Just prior to departure for California tomorrow, it was, of course, time to pack. Naturally, there’s nothing particularly scintillating about packing, it’s always something of an agony deciding what’s necessary, but this trip again highlighted a feature that seemed worthy of note.
Something that started becoming evident when we were first able to take longer trips, longer than, say, two weeks, was the Inverse Packing Rule. Travelling for one or two weeks, it is tempting to avoid the need for laundry and to pack sufficient clothing for the duration. This is clearly not possible for longer trips. Firstly, we don’t possess that many clothes and, even if we did, we couldn’t lift the cases required to carry them. Being resigned to doing laundry – well, more accurately, Carol being resigned to doing laundry – though it may at first seem counter-intuitive, it is easier to travel lighter on longer trips.
Such was the case today. September should be one of the best times to visit northern California. Preparing for a little potential chill from the famous coastal fog, we included a fleece each and crammed our chosen clothes together with all other necessities into a modest wheeled Antler soft suitcase each, leaving the now traditional camera rucksacks as carry-on. My case even contains a tripod which is now relatively well-travelled but which remains relatively infrequently used. Let’s hope that something inspires its use on this trip.
We are certainly ready to leave England’s weather and now we’re ready for the 5:45 AM taxi to Heathrow.
No need to run away from the weather. It’s sunny…ooops, was sunny, but not now; it’s raining