To take list (July 24)

I prepared a detailed To Take list for our first road trip (to Alaska in 2000) and have essentially used the same list ever since, give or take a few modifications each year, based on the previous year's experiences and special needs for the next trip.  Despite the list's length, there is nothing that is superfluous or a luxury item on the list.  If something on the list is not used daily or regularly, it is there for emergency purposes.  I have had to use the latter items enough times to know that I cannot leave them behind.

Elsewhere on this blog I posted the detailed To Take list itself.  Below is a screen shot of the entire list at 38%.  Of all the good things I can say about this list, the three most important things I can say are that I have never forgotten to take a single thing on the trip,  I have been prepared for every emergency we were hit with, and I did not have to waste valuable time on the road hunting for something I needed, except to replensih my 10-day food supply, of course, and then I do not go hunting, I go shopping. (The only hunters you will find on this trip are Leben and Erde, and their hunting is aimed exclusively at treats.)

Preparing for this tip is not like preparing to go on one of those $25,000 safari trips where you essentially show up with only the clothes on your back. (I read of one trip where they even provide camouflage tooth brushes and tooth paste.)  The truth is, most of the benefit I get from these trips is the planning and preparation that I have to do for it.  Knowing that the success of failure depends upon your own preparation and planning, including contingency planning, enhances the whole experience.  Anyone who has done this themselves understands this.