E and I head off to Mexico in a few days. Have you ever been there? Suggestions? Even writing the word Mexico seems like the world's most greatest thing ever in life. I love traveling. My family actually traveled a lot around the US when I was a kid. Overall we traveled pretty well together despite most of my sister's and my backseat conversations ending in, "MOM!!!!! HER SKIRT IS TOUCHING ME!!!!!!!!!!!"
Technically E and I have only been on one major trip together which was to Spain for our friends wedding. We had a blast. Traveling with another person is interesting. Everyone has their own little 'thing'. E is an amazing and experienced traveler. He packs like...one t-shirt and some underwear and he's out the door. I'm somewhere between him and that girl you see at the airport with way too many magazines for the two hour flight and the strap of her bra hanging out the bottom of her wheeling suitcase.
It's not that I need a lot of crap when I travel it's just that right before I go on a trip I do what I call the 'panic pack'. The 'panic pack' is the putting things out on the bed and everything seems to be going smoothly-underwear-check! socks-check!-and then out of nowhere I run off and decide it's very crucial I pack the foldable rain poncho given to me in a Christmas stocking four years ago or perhaps maybe the 976 paged Hardcover new translation of Don Quixote I've been wanting to read. I will never live down one of the items from last trip when I packed the eighty pound 'travel' iron that my mother loaned me from 1873. It was made of steel and had a cloth chord that looked as if it might burst into flames at any second.
Don't even get me started on packing clothes. The clothes are worse because you just never know what you are really going to need. The one time I recall 'scaling' down my packing for a trip I ended up being totally full of regret. It was an all girls bachelorette weekend with my four best girlfriends from college. One of them was getting married and the weekend was full of cute outfits and accessories, lots of drinks, tea parties, walks on the beach, etc. For whatever reason I decided all I need to pack for the weekend was one pair of dumpy jeans, a plaid shirt and a blue hooded sweatshirt. Everytime I look at the photos from that weekend my eyes can't help but scan past the pretty faces of my stylish friends and focus on me wondering who invited their 7th grade skater boyfriend to the party.
I haven't started packing yet but I will this weekend. I promise to keep it light and no 'travel' iron this time. We have a couple of long bus rides ahead of us but perhaps I get E to let me stretch out my legs on his lap like I used to trick my younger sister into doing. "Sock feet? Those aren't sock feet. Are you kidding? Those are PUPPETS!!!"
