Ridiculous or not...?

Wednesday Dec. 7 2011

I am safely back in Spokane and for the past few days my fellow CASPians and i have been doing a little pre-departure training. It was great to see them all after our break and I am excited as ever to embark on this journey with them. It has also been great to see my friends not going on the trip and spending time with them before I leave.

As we all returned and started talking about our journey conversations arose about which bags we were all taking and how much stuff we were bringing along. I soon came to realize that uh...I might have packed a little too much. It was my understanding that I needed a big hard core backpack, a smaller backpack for day use, and a satchel type purse thing. Since I have never really traveled before and didn't really know what I was doing I kinda just started throwing things together and throwing them in my bags. My mom did a lot of shopping for me for things like shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, bug spray, etc (thanks mom!) and I also recieved a bunch of stuff for Christmas. However, these bottles were rather large and needless to say my cosmetics bag and bag of medicine were really heavy and taking up a LOT of room. I had stuffed my backpack, my big pack, and my satchel and it was almost impossible to carry all three. I made it to Spokane but then I saw that almost everyone just had there big bag and a purse and I said to myself, "dang...what the heck am I going to do?"

I decided to enlist the help of my dear friends Taylor, Alex, and Peter who are all well traveled and who i figured could help me maybe consolidate some of my stuff. During a break in one of our training sessions I had them come to my room and assess my situation.

They were appalled. Not only did they mock half of the things I had packed but the fact that i had neglected to loosen the straps on my pack to expand it was unforgiveable. i had no idea what all those straps and buckles were for, who knew they did so much!?!? and they also showed me all these little pockets and zippers it was amazing! Taylor proceeded to repack my bag, trying to fit the contents of both bags into the big one, while Alex ripped through my stuff and chucked all the things he found ridiculous at me insisting that we make a pile and take a picture...Some of the "ridiculous" things included a big mirror (totally my mom's idea). burt's bees facial moisturizer with royal jelly (Alex: "ROYAL JELLY!?!? What is this? You won't even be washing your face in Central America!!!"), like 8 balls of yarn (haha yes that I suppose was rather excessive but I really like to knit okay?!), big bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, etc. which Peter exclaimed that I could just buy down there.

My response to this was "why don't friends who have traveled a lot help out other friends who don't know what the heck they're doing!?!" And Peter said "Friends who don't know what they're doing need to tell us they don't know what they're doing."

Dang wish i had thought of that sooner.

HOWEVER, after ditching some stuff and learning how to properly pack a backpack I think I am set to go with my big bag. Once we had it all packed they wanted me to put it on and make sure it fit. It was so heavy and huge and when i put it on I felt like I was going to topple over! Alex picked up on this and proceeded to punch my bag so that i would go toppling to the ground. He finds it very entertaining and pushed me over at least six more times. He calls it "turtle" because with the huge pack as my shell I lie there like a turtle unable to get up...he better not keep this up when we get there...

Tomorrow is our last day of pre-departure training and we are going through the syllabus woohoo! Gotta get to bed soon so I can be rested and ready! 

This is Alex tipping me over...

All of the things my friends deemed ridiculous
and are making me leave in Spokane

Both of these were PACKED when I arrived in Spokane.
With the help of my dear friends I have consolidated down
to the huge pack instead of both
...however the huge pack is well...rather huge

Alex trying to fix my bag and
mocking my imcompetency

We got it!

I was sad to give up my yarn and burt's bees but at least I only have to carry one pack now!