Road trip - Thursday

[jenk]

It might have been a mistake to go luggage shopping the night before a road trip, but I did it anyway. (The real mistake might have been reading www.OneBag.com during lunch Wednesday.)

But still - ain't it shiny?

Cool stuff:

• Built-in optional (can fold down or up) padded dividers.
• A center compartment that fits the work laptop, thus letting me eliminate a separate computer bag.
• Handle AND detachable shoulder strap AND tuck-away backpack straps.
• Two zippered pockets in the top, one on the front.

I also shocked my darling jw1776 by getting 95% packed the night before. One of the things with me and packing is that I feel I must pack all at once or else I will forget things. This was not a problem in years past, but somewhere between sleeping with the bite guard (an item I only have one of, which must be packed in the morning) and sleeping with a CPAP (also an item I only have one of which must be packed in the morning) I quit packing prior to the morning of a trip.

Since we wanted to leave early - like, 6AM early - I didn't exactly want to do my full packing gestalt Thursday morning either.

So I tried to psych myself out: I had packed everything at once, I just had unpacked the CPAP and bite guard for the night, from the separate CPAP case. I think it worked.

I also think skydancer and I shocked jw1776 by being up at 5AM Thursday morning.

Twitter excerpts from the drive, with some editing / cleanup...

• (voice of wonder) It's so light for 6am. 06:17 AM May 22, 2008
  
• Almost through Olympia :) 07:39 AM May 22, 2008
  
• Centralia. Outlet stores not open. Not sure if this is good or bad. 08:00 AM May 22, 2008
  
• At Starbucks past Portland. Stuffed bears with messenger bags and Portland t-shirt and a starbucks baseball hat. So cute! 10:26 AM May 22, 2008
  
• Skydancer has a musical version of The War of the Worlds. Think Logan's Run movie / 1979 Battlestar space disco. 10:45 AM May 22, 2008
  
• There's a marker for the 45th parallel on I-5. Cool. 11:04 AM May 22, 2008
  
• Just finished lunch in Eugene. Walked by the bar & realized that we have left the land of indoor non-smoking. 01:01 PM May 22, 2008
  
• Saw a woman driving with a crossword and a pen.... 01:23 PM May 22, 2008
  
• Willamette valley very lush, verdant, grassy green. The overcast sky makes for a diffused glow everywhere. 06:00 PM May 22, 2008
  
• California is brighter today and often has a brown undertone. 06:01 PM May 22, 2008
  
• I-5 exit 718 is Sims Rd. I was too amused by this. Made me wonder how sleep-deprived I am. Now in Redding for the night. 08:11 PM May 22, 2008

Given that we'd all had about 5 or 6 hours of sleep Wednesday night and then driven all day, we were quite happy to order pizza. I'd brought my swimsuit with the idea that I could work the driving/sitting-in-car kinks out by swimming but the icy water in the pool sent me to the hot tub. It was warm and cozy, and I chatted with an organic farmer / part-time school bus driver who thought the idea of a science fiction convention sounded really cool.