The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, part 1

A friend of ours who’s really into the trip told us she wants to see the entire trip, as she put it, she wants EVERYTHING, the good, the bad and the ugly.  So that got me thinking, this should be a recurring theme for the blog.  Welcome to the first installment depicting our packing adventures on the day before departure!hu

The Good
We didn’t kill each other!  We navigated through packing for one common goal, all while maintaining four separate personal needs, desires, and ideas.  As you can imagine, emotions were high, aren’t they always with teens?  But we are now packed, and we are almost ready for bed, and in general, we’re all still civil to each other.  More of less, but I still take that as a win.  The fact that we stayed ahead of hunger and saw some friends for a quick farewell, that helped.  The fact that our next-door neighbors and my riding buddy came by to get the lowdown on plant watering and just in general taking care of our house while we’re away, that didn’t hurt either.

The Bad
All week, we’ve been getting everything ready for packing, but it seems like that never happened.  It seems like we started this morning, and we finished a few hours ago!  It was like all the preparations we’ve been undertaking never took place.  I know it’s been a long time since I’ve done a trip like this, and our daughters never have, but man, it took all day to pack!  It’s not like we decided today on what we’re bringing, we’ve known this for a very long time.  But when some people in the family still need to do laundry and get homework done, it really prolongs the day. 

The Ugly
I can’t find one of our headlights.  We used our office as our gear room, and everything was here this morning.  But tonight, when we were finally ready to pack, only one headlight was there.  As you know, we have two tandems, so, WE NEED TWO LIGHTS!  That’s how I was feeling inside.  I wanted to scream, but I knew that’s not going to do any good.  Still, when we got a text from our friend checking in on us, Sarah replied “tension high.”  I thought I was holding it together well, I thought wrong.  I’m still not holding it well; I know this light is here in our house somewhere.  If only it could start blinking to send a beacon guiding us to its location…if only. 

FB