Relative Something

There is a wonderful feeling in the moment you leave work on the last day before a vacation, even if you still haven’t packed and need to rush home to get the lawn mowed. I did my best to enjoy that moment. Then I mowed the lawn. After that, I started pulling everything I own out of storage to find the item I can’t remember where I put. I was really hoping to find out from Cyndie, when she got back from out of town, that she had seen it and moved it to somewhere that I wasn’t looking. No luck. My last hope was dashed. I began looking for an alternative. Then, for whatever strange reason, I went back to a place I had looked in my closet a bunch of times already, but this time I brought a flash light and suddenly I spotted my item, tied up in a semi-logical storage place. It is the stuff-sack for my sleeping bag.

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

It seems a little weird that this stuff-sack has become so important to me. There is a certain amount of sentimental value to it. It has served me well for over 30 years, traveling to camping trips that have included the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming when I was young, and almost every Jaunt with Jim bike trip I’ve been on. But it’s just a stinkin’ stuff-sack. Well, there was one other year when I couldn’t find it and I borrowed one from Cyndie to store my sleeping bag in. Hers was a heavier material and it originally had some coating on the inside that, with time, had begun to flake off. And it just didn’t have the stretch that mine does. It really bugged me. But geez, it’s just a sack. It seems silly that it has become so important to me.

But I’ve found it and I think also, pretty much everything on my list of things to pack. That’s close enough to ready that I can get some sleep. I’ll pack it all up in the moments before Gary comes to pick me up for the drive north to Tofte. And like my song says, I’ll have much more than I meant to bring. Happens every year. And yes, that is Gary from my Himalayan trek in Nepal. We met on last year’s bike trip and are partnering again on this adventure, driving together to the 35th annual Jaunt with Jim week-long bike trip. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.

In the mean time, I’ll share some pictures of bike trips from the past and a mention of where we plan to be each night in posts throughout the coming week. Enjoy!