My writing groups converge today – Slice of Life Challenge writers and Open Write writers take joy on days when we get to see all of our fellow writers on the same day when the stars align. I’m so grateful for these groups of writers who are positive people, inspiring others to write. I also joined The Stafford Challenge in January, and we are around Day 160 of writing a poem every day for one entire year – so we’re close to the middle mark. Where would I be without my writing family? I don’t want to know.
Anna Roseboro of Michigan is our host for Day 4 of the June Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. She inspires us today to write reflection/projection poems, using synonyms for those words by looking forward and looking back. You can read her full prompt here. Today I have a working retreat before going off contract for three weeks over the summer, so I’ll be doing a lot of this today. I wrote a nonet, a nine-line poem with line-numbered syllables on each line in descending order.
Slice of Life writers are bloggers who share our posts and something about the moments of our lives. We write every day during March and all through the year on Tuesdays. You can find the home page at www.twowritingteachers.org to learn more. Today’s Slicing prompt is thinking about what inspires us to write on the early days of summer. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m almost there…….
I’m not a fan of day-of-the-week pill organizers when going through airport security. These handy containers are fine for storing vitamins and medicines when I’m camping or at home, but in the absence of their labeled bottles, I fear suspicion by airport officials, which may lead to my detainment and a missed flight. I worry that I’ll be the one whose vitamins get taken to the lab for analysis while other passengers glare at a girl…..standing there with a suitcase…..just trying to keep mood swings at bay and find some energy in B12 and B6…. like I’m some kind of criminal drug dealer.
I was texting with my friend Glenda, a fellow traveler in my writing group, who reminded me that along Route 66, we’ll be passing CVS Pharmacies and stores where we can buy first aid items and medicines if we encounter the need for them, unlike what we would be able to do if we were on a cruise or out of the country. She suggested a few of the basics – some antibiotic Band-Aids and Tylenol and any prescriptions we normally take. I agree with her. Since we will only be taking carry-on luggage, every square inch of our luggage space is prime real estate.
I’m using a quart-size Ziploc bag for our travel first aid kit. Here is my list of items I plan to take:
Tylenol
Band Aids infused with Antibiotic Ointment
Prescription medications
Zyrtec
Bonine
Prilosec
Aquaphor ointment
Tums
What suggestions do you have for other items I should consider taking? I welcome all of your best first aid travel hacks!
This weekend, we’ll be making a list of all the things we’ll need to do around the house before we leave on our trip down half of Route 66 later this month. Since summer is here and we all come down with a case of wanderlust at some point, you may find that these are things you do as well as you plan to travel. I invite you to leave any of your favorite hacks and tips in the comments, particularly those I might have forgotten to add in this phase of list making.
We’ve already made our pet reservations at the boarding facility. One of our boys needed his heartworm injection, so I called the vet to be sure that all of their shots were up to date to avoid any last-minute glitches with boarding requirements. I have a backup plan with a friend’s daughter who can come to our home in case we were to need any last-minute Plan B put into action for pet sitting, even though we don’t anticipate that.
We’ve already reserved our rental car, too, and we’ll need to print the car confirmation information.
I’ve also gone online to USPS.COM to schedule our mail to be held during the days we will be gone, and then for all of our accumulated mail to be delivered on the day we return. I have a login and password to be able to schedule this service online anytime I need to have our mail held, and it’s so convenient to make these arrangements from my phone. One of the things I like best about it is that in the event that I had forgotten to do this ahead of time and remembered while sitting in the airport getting ready to leave, I could still arrange for the bulk of the mail to be held.
Here are some other things we’ll be adding to our countdown to-do list:
We’ll want to charge our batteries for our home security cameras the week before we leave so that we can monitor what is going on here while we’re away. We’ll also test our home security system and notify our security company that we will be out of town and let them know that our alarm will be set while we are away.
We’ll also want to fill our birdfeeders and water our plants the night before we leave (and pray for rain to water the outside plants and replenish the bird baths naturally while we are gone).
We’ll need to go by the bank to get the cash we plan to take with us, and to notify our bank that we will be in other states so that if we want to use a debit card, the bank will approve out of state charges. We’ll need to anticipate toll roads and money for tips, so we’ll need some smaller bills and change for these costs.
We’ll need to be sure that our prescriptions and medications we need are refilled and on hand the week before we leave.
We will need to make parking reservations at the Atlanta Airport – and this is no small task at the world’s busiest airport.
We’ll make sure a family member knows how to gain access to the house and disarm the alarm in case we need someone to be able to get in and check on things should we need it.
We’ll need to make a packing list two weeks before the trip to be sure we have all we need. For things we need we don’t have, we will then have time to shop for those things or order them to allow delivery time. We will also need to make sure that our luggage dimensions are correct; since we only take carry-on luggage and never check bags, we have to be sure our bags meet the luggage specifications for the airline.
We’ll need to start a folder with important papers like our flight, hotel, and rental car confirmation numbers and trip itineraries (I will be doing this with a shared Google Doc so that all of us are able to access the information at any time).
We’ll need to gather our auto insurance cards so that we can provide these when we pick up the rental car.
We’ll need to set our thermostat to the temperature we want to keep our home while we are gone the morning we leave.
We’ll need to clean out the refrigerator and take the garbage to the dump two or three days before we leave.
We’ll want to remember to unplug our televisions while we are gone in case of any severe storms.
We’ll continue the list as we go, but these are things we need to create reminders for so that we can check them off and feel confident when we leave that we have not forgotten something important.
We can’t always control the little things that can go sideways on a trip, but one thing we can do is pave the way for the peace of mind that we’ve taken care of things on the homefront to buy those moments of resting assured we’ve dotted our i’s and crossed our t’s as best we can.
Roadtrippers App – the best trip planning tool I have found
This month marks vacation month once my 210-day contract ends for this school year, a few short weeks from when my next one is set to begin. We’ll fly out on June 24 from our home an hour south of Atlanta, Georgia to Chicago, Illinois to drive a little more than half of the east-to-west direction of Route 66, ending in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ve had a long-time dream of traveling the roadways to see a cross-section of The Mother Road just as Steinbeck and others with relentless resfeber have been enjoying in truck campers named Rocinante and other less-famous vehicles since it came into being.
I’ve downloaded Roadtrippers to map our journey, and I’ll be blogging and photographing it every step of the way. This month, every day (except June 17-21 when I write with Open Write) will be devoted to the planning process and the way we decided on this travel plan as our vacation for this year. The last week of the month will be the actual journey from Chicago to New Mexico following Route 66.
My first step in vacation planning: downloading Roadtrippers, experimenting with it, and deciding to upgrade to Roadtrippers Plus. I have created an account, and I’m ready to begin planning. The app will map my distance each day and actually calculate my mileage and projected gasoline costs based on the rental car for the miles per gallon and the cost of gasoline. I can’t recommend this app highly enough after using it for several “test drive” road trips with the free version. I have even shared the very beginning of the itinerary with those who’ll be traveling with me through the share feature in the app.
Common Threads 