Decisions, decisions, decisions

One way or another of course life is full of them. We decide whether to have coffee or tea or water. We decide whether to turn right or left. We decide which clothes to wear, and on and on and on. For the most part though we think of decisions as being about the more important stuff.

A few weeks ago, we came to the conclusion/decision that when tax season is over and I am done working, we would become a one car family instead of the two cars we have had most of the time over the years. Now, the last day of tax season is April 17th but back around March 23rd some three and a half weeks before my job ends, Geoff decided to go see how much the dealer would give him for his Subaru Outback.

Just a fact finding trip he assured me. About an hour later he called and said find the other key, they will bring me home but need to pick up that second key. He obviously had "ripped the bandaid off" so to speak and we were a one car family with weeks of my working still to go!

Not all decisions work out but you never know until you try it out. At the beginning of our travels, we resolved our communication problems using an earphone/microphone set up intended for motorcycle helmets. This was detailed in an early blog titled "I Can Hear You!" and worked out well but we took another look at communication possibilities as we would have liked something more in the form of headphones and not need to attach stuff to ball caps.

We found a good possibility made by Sena, their Expand intercom set. We ordered a pair of them through Amazon and they arrived the other day. These headsets looked like they just might be the answer. The part that holds the speakers and microphone goes around the back of the head so there would be no interference with wearing or not wearing a hat and are water resistant so rain or sweat would not cause any problems, not that our original gear reacted badly to such conditions.

The headsets arrived last week and we charged them up and tried them on. They fit fine and felt okay on the head so we them gave them a use test. I stayed indoors with mine and Geoff tried going out front to the mailbox and then out the back to the back fence. The results were extremely disappointing! At close range they were clear and we were hopeful but the volume dropped considerably as he moved through the kitchen and when he headed out doors static increased and before he was halfway down the driveway we could no longer hear each other consistently through the static.

Our original need was communicating while driving down the road but we had quickly gotten accustomed to talking to each other while Geoff was outside the coach hooking things up or even going into rest rooms, park offices or stores. The Expand headsets simply could not compare favorably to the originals so back they went to to Amazon!

The original sets still work just fine although I need to attach them to new hats as the old ones had suffered considerable wear and sweat, especially Geoffrey's. I had already gotten the replacement hats from Vistaprint this time with the name of the coach on the front instead of a wolf image.

I just need to remove the communications gear from the old hats and attach to the new ones, a small job that can wait until the tax season is over.

Slowly but surely decisions come together for our travels.