i dont know if it’s just partly denial that we are leaving los angeles so very soon but there has been very little preparation for this huge move across the country (to tampa) and the longest trip of our life (3 months in south america) that is just around the corner.
if you walked into our apartment this very moment you would find me here, at my computer blogging, sitting in an apartment full of stuff that looks like it is going no where fast. the absolute only sign that there is any kind of move in our future is the pile of (very empty) boxes we have been collecting in our guest bedroom.
but, tomorrow is michael’s very last day of work and that will be the official whistle that is it time to start purging and packing.
however, we haven’t completely ignored everything. there has been some readying going on, but it’s mostly been in the form of shopping. we’ve got our travel towels and deet-rific insect repellent, our sleep sacks (if you are in the market for sleep sacks go on ebay…. so much cheaper than in stores), we have a compass and ear plugs. all the little its and bits that we’ll carry with us for our three months in south america. i think we have almost everything we need. before we go, i want to post a detailed list of every single thing we are packing. i wish i had done that with our europe trip to use as a cheat sheet for this one…
out of everything we’ll bring, i really feel like the most important items to get right are the shoes and the day pack. i loved my europe day pack – a “leather” cross body messenger style purse that i bought for $20 at a banana republic outlet. really, my only issue with it was that it was deemed too “girly” and michael would never take a turn holding it. oh, and that it just barely made it the two month trip and was on its last leg when we got home. day packs take a beating. at least when i’m the one holding them.
so, for this trip’s pack we upgraded to a pacsafe bag. these are specifically made for travel and have built in safety features. normally, i’d think this is more than necessary, but since we’ll be toting my rather pricey camera around we thought it would be wise. and thankfully it’s “guy” enough that michael will sport it as a man purse without complaint.
next up was shoes. i’m going to bring three pairs of shoes: (1) an athletic shoe for hiking and outdoors-y activities, (2) a “day shoe” for just around town and that i can go into restaurants and not feel as touristy as wearing a sneaker, and (3) flip flops to serve as shower shoes and for the beach and such.
the difficult one to find was the day shoe. probably because i have spent sooo much time in flip flops, my feet blister really easily. i tried looking in all our outdoor stores here for something that worked but couldn’t find anything, soooo i ordered $1,360 worth of shoes off of zappos!! ahhhhh! crazy. but i tried them all on, picked a winner, returned the rest, and got $1,290 back on my card. whew!
here is my giant zappos box (which was actually kind of embarrassing to receive… i mean really, it’s pretty ridiculous) with just a few of the shoe boxes:
i ordered a total of 16 pairs to try out and these were the finalists:
but in the end, the the winner was…
the privo piper
they are also ridiculously light so they’ll be very packable. really comfortable, no hint of future blisters (although i’m for sure bringing moleskin in case) and i think they are pretty cute. : )
so that’s it!
day pack … check!
shoes … check!
compass… check!
pack up the entire apartment and move across the county … oh shoot.
