and Sandy has a full access to all the treadmills in the place 24/7 for the entire week. We leave that city at the end of the week and repeat at our next new city.

The kids now are aware of and volunteer 3 pieces of information out of the blue without any prompting: 1) the local time, 2) the weather, and 3) gas prices. 

Since being on the road, the local time, the weather, and gas prices are always changing as we travel the US. As the kids see gas price signs when we are driving, they spout out the good deals on gasoline and we all take in a nod of approval, or a shrug at the shoulders thinking that there is a better deal down the road. This, I never thought that our 7 year old Lacey would be so concerned about the current gas prices. Hehe. The weather is a real serious responsibility now as father providing for my family (as I write this in Oklahoma City where tornado season starts up right about this time of year), so I constantly look up the weather every day. Often times our 13 year old Shelby is my co-pilot on that front. She either checks another source or confirms what I am seeing in my weather app that I use. (BTW I use the WeatherBug app.) Time Zones are super tricky sometimes. Living in California all these years I never really knew where they drew the time zone lines on the United States maps. For example, in South Dakota, the central time zone delineation line is in the friggin middle of the state! So one half of the state is on Mountain time zone and the other half of the state is on the Central time Zone. That would be hard to get used to if I was a South Dakotan... At one point, the only person in our family who had the correct local time was our 8 year old Tori. She got a brand new watch for Christmas, and we were on the eastern time zone during that time. She asked me to set her watch to the eastern time zone, and "voila", we always asked Tori what time she had, because it was always correct... (until we came back into the Central time zone :)...)

Going to Canada with our SENTRI passes

As we went to Canada for  day trips while staying in a bordertown of Blane, WA, I had this super dumb idea of getting into the "fast" line to see if our US issued SENTRI passes worked for Canada. We had always used them for Mexico, and all the literature I read said that we could use these for Canada as well. The major point hwer I had crossed my wires somehow, was this is only the case for entering the USfrom Canada and Mexico, not leaving the US. After the fact I pinched myself, because I knew this subconsciously. So, naturally, the Canadian border patrol had to humiliate me in front of my family and tell me that it was a stupid idea to try to present the US issued documents to Canadian authorities. Hehe. They told us to pull over and park in the "inspection parking lot" and to follow them into the inspections building. Well after waiting 20 minutes (with beads of sweat forming on my forehead), they said. You are all clear to enter Canada! I asked if this "incident" was going on my permanent Canadian record, and they gracefully said no.