Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Day one - Packing the Fit

Oh yes, I remember where this all began. Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at Margaret and Lou's house in Durham, North Carolina.

This is my 2007 Honda Fit Sport with a Yakima Skybox Pro 16S cargo box on top.

What do you see?

The cargo box has clothes, two tents, camping air mattress, scuba gear, rope, shoes, two chairs and a pillow.

The front seat is normally reserved for my Archos 605 mp3 player and my Nikon D70 or D90 camera. I want the camera as close as possible so I can pull over and take pictures of any thing or any activity I see on the road.

The backseat has a mountain bike, more clothes, Marmot backpack, firefour white Sterilite plastic tubs with food related things (one is my kitchen, three are my non-perishable groceries).

The trunk area has three coolers, two tubs of books, a tall tub of books+first aid+cereal (in boxes), and a footlocker that is my safe for storing my valuables when I need to be away from the car for a while.

Is this too much stuff? Absolutely!

Just a couple days earlier in Maryland I did a test run of packing the car and after packing most of the major items I was thrilled to find two empty passenger seats. What went wrong? Well I didn't pack all the major items, didn't put the bike in the back seat, and didn't pack the long list of miscellaneous items that clutter up the car. And I bought some more groceries.

I'm not there yet but I want to keep working on this packing challenge until I master it. I like to be self-sufficient which means having all the things I need but I also yearn to be the guy confidently and comfortably traveling to Europe with just a hiking backpack. A stuffed car is the same as heading off to the airport with two heavy suitcases and a carry-on. It doesn't feel right and that's not the way to start any trip.

So I'll lose some weight, but it'll take time for me to figure out how. But this whole trip is about learning to balance out parts of my life so packing the car is a fine place to start this journey.

Bon Voyage!

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