Packing challenges

For me, the worst part of traveling is packing.  I’m just not any good at it, and I’m always up half of the night before trips still doing it…even though I’ve started at least a week before then.  My friends always make jokes about it, and I can’t blame them.

I’ve made some really bad decisions on what I’ve included.  Usually it’s because of my ignorance or the weather, and sometimes both.  As an example, one time we went to Vail in May.  I’d never been there, and it was during pre-Internet days.  I kept checking the newspaper for the weather in Denver (that was the only Colorado city mentioned) and packed accordingly.  Short sleeved tops and capris.  The first morning we awakened to deer outside our room…in a foot of new snow!  After that surprise, I came up with my Vail uniform: one of Bob’s long-sleeved shirts, jeans, and a new sweatshirt (luckily, on sale).  That seemed to be just the beginning of my bad luck.  If I packed clothes for warm weather, there was a cold spell, and visa versa.

I have a packing list.  It’s getting quite long, as I try to prepare for every contingency (and I wasn't even a Boy Scout).  I pack extra contact lenses, cold medicine, a dental repair kit, flashlight, duct tape, and on and on.  As the baggage weight and size limits on airlines continue to diminish, soon I may not be taking any clothes at all…and that will be the end of my problems!

We just returned from a one-week cruise to the Caribbean.  As I reflected on my packing, I tickled myself.  The first things I selected for the suitcase?  Two books.  The first was Herman Wouk’s Don’t Stop the Carnival.  I had purchased this a few years ago to read on a cruise of the Panama Canal, as the action is set on an imaginary Caribbean island, but the cruise was over before the book was begun.  The second choice was another off my bookshelf, This One and Magic Life by Anne Carroll George.  I have a weakness for Southern authors and stories, and this one is about a family that gathers in a town on Mobile Bay for a funeral.  They were very different books, written in very different styles.  Both were good, not great, reads.   Perhaps, after all, these first choices for my suitcase lead me to the answer to my packing dilemma.  Cover me with words--they fit, and I’ll be ready for any temperature, activity or occasion.