“… and he moved away
Dispatch
Heard he got some land down south”
It’s finally RTXXI! After two years of counting down we’re all together on the road again and it feels so right and good. The day actually began with a minor disaster that I’m hoping will not be an omen of anything to come.
We decided to start packing the car last night and that always begins with finding a way to condense a trunk load of food; nearly all of our breakfasts, lunches, and snacks for the next ten weeks into the small recessed space in the back of Fred. Molly and I were fairly successful. Only the goldfish, Kix, and a few cans of wine didn’t fit. We also loaded up the backpacking packs with gear and got them into Fred along with a couple of our blue bags and the 5 gallon cube of water we bring. The cube of water was the thing that led to the minor disaster.
When I woke up this morning my very first thought was of finishing the packing and cleaning as I mentally ran through the other tasks to be completed. I decided it made the most sense to get the rest of the gear loaded so I grabbed two more blue bags, walked outside, opened the trunk, and immediately realized our 5 gallon water cube now only held 3 gallons of water. There was a moment where I thought everything might be OK, but the truth of the situation permeated my brain quickly. All our carefully organized boxes lovingly reinforced with duct tape so they would make it through 10 weeks on the road had been transformed to a squishy soggy mess. I brought the water cube inside, set it on the counter and told Molly we had a problem. I didn’t have to say anything more.
We loaded everything into garbage bags. One for soggy cardboard, one for squishable food, and one for squishproof. Fortunately, everything is individually wrapped so the only real loss is any semblance of organization. Time will tell whether we’ve discovered an improved way to pack or did something our future selves will be cursing us for. We did our best to blot what we could from the carpet and left Fred open to air it. It’s dry-ish.
Amazingly everything we intended to bring this summer ended up fitting. Even the 25 spools of yarn and two ukuleles! We’ve been on the road for 4 hours now on the way to our first stop of the trip in Omaha. It’s going to be a special one too – our first Kimpton night together since preCovid!
A couple musical housekeeping items:
- We have a new Road Trip playlist this year. Each of us contributed songs and you can check it out at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6HyykcZKFFyhQlpUnF05pq?si=oLW-i34eT0Wpt5_hVSYBhA&utm_source=copy-link
- For my blog post titles this year I am still going to use song titles, but instead of taking them from the playlist I’m going to use any song I want and build a new playlist here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1aB0uNfN7vJvO8YZrHtUFv?si=_OEtMDvFRVyyDLY8hnHKQg&utm_source=copy-link
This is thrilling that the Knott family is on the road again! Have a great trip ~ so glad you are all great at solving problems in a timely manner. 😉 Looking forward to reading about your adventures!
You here: Fred’s clean!!! Fred’s clean! Fred’s clean!
Then you the next day: Wahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!