Well, the good news is by noon the rain let up. The bad news was, it was overcast, and very, very windy. Not really perfect conditions for going to the beach, but we decided to tough it out.
There is a ferry connecting the mainland to Port Aransas, and it only takes a few minutes to cross the channel.
Unlike the large ferries, you sure can feel the rocking of the sea waves on these little guys. And with the wind today, our ferry was a rockin'.
We checked out the local beaches, and found it was quite busy today, I guess because it was a Saturday. The sand here is very fine, and with the wind today, it was blowing across the road, blowing into our car, and blowing into our hair, face, eyes, and mouth. Time to get outta here !
I found a coffee shop, and bought us a nice hot treat, while we toured around in the car.
Teresa has been craving chicken burgers on the bbq, so we enjoyed those for supper. The wind blew out my Weber, which was a first for me. However, I persevered, and we were well rewarded.
And, we have now entered the 21st century, by buying a US based cell phone. After considerable research, we decided a Tracfone would best meet our needs south of the border.
We purchased an LG flip phone for .... only .... $14.99. This phone has everything we need, including a camera.
There are no contracts to sign, and no monthly bills. You simply purchase air time. You can buy the cards, but I will pay for the minutes on-line, where you can get better offers.
This phone also features bonus double air minutes for the life of the phone, so when I purchase, for example 60 minutes of air time for $19.99, I will automatically receive 120 minutes.
You can phone anywhere in the US or Canada, for only the cost of the minutes used .. ie - there are no long distance charges. Also, you can send/receive texts at a rate of 3 per minute of airtime. Another nice feature is you can easily see how many minutes you have left on the display, and your minutes roll over.
I will give our opinion on this phone after we have a chance to try it out, in case anyone else is considering a Tracfone.
Teresa is wanting to Skype our family tonight, so I better get cleaned up, and scrape some of this sand off. It takes effort for me to look good, but Teresa is a natural ... LOL.
We bought our double minutes Trac fon last year as a secondary one, just for me because I wander about without Suzie. Works great for what we use it for and cannot seem to use all of our minutes so they just keep adding up.. Mind you we don't phone anybody, email is the best way for us. Gmail "call phone" is free and works great too.
ReplyDeleteHey if you go to the beach on the ocean in the winter, you will have to suffer with the sun, sand and salt, sure beats cold and snow in my books. Sure is a tough life eh?
Yah stop complaining about the sand, at least it's not good old saskatchewan snow! LOL
ReplyDeleteWe have some of that coming in soon... yikes!
Trac phone is a good choice. We have done alot of research and lots of snowbirds and full RV'ers use those. We would too if we were down there. Canadian cell phone carriers really rip us off when we get to the States.
I've had my Tracfone now for over a year and it's perfect for my purposes. I also use Skype and e-mail as my two primary ways of communicating.
ReplyDeleteThe great thing about the Tracfone is that when you turn if off once you are back in Canada - the minutes are still there when you turn it back on in the States.
It certainly is the easiest and least expensive way to go as far as I'm concerned.
we purchased two verizon phones for when we travel to the US..and we just buy the minutes the time in $ amounts..$1.99 per day...if you use the phone..first call costs tehe $1.99 and the rest are free for the day!!..so if you make most of your calls one day you can save big time!!
ReplyDeleteDo you have to have an US address to purchase the trac phone or will they accept a canadian address?
ReplyDelete