Alaska

In about 5 hours, I'll be headed for our largest state. I'll be hanging around with friends, riding the train, doing a LOT of hiking, hopefully eating fresh salmon, and did I mention hiking?

I've had the packing *list* ready for a week. I'm only assembling it today. For some reason, this triggered me to plow through EVERY stack of clothes I own. This is a task I've been putting off for a year that I need to do to thin out my closet, so when do I do it? When it's not on the critical path. Although I did find some useful hiking stuff. I haven't been using my serious technical gear here because of (a) not as much hiking and (b) short hikes and (c) hot weather. Turns out I had a couple piles of likely stuff that I hadn't used in a while that yielded choice goods. Doesn't mean I have an attractive hiking tops, but I did find my 2nd set of hiking pants.

Now I have a big pile of probably need and a modest pile of want. I'm trying to remind myself that I can buy souvenier clothes there, so it's not like I'll run out. Thinning out is going to be my hardest thing.

Here's my dain bramaged timeline
Laundry - early in week
Make gorp - first today
Put on some root touch up hair color
Repack first aid kit
Sort through all clothes
Try on just about everything I usually like
Pare down to giant pile
Realize I want that yellow shirt and do one more laundry load
Re-copy my travel itinerary
Oh crap! Still need toiletries!
Thin out clothes
Stuff all in bags
Doublecheck wallet
Figure out parking situation
Shower and dress
Fly to Alaska (Anchorage, train to Fairbanks, Denali)

I've been stressing out all week about not being packed despite knowing I had the list, the laundry, and all day today. I even woke up early for me (9am). But today, I'm feeling kinda zen about it all interspersed with short panicked intervals. I should really figure out the parking situation...

But Yay! Alaska! With friends!