Preparations...

Due to Aaron's new job (and his lack of availability to get vacation time this summer) we will not be going to Arlington this year... We are kind of bummed about it, but OK with it too... We decided to postpone our vacation to go to the Reno Air Races in September instead.

But, in the mean time, we are hankering to go camping with the plane. The problem? Most of the camping sites that you can fly to are unworthy of being graced with the presence of our Apache 235 (read: we are not awesome enough to be the Super-Cub that can easily fly in/out of those locations). Luckily, we learned about a fly-in at Atlin, BC, just over the ice-field from us! It takes like 45 minutes to fly there! Which means, that we can fly there for about $250 instead of the $2,000+ that it costs us in fuel to fly to Arlington and back.

Did you notice that I said BC? As in British Columbia? As in Canada? Yup, we will be camping in Canada this weekend. Glad I got my passport last year!

We had to do quite a bit of preliminary preparations to go. We are bringing the dogs with us, so that is adding extra challenges. We used to take our old dog camping in Idaho, but neither Lijha or Noni have been camping before. This ought to be fun.

We picked up the necessary documents for the dogs. There was some conflicting information available on the internet. Some websites stated we just needed vaccination records and others stated we needed health certificates that had been certified by the USDA... After a couple of phone calls to customs on both sides of the border, we were told that current rabies certificates will suffice, as long as they clearly identify the dogs by their colors, size, etc. Sweet!

Another thing that we have to contend with is the EAPIS requirements to fly in/out of the US. Aaron set up an account with customs (that I forgot about) last year when he flew with a couple of other pilots ferrying two airplanes to Alaska. Aaron got our EAPIS stuff done and we have our authorization emails already... Check that off the list!

All we have left is to gather our camping gear that is spread between the hanger and the garage and get it prepped and ready to go. Oh yeah, and we need to do some grocery shopping to accommodate my dietary restrictions. We leave after I get off work on Friday!