Skip to main content

The usual pre travel chaos



So, here we are again the night before travel and everyone is tense and snapping at each other. For the past three days I have been asking myself if all of the extra work and pressure are worth it. Then I read some of our past adventures that I posted on this blog and I remember that yes, the pre-travel hassle is worth it with the fun and education we have had.

So, the goal is for all packing to be completely done tonight. We did most of the big stuff this weekend.

Here are our clothes bags. Everyone gets the clothes they are wearing and what they could fit in this bag.




This shows the size of the bag. I might be cheating though. That's Tate's shoe. Size 14

The rest of the stuff includes a travel pillow, sleep sack, shower flip flops, a light jacket, a poncho, and some toiletries for each person. We also have two snorkels, a laundry line, flashlights, and other small flotsam.

Each person also gets a small day pack with books, ipods, water bottle, snacks, etc.
All in all, everything fits on our backs.



So tomorrow we leave for St. Louis. Friday morning we get on the planes. Three total before the day is done. See you all in Panama!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

In Costa Rica

Again, this computer will not take an SD card. However, I am drinking the best coffee I've ever had while writing this so it's mas-o-menos. (good and bad) We were only able to spend the one night in Bocas del Toro because we made reservations at a specific hotel in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica and they only let you cancel if the can rebook. Thus, for the third day in a row we were on the move. That is really exhausting so I'm glad we are in one place for at least three days now. It took us about five hours to get here from Bocas. We first had to get a water taxi to get back to mainland. They were very busy that day so we had to wait an hour for that. Then I splurged and paid for us to get a direct minibus to the border. Otherwise that would have been a taxi then two different busses to get there. Then we spent 30 minutes getting visas and stamped out of Panama. After that we walked across a rickety, rusted bridge into Costa Rica. From there another office for cus...

The real first post

O.k. That last post was really just a test as I was setting things up. Now the real, good stuff begins. Where to next? My kids and I are on our way to Ecuador for a month of Spanish language school. Steve will be joining us the middle two weeks of our adventure. I will answer each question in turn. Why spanish school? We don't know any spanish. Actually hablo Espaniol en poco. Muy poco. (The people who know spanish and are reading this are probably laughing.) Tate and I went to Honduras two years ago and I figured we would be able to get by because lots of people speak English. It is pretty much a universal language, right? Wrong! I could not function and felt very detached from the people and culture I was learning about. (The same thing happened in France but that was o.k. The French did not want to talk to me anyway.) We got separated from the fluent Spanish speaker we were with and I nearly had a meltdown. I coped by going into a Wendy's (yes, they have Wendy...

Pescadando con Winston Churchill

April 15, 2008 I am really enjoying my new Spanish teacher. We have a lot in common and spend a lot of time talking instead of doing actual lessons. It is still good because it is helping my comprehension but I am not learning as many verbs as Steve is. After class today we had our fishing trip with Winston Churchill and his gang. It was him, an amigo of his piloting the boat and three of his kids. The boat was a lot smaller than the one we took to Isla de la Plata but still held the crew, the four of us and a young couple from New Zealand. We started off snorkeling and did not see much. We then went out of the bay to fish and did not catch much at all. I began to worry that it was going to be a disappointing trip. They moved the boat again and I hooked something so large that it broke the line. I think it was a shark.  They moved the boat one more time and we had success there. We caught several blowfish. The boat pilot knew how to stoke their stomachs so that they blew...