Road Worthy

We're getting ready to hit the road early tomorrow morning, for the first of three extended trips during this furlough. I've spent the day doing laundry, packing, cleaning the house... all the stuff that has to be done before we leave.

This trip will involve traveling to Indiana in our snazzy 1994 Caprice Classic wagon, and a jaunt down to Atlanta via airplane. Realized after we'd booked the flight that our carrier charges for checked baggage, and since we're cheap frugal, we'll be packing all we need for a week in our carry-ons. I might need to find a bigger purse though.

(the Caprice parked in front of our daughter's house)

Ivan says driving the Caprice is like driving a comfy sofa down the road. It's also plenty big enough for all our paraphernalia. In addition to luggage, a small cooler, and assorted bags of books and computer equipment, we have a large bin and big cardboard box full of display items. Whenever we visit a church we set up our display on a table, typically in the narthex.

Anyway, all that to say it's really nice to have a spacious vehicle for all our junk.

And thankfully the trip to Georgia won't involve speaking in a church, so we don't have to worry about fitting the display stuff into our carry-ons. Because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't fit.

Last furlough we felt a little like those small silver balls in a pinball machine, so this time we purposed to plan our travels a little better. Hence just a few extended trips where we get as much done as possible while in a particular area, rather than bouncing around like crazy little silver balls. We'll be gone a little over three weeks this time.

With a lot of miles under our belts, we've developed a pretty good routine, with each of us assuming specific responsibilities as we travel. How about you? Who does the bulk of the driving? The packing? The navigation? Do you like to stop at the same restaurants along the way? Do you mark your travels by certain landmarks? Are you the kind of traveler that likes to take the most direct route, with the least amount of stops? Or do you prefer back roads with pretty scenery?