Pack

How on earth do you pack for two months away from home?

There are all the other preparations, like bills, house sitters and such, but what about the actual packing?

Luckily, we just did a week with family to refresh our travel memory banks. I always forget the silly little things I like to have along, so our little pre-holiday was very useful.

We are taking our folding bikes along. That's a must. We didn't talk about it much as we both knew they were coming. The question turns out to be, “how are they coming along?”

I was expecting to put the bike rack on the car and carry the bikes out there. Helen doesn't like them exposed to winter road grime and weather, and wants them folded, bagged and inside. The difference is huge.

On the rack, they take up no room at all. There would be a single box in the car to handle helmets and things like that. Inside they take up the majority of the vehicle's inside space. I'll have to do a test packing to see if there is room for other stuff with the bikes in the car, or maybe one bike inside. Experimentation is necessary.

I have six Jiu-Jitsu uniforms to take. These are not normal items of clothing. They are big and bulky. Even with six I'll be doing lots of laundry in LA to keep them clean. If I have to do laundry anyhow, we don't need to take more than about a week's worth of other clothing. That strangely helps. Otherwise we'd probably take twice as much to wear. Cool; half as much underwear, socks, and shirts.

We are taking a ton of electronics. There are ipads, phones, ipods, cameras, and a laptop. The cool thing about this stuff is that it's all remarkably tiny in real-world terms. The biggest item is the laptop, and it easily slips under a car seat.

So to recap in order of size. The bikes; my uniforms; our clothes; the electronics; toothbrushes.

Anything we forget, we can get there.