Ready for any eventuality
This is not an urban myth. I didn’t hear this from the friend of a friend. Once upon a remembered time, I actually knew how to pack lightly for a vacation trip.
Oh, sure, there was that 40 pound box that I sent home from somewhere on the Gaspé coast while touring by bicycle, but that did lighten the load on my skinny tires. Now, it just seems like a lost art. I blame it on the car.
Just like a basement, stuff fills the available space in our automobile. The trunk is full. Under the seats; ditto. Between the seats and up and over the place where a passenger might have fit, packed for any situation. That’s the problem. Unable to stay in the house, where most emergencies can be met with a quick trip to Canny Tire or Wally’s Mart, the camper must prepare for everything.
Check out the roof. We have chairs, and a mattress, and a tent. There’s a stove with extra fuel bottles, a parasol for those sunny afternoons on a beach without gale force winds (another urban myth in there), a hammock and some extra cordage. Never know when a three-masted sailing ship will need a quick splice in the mainsail sheet.
We have a kitchen, with sufficient settings for a dinner party. Cheese grater, potato masher, spaghetti trawl. All packed in the big green box, among the knives and forks and soup ladle. Towels (remember to buy some soap, this time around). An electric inflator and a power inverter. Jars for rice and coffee and other staples of the camping diet.
There now. The car is half loaded, and we still have hours to go before the sun come up.
