My PTO request for the Canada trip has been approved, and all parties in leadership are aware I'll be out during that week. That was the final hurdle to overcome for me. I will now clear some space on my credit cards (after all, I did use those cards while traveling to NC and back), finish packing up, and when that flight lifts off to the Great White North, goddammit, I will be so ready.
We are there for a little over a full week, as two days of the trip are travel-only. We fly out of Omaha into Philadelphia (which I will now be able to add to the list of airports/cities I've visited, as I've never been there before -- but I hear it's always sunny there) and from Philadelphia directly into Halifax. When we return, it's the same route in reverse.
I have spent this week, off and on anyway, preparing supplies. I ordered a new phone stand charger, which will go directly into my backpack, and separate plugs for it. I ordered little jars of Noxzema so that I can shave while I'm there without taking a pressurized can of shaving cream or the entire mug/brush shaving soap set that I use here at home.
As an aside, if you're a guy and you've never used Noxzema -- like, normal, blue-jar plain Noxzema -- as a shaving cream, holy hell are you missing out on one of the best shaving experiences ever. Around twenty years ago, I read something online about people using Noxzema for shaving, so I figured I'd try it. I've never had a better shave. It's a bit pricey, and it can absolutely be messy, so I don't use it every time (that's what the mug/brush kit is for, which I like almost as much) but when I want to look and feel my absolute best, the Noxzema shave is the way to go. I will have to touch up the beard the day of/night before the wedding, and there's no easier alternative than to just toss a good disposable razor and a small jar of Noxzema into the travel bag. Until then, aside from a little weekly upkeep here and there, I'm letting the beard grow back out evenly between now and the trip. It takes forever for my beard to really grow out anyway.
I have also ordered a few types of vegan jerky to test out before the trip; it is a tradition of mine that when traveling to Canada, I always have a bag full of vegan jerky to munch on in airports, in the hotel room, etc. It started several years ago when Walmart put my favorite, Beyond Jerky, on deep clearance -- which allowed me to get proverbial cases of it all at once pretty cheaply. Beyond Jerky, sadly, now seems to be discontinued as I haven't been able to find it in stores or online in well over a year:
Well, shit.
That's really sad to me because it was great. So, I've been trying to find a suitable replacement that isn't ungodly expensive or, if ungodly expensive, actually puts enough into a bag where it's worth the price. This can also get pricey, so I'm trying a few different varieties found on Amazon one pack at a time. The plan is, well, whichever one I like best, order a fuckton of it and stuff it all into my travel backpack.
The travel backpack, for Canada, is always light and left at least half empty. All of my mostly-important stuff and clothing goes into the checked suitcase, leaving the travel backpack (which is all I took to NC) for my passport, a change of clothes, a spare pair of shoes/glasses, my pills and electronics (such as my mp3 players, vapes, etc) and small food items like the jerky or some protein bars, etc. On the way there, the backpack is a contingency plan of sorts -- if the plane loses my luggage or it's delayed coming in and they have to deliver it to the family homestead later (or what have you), I've at least got a change of clothes, my meds, passport, and food. It's not the end of the world is what I'm saying. I can work around a lot of things with that. No, it's not ideal, but it's workable.
On the way back, the travel backpack is usually bursting full of Canadian candy bars, ketchup chips, some of the new wardrobe purchases I've made, and any other odds and ends that I can bring home. This is planned, this is travel-by-design for me. And most of the time I am amazingly efficient at it.
I may have mentioned this earlier, but I have hit my weight-loss goal for the time being -- or at least, the goal I had from 2018 until now -- I am, finally, back in the 200s again for the first time since the Bush administration. Or, at least I was before I went to NC for a week and ate like an absolute asshole. I have not weighed myself since I returned home. I also don't expect to be in the 200s by the time I get back from Canada; when I am there, I absolutely partake of all of the best foods the country has to offer -- it's not just the poutines, but it's their breads and cheeses, their vegan lunch meats (far superior to those I can get stateside), their sodas, their ketchup and all-dressed chips, their (also far superior) Canadian candy bars, Tim Hortons, etc. I absolutely let myself go and throw caution to the wind when I'm in Canada, and it is so very worth it.
But, I digress.
I should be done stockpiling supplies by the end of next week, and then phase II of the preparations can begin -- making sure I maximize all space while also making sure I bring all the essentials. As I mentioned in my last entry here, the suitcase is currently a "dry run" where I am just checking to see how much space things take up. I'll be removing and replacing a lot of the stuff in it, and will constantly be arranging and rearranging items for weight/weight distribution and just general space likely up until the night before we leave. I am slightly obsessive about it. Daisy thinks I'm batshit crazy about it, in fact. But I am meticulous, and I am a planner. Everything is done by design. I know how long each of my vapes last, because I use them every day. I know how many Nicorette mints I tend to go through during a day of travel through airports. I know what shoes, and what pants, to wear for maximum comfort during travel. I know how long I can live in a single hoodie and pants before I absolutely need to change/wash them at the family homestead. I know how long my mp3 players' batteries last on a full charge. These are likely afterthoughts to most folks, but not to me.
We have heard back from our Catsitter lady and she may be able to watch the cats again while we're in Canada -- we offered to pay her more to offset the cost of gas, as the other job she's doing during that time is across town about, oh, fifteen miles away. She's considering it, at least, and is going to see if she can work it into her schedule. I'm almost willing to pay her whatever she asks, even if it would normally be an exorbitant fee, because the cats like her so much and she was wonderful with them when we were in NC. I can't stress how absolutely at ease I was with her taking care of the kids.
I am letting the dye fade out of my hair for the next few weeks -- I will not re-up the color in it, I will not touch it up or treat it with color-protecting products -- I am letting it fade out so that a week or so before the trip, Daisy can re-do it with the new black dye I purchased from Sally Beauty Supply a few weeks ago and have it be all fresh, but with a week or so buffer in order to let any excess wash out and make the hair look more natural. My normal hair is growing back in at the roots, and as it's naturally medium brown it's not too hard to get it to absorb the color needed to make it fully black. I'm eschewing the Just For Men beard dye this time around, though.
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