You know you’ve been away too much when you want nothing more than to go home and stay home. My first summer in Calgary was a busy one. Come to think of it, I was rarely IN Calgary this summer. I spent most of the summer travelling, which meant constant packing, unpacking and repacking. I always had at least one suitcase open on my bedroom floor at any given time. I have four different kinds of larger pieces of luggage and didn’t always use the same piece depending where I was headed (for example, a camping trip calls for my large MEC backpack, whereas a business trip calls for my professional Ogio suitcase).
Over the years I have become a professional packer. Beginning in high school when I attended a private boarding school, I almost always had a bag packed as I lived at school during the week and traveled home to the family farm every weekend. I called it “life out of a suitcase.” After high school I spent several years in Winnipeg, first for post-secondary education and then for work. I continued to travel to the farm almost every weekend. Needless to say, I chalked up the miles and liked to joke that my car knew the route so well it could drive itself home! Of course all this traveling meant that I continued to have a packed bag almost always ready to go.
These packing skills certainly came in handy this summer. In a matter of just over two months I travelled to:
- Minnesota for five days
- Saskatchewan three times for a total of nine days
- Manitoba for six days
- Ontario for 10 days
- B.C. for three days
- Kansas/Missouri for four days
And just when I think it’s time to stay home for a change I realize that I have a few more trips scheduled for the fall. But that’s probably a good thing. Life is short. And staying home all the time is no fun!
Do you have any travel/packing tips for me? Please share. I welcome your comments.
Rural Route Ramblings 
Leave a Reply