Traveling Companions
There are a few things I always take when I’m traveling,
which I seem to do a lot these days.
I always take a ton of my own tea. We seem to be living in a world of
coffee. Coffee is available in two
hundred and fifteen flavours with frothed toppings and a dozen or two drizzles
… chocolate bits, added caffeine. Or,
half the caffeine, three quarters caffeine, just a teeny-itsy bit of caffeine,
or even, yes it’s true, no caffeine.
Coffee is available in sizes from way-too-much to you-have-to-kidding. Bladder busting, ADHD inducing to full on
brain coma overload.
Years ago I discovered that my own bladder did not like
coffee. I liked it, but for some unique
reason every time I drank it, I had to spend the better part of my day finding
men’s rooms. One cup = five trips to the
bathroom for a drop of urine each trip.
It was beyond enduring. After
innumerable trips to the Doctor, including specialists like Urologists and
Allergists, thousands of dollars, dozens of very uncomfortable brands of probing – they found nothing.
So, just on a hunch, I gave up coffee. It just took a couple weeks of skull
squeezing headaches and I got off the stuff.
Poof – all the bladder
problems went away. I mean, just
gone. I found I could drink all the tea
I wanted, just no coffee! So I haven’t had any coffee for going on
twenty years. But I have to have my tea! And I
have found in many hotel rooms and even many coffee shops, they don’t have
tea. None.
And, they look at me like I’m some kind of unicorn for even asking for it.
Which is annoying.
So now, I lay out my stuff for traveling and I always
include a zip-lock bag of tea, lots of it.
Oddly enough in Central America, they always have hot tea everywhere,
but they always put two tea bags in a small cup. Which makes it way too strong and bitter, so
I have to take one of the bags out right away and then they look at me like I am loco. Plus they always want to dump a kilo of azucar in it.
Next, I always take, and wear almost exclusively, miracle fiber safari shirts. These are some kind of nylon, Dacron,
polyester (I really don’t know) with the mosquito repellent nature. I tried t-shirts for many years, but
t-shirts, especially cotton ones, got dirty easily, had no pockets (need a lot
of pockets when traveling) and couldn’t be squashed down very much (too
bulky). It’s amazing how much room a
cotton t-shirt can take up in an overhead
size bag. Plus when it gets wet, it’s
like wearing a beach towel.
My safari shirts squash down to nothing, unwrinkled quickly,
can be washed right in the shower and dry the next morning – even in high
humidity – and look good enough for a casual dinner out.
Underwear and socks are a given; that is one pair per day up
to five pairs. After that plan on more
shower laundry. And take camping cake soap. Liquid soap the TSA will confiscate.
Always, always, always try to get a toenail clipper
through. TSA might take it, but if they
don’t, it’s worth the hassle. Nothing
worse than blisters and hot spots on
your feet during the middle of a hike up a volcano because of toenails that are
too long – even a tiny bit too long can be nearly crippling from hard hiking.
Just to be sure though, I always take the time before
I leave to check all my nails, fingers and toes, to get them cut as close and
correctly as I can. Just in case my
clipper is taken away. I always do this
after a long shower or bath, when my nails are soft. This avoids splitting and rough ends.
Good quality flip-flops
are essential for when the day of walking is over. Gives the ole footsies a chance to breathe and stretch out the toesy-wossies. Flip-flops can be like heaven on the footsies in the evening. And they take up very little room and they can double as slippers. Cheap, plastic crappy flip-flops are just
torture devices. Don’t bother. Gotta be good ones, broken in, trusty ones
you know well.
I also make sure my hair and beard are trimmed as close as
possible before leaving. Haircuts, etc.
are always a gamble when traveling.
Sometimes, tragic.
I always take a high quality non-electric toothbrush.
I’ve had a battery powered toothbrush go off in my luggage and in an
airport that grr-rrr-rrr-rrr sound coming
from your luggage is not a sound that promotes a happy ending.
Then an extra pair of glasses and sunglasses. I have lost good glasses in cabs, busses,
hotels and B&B’s all over this country and a couple others. I got hit in the face with a rock in
Barcelona (somebody didn’t like Germans – I am often mistaken for German – for
some weird reason). This fun welcome
broke my glasses and I did not have a spare pair. I saw a lot of Spain peering through the
telescopic lens of my camera.
I generally buy a new hat when I get where I’m going. For one, as just a cheap chotchky to remember the trip, but also it saves luggage
space. For the trip home, I chuck out
one of the dirty pair of socks or underwear to make room for the hat.
In the next blog on Traveling
Companions, I will go over my techno
list; since now we all carry so much of that stuff. That is computers and other gizmos we can’t
live without these days.
Thanks for reading and your subscriptions.
Dalepeterson.us
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