Tomorrow, since we have a long drive back home to Virginia, we'll all be working on our lists of our favorite things from the trip. I might be able to blog from the passenger seat tomorrow, but if not, we'll keep writing on the blog over the next couple days to wrap things up.
One thing I was thinking about tonight is what didn't survive the trip, what never made the trip, and what we ditched along the way.
The biggest thing we forgot is the big book of dvds I've been burning for the past six months. I would record shoes on tivo that Jeff and I like and burn them onto DVDs to show on the tv in our bedroom. I had the book out along with two smaller books of DVDs for the kids, but somehow, the big book didn't make it. On the days we couldn't get a satellite signal, those dvds would have come in handy.
Two of our camp chairs didn't survive the trip and had to be discarded along the way. We picked up two new ones at a Walmart. We think that might be partly due to certain children flinging their bodies into the chairs instead of just lightly resting their bottoms in them. The kids do not agree with this assertion.
The dusty winds of Monument Valley took the life of one of our digital cameras. The dust got into the retractable lens and jammed it up. It was an Olympus pocket camera I picked up on Amazon.com when it was on a clearance sale, so I'm not too upset at the loss. The kids like to take pictures on the trips, so I'm always on the lookout for a cheap pocket camera for them to use. Letting them use a digital camera lets me delete the pictures that didn't come out instead of wasting money printing them.
As always, I overpacked, and I ditched some things along the way. I really tried this time, but I did it again. I packed too many clothes for me, that's for sure. I didn't wear half the pants/shorts I packed. I did wear alot of the shirts. When Henry finished a Star Wars puzzle I packed, we put it back in the box and donated it to the game room at the KOA in Strasburg, Colorado. I also left some books in "Leave a Book, Take a Book" stands in some of the campgrounds.
I overpacked food as well. I am writing this partly as a reminder for the next trip. I don't know why I don't think about all the grocery stores we'll visit along the way. The canned goods and jars of spaghetti sauce can stay at home - they're heavy and take up space. No need to bring three kinds of vinegar; I never made my own salad dressing and only used the marsala wine for dinner twice. The balsamic was all I needed.
I thought I was being smart for pouring flour into an empty oatmeal container to bring along, but I didn't ever need the flour. I tossed it out as part of a purge before we went over the Rockies so I could lighten our load. This time, I'm going to take better note of what I have to haul back into the house so I don't pack it again.
One thing that did work out well was freezing chicken breasts and steaks in marinades (or without) in Ziploc bags and stacking them in the freezer. I also made chili at home and froze that in a Ziploc bag, and it stacked well in the freezer with the rest of the meat. I'll definitely do that again.
Lessons learned, that's for sure.
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