Happy Rat, hee!
Well…a week and a day, but I wanted to yammer about it this morning. 
I am a happy rat.
It’s almost time for the New England Odyssey. Pre-flight preparations are already underway in the dining room. That might explain, incidentally, why Rousseau is glued to our legs all danged day long. Pup hates suitcases, and there are two of them sitting beside the dining room table. He has learned to equate luggage with leaving, and it totally shakes up his juju to see us messing with bags.
He doesn’t know it yet, but he will be happy when we leave, because he gets to go to BFF Kay and Bob’s farm for his vacation while we’re on ours. He loves it out there, so he’ll be content. Doesn’t help him much during the packing stage, however, so he gets extra hugs and biscuits lately.
Speaking of packing…after two major road trips in as many years, and a dozen small jaunts in between, we’ve arrived at a pretty solid take-along list. There are two things we don’t leave home without:
- Small fan. Like this one. Nothing can rob you of sleep faster than weird or annoying sounds in hotels, or worse — no noise at all. Silence can kill. So we always pack the little black noisemaker, and it is a life saver. (We have to have the white noise on every night at home, too.)
- Power strip. Hotels are slowly “getting it,” in that they’re beginning to wire more outlets in their rooms. Still, most leave us wanting, so we bring our own volts. By the time you schlep in a laptop, Nook, iPad, two cell phones and a GPS, you’ve got most hotel rooms loaded past the maximum.
Of course, we try to pack light. In my mind, I go through all the outfits I want to take, then take away half of them. Seriously. We’re going to be either walking or sitting; I don’t need six pairs of shoes and four sweaters.
We also take a cooler of snacks, lunch stuff and drinks, to avoid extortion from convenience stores and travel plazas. I have made many a ham-and-cheese sandwich at 70 MPH. Saves time and bones.
So, fellow road warriors: do you have any cool packing ideas, or rituals you go through before and during your trips? I’m up for hearing them and using them!
I don’t have any good packing tips – I don’t go anywhere.
You guys are going to have a great time! Pup will enjoy himself, too, out at K/B’s. Make sure to take a picture of you guys and my baby when you see him!
Counting down the days with you!
We will definitely get a picture with my most handsome nephew!! I’ll give him a big kissy from his mama (he’ll love that LOL).
SIX DAYS
Though I don’t do really long-distance road trips but when I go down to Hocking Hills, I pre-cook some entree items, freeze them and use them in the cooler along with some frozen water bottles to keep things cold. I store the water bottles in the fridge at the cabin and as they thaw I use them for drinking. Then I refill the bottles, re-freeze them and use the frozen water bottles for the trip home. Everything stays nice and cold. For any trip, I always make out a check-list well in advance, revising it when necessary. You wouldn’t believe the simple little stuff that a person forgets!! Once I completely forgot the 4 sets of shorts I planned to take. Try buying shorts at the end of the summer in WalMart–they’re either made for munchkins or giants!!
If we were going to be in one spot for any length of time, I’d definitely do the freeze-and-take thing. Makes the most sense — kind of like cooking for yourself while camping. And the checklist is a MUST — we’d be turning around and going back to the house a half dozen times!
Holy crud, we have the same fan! The first thing I usually do before a long trip is make a playlist for my iPod for the part in the car/train where I just need relaxation music.
Playlists! Great idea. Fortunately, we have the “Seventies on Seven” and “Classic Vinyl” channels on Sirius radio, so our playlists are good to go. I would imagine that traveling alone is the perfect time to just disappear with your iPod, though.