Weighing in on the Lists

So, we leave in just two weeks.

Let me say that again.

Fourteen days from now Trish and I will grab the pets, lock the doors (and set the alarm for any of you with larcenous minds) climb in our 31 foot RV and start driving. We’ll drive 14,000 miles and then we’ll be home again. Hopefully, with minds blown.

This is not a small undertaking. Things need to be done to make this happen.

Things need to be done to make sure the RV itself doesn’t break down and nothing we need to function on the RV breaks down (water, electric, heat, etc…). Things need to be done to make sure the pets are allowed into Canada. To make sure WE are allowed into Canada. Family need to be visited and grandchildren hugged. Flat versions of grandchildren collected.

And then administrative things, food things, clothing things. ALL THE THINGS!

And do you think we could be relied upon to remember all the things? Of course not!

So for the last 3 months we have been making lists. Paper lists. Electronic lists. Spreadsheets. At first they were general lists – coach maintenance, medical arrangements, pets. But as time passed, the lists became more specific – AC maintenance, propane system check, vet appointments.

There started to be so much to remember that we would brainstorm for every possible
item, and then quiz one another at dinner. Frankly, it was very much like work!

And then the dreaded checkboxes made an appearance.

Then the competition to get the blasted checkboxes checked.

And with every item purchased, packed or prepared, in the back of our minds is “How much does this weigh?”

Because the RV can only carry so much extra weight by law. It can only tow a vehicle weighing up to the tow capacity of the hitch. Every item is mentally evaluated – can this be left behind if we’re over the weight limits? Would I be forced to choose between home canned applesauce and yarn? Between the cast iron pans and the big coffeepot?  I thanked my lucky stars every day for my Kindle, because I would wear the same clothes every day for 4 months before I would go bookless, I don’t care where I go!

And did we weigh every item we loaded so we had a running tally?

Of COURSE not.

We are devil-may-care explorers, with a curious deliberate blind spot. We waited until today and drove up to the nearest weigh station with pretty much everything we had on those lists loaded into the coach.
Aaand… drum roll please… We made it!

You know what that means? There’s room for more yarn!

Here’s the required ‘grandma selfie’-

This is for Erica – “Is that it? Is this thing still on?”

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