My wife and I love to hike in the backcountry of Montana. On our first ever real backpack trip, six years ago, all we had was a GPS, a cell phone and a digital camera. In 2011, on our trip to Devils Tower, Wyoming, all we had a GPS, two digital cameras, two cell phones (one a smart phone) an iPod, an iPod nano and a laptop. Oh, and a wireless transmitter for the iPod nano so we could listen to ebooks on the car radio. Naturally we also had an assortment of cables, power adapters, batteries and a DC inverter just in case we needed AC power.
In October of 2011 I was on my way to Bridge Day in West Virginia when my 2000 GMC Jimmy decided to take a dump a few miles on the other side of the Ohio River. It was dark, rainy and a bit chilly. We stopped just in front of mile marker 177.8 in the southbound lane. A quick call to roadside assistance got us a tow truck and a ride to a cheap motel.
On this particular trip I stopped to by a USB adapter for the power port in the Jimmy. I had my cell phone, GPS and the iPod. Unfortunately I only plugged in my GPS to the USB and assumed the other gadgets were good on charge.
After we got to our motel it didn't take long for both the cell phone and the iPod to go to low battery condition. We had no 110 volt adapters and no 12 volt power to recharge devices. I'd have to wait until morning to finish the search for a rental car and hope I didn't completely drain the batteries before Enterprise Car Rental arrived to pick us up.
The next morning I had just enough juice left to look up the phone number to Enterprise on my iPod and make the call for the rental and pickup at the motel. Within 30 minutes I had a Hyundai Accent with USB power ports and an iPod port.
It was now clear to me that I needed more technology. A portable power source that I could bring with me when my main power source is out of reach. Something that I could recharge or replace at little or no cost. The hunt was on, the brain was in solution mode.
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