Vacation Packing Made Simple

Bass Lake, California

When we were younger, we took a family vacation each year to Bass Lake, California. Since we camped, packing was easy; swimming suits and tee shirts for the most part. Our days revolved around fishing, jet skiing, swimming, preparing meals, eating, and reading.  A lot of reading. We would haul sand chairs to the water's edge and read between dips in the lake. Both my wife and I were voracious readers, so we needed at least eight books for the ten day trip. In fact, buying books was the only difficult element of preparing for our outings.

In that bygone day, books were hardbound or paperback. Since we often read while floating on rafts, we took paperbacks. (Actually, in the early days of our marriage, we could only afford paperbacks.) We were frugal, so we wanted books we could share. That made book shopping difficult because we each had an absolute veto. Weeks before loading up the car, we would shop for paperbacks. Eventually, we had a large enough supply we would never have to pay the outrageous prices at one of the two stores on the south side of the lake. (They also had a crummy selection.)

After we finished a book, we would tell each other one of three things:

1. It was good.
2. Bad book.
3. I didn't care for it, but you might like it.

Occasionally we read the same book at the same time. This required one of us to rip pages out and hand them over as soon as we finished with them. I can tell you from experience that it's hard to get lost in a story when your wife is making little circling motions with her index finger. This is why we never wanted to be caught short of books.

What brings this all to mind is that we just returned from a month-long trip to Nebraska. We are moving there and needed to get a few things prepared at that end. We made the trip a little longer than needed to see our grandkids ... and their parents, of course. We arrived back in Arizona last night and brought along a medium-sized library. We both still read, trade books, and even discuss which to buy. The difference is that my wife brought her dozens of books in her purse and I carried mine in my palm. We even bought books in the cab on the way to the airport. I still like to read a physical book, but our Kindles have sure made packing easy. 

Now, if I could just figure out a way to digitally pack meds.