The suitcases come out this weekend.
It's shaping up to be a busy weekend
around here, what with the Blueberry Festival today and Art on the
Rocks and Outback tomorrow & Sunday. But perhaps the most
important thing to happen this weekend will be the annual voyage of
our trip suitcases from the recesses of our basement to the welcoming
light of our living room.
It'll be glorious.
We actually leave one month from
tomorrow, so I'm guessing it's time. For the next four and a half
weeks they'll sit in our living room, where we’ll stumble into them
many times, and they’ll slowly be filled with everything needed for
almost two weeks in Bavaria. Although, if you want to be technical,
the suitcases are already kind of filled with many things needed for
almost two weeks in Bavaria. If this year is like all the others,
when I open my suitcase I'll be amazed by the stuff I've left in
there from the last trip. There should be several plastic containers
(used to safely transport chocolate and cereal), half a roll of
bubble wrap (to safely wrap the chocolate before it gets put into the
aforementioned plastic containers), various other non-plastic
containers, a roll of duct tape, two unused washcloths, and an
unopened package of socks, if I remember correctly.
Throw in a few shirts, some shorts, and
a toothbrush, and I’m already packed a month before we leave!
Well, okay, maybe not TOTALLY packed,
but with the stuff we picked up at Target a few weekends ago I think
we're way ahead of schedule. We usually go to Target a few weeks
before we bring the suitcases up and raid their section of
travel-sized items. We pick up whatever toiletries, medicines, and
personal care items we need and pack them in the plastic containers.
Then the last night of the trip we toss whatever we haven’t used
and/or won’t need, clean out the containers, and repack them with
chocolate and other goodies. That way, we don’t go over our
suitcase weight limit and have to pay a zillion dollars, and we get
all of our stuff safely home.
Of course, that’s actually worked too
well on several occasions. More than once I’ve had to buy several
rolls of paper towels to fill out my suitcase. It serves a couple of
purposes, though--the paper towels act as a great, lightweight
filler, and once we get home, we have the joy of being perhaps the
only people in the U.S. who are using strangely sized rolls of French
or German paper towels.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be
tossing pieces of clothing and other items we’ll be needing into
the suitcases in our living room. A day or two before the trip,
we’ll rearrange everything, pack it all neatly, and then put our
TSA approved locks on them, where the suitcases then won’t be
opened until we get to Munich (unless, of course, US or EU security
gets bored and feels the need to go through them). And that, of
course, is optimistically believing our luggage gets to Europe the
same time we do. Unlike, say, two of our past four trips.
So now when we look at our checklist of
things to do, “bring suitcases up from the basement” can now be
checked off. That only leaves, what. . .28 or 29 things left to go!
On that note, have yourself a great
weekend. Maybe I'll see you at one of the many events we'll be
attending this weekend!
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