Preparing and Practicing

This weekend was all about preparing and practicing for vacation. Most of Saturday was spent in the “preparation” stage. I had a ridiculously long list of things to do before vaca and I systematically ticked things off throughout the day. I even got so far as to get all my clothes pulled out and arranged. I did a packing dry run to make sure everything fit in my bag. On this trip we can’t bring real suitcases, but rather gym bags because there is no room to store the suitcases on the sailboat we’ll be one. Here I was hemming and hawing over what to bring and feeling the pain of having to pack so lightly. That’s when it hit me that we’ve taken overnight biking trips when we had to pack everything we needed in this tiny lunch tote:


Can you imagine that? We arrived to a bed & breakfast and had civilian clothes (and shoes) to go to dinner in, plus our toiletries, and the next day's biking clothes all stuffed in that little cooler. OK, minus Karlo’s big sandals. Those didn’t fit in the cooler and instead where bungee corded to the front of the bike. But the point is that we are masters of light packing so this should be no big deal. This is luxury in comparison to many of our vacations.

It’s funny how your definition of luxury can vary widely. To me, a luxury vacation is defined by daily bicycle mileages of under 50 miles, not having to pitch a tent, and mildly warm showers. So despite the fact that I have to pack light, have no access to wifi, with very limited electricity, and I have to take ‘sailor’ showers, I still will consider this a luxury vacation.

So the packing planning was done on Saturday and today we spent most of the day practicing the whole ‘vacation state of mind.’ We lounged leisurely on the deck, went for a slow bike ride (just for the fun of it), went kayaking, and generally didn’t accomplish a whole heck of a lot. It felt good.

Now my only concern is the fact that I work up with a killer stiff neck. Did I fall asleep funny on the couch last night? Or worse . . . am I starting to get my stiff neck and shoulder pain from Hell due to stress? Oh Lord, I hope it’s not the latter. I don’t feel like I’m stressed about traveling, but getting to Europe is never quite easy and we don’t have a large room for error. If we miss that boat . . . it will be a long swim to catch it. Deep breathes, positive thoughts, and lots and lots of Ben Gay.