Western Adventure – Prologue – The Reluctant Grownup

We have just returned from a three-week-long trip West. All five of us left home June 26, and drove up to northern New Mexico where we left the Prof and Jack at a Boy Scout Ranch on June 29 for a 12 day backpacking trip. The little boys and I tooled around New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California while we waited for them to come off the trail. We picked them up on July 12th, and got home July 15th. I wanna go back.

Before I launch into the exhaustive vacation recap, I thought I’d record here a few things we brought along that were absolutely clutch. For the bulk of the trip, I was the only parent/driver. We spent 1-3 nights in each place, so I knew there would be a lot of moving things in and out and I didn’t want to be fishing around looking for items or hauling the entire safari up hotel stairs a million times. I spent hours thinking, planning, listing, deciding just what to bring and what to leave – our days could entail anything from a 10 hour driving day to a 10 hour hiking day to a day at an amusement park, in a nice hotel, in an awful hotel, with friends or all alone and even a few days at my Scottsdale-based office. I went with a “modular” style of packing, and brought:

one beach bag holding all our swimsuits;
one duffel bag of all our shoes (each of us had flip flops or Crocs, tennis shoes, and water shoes, and I brought my Chacos, hiking boots, and one set of nice leather slides for when we had to be in society);
one duffel bag of all our sweaters and raincoats (which we never needed, but at elevation you never know);
a shower caddy of our shower and dishwashing stuff;
an insulated bag of food like tuna packs, microwave individual mac and cheese, individual packs of peanut butter and honey, coffee, apples, etc.;
one small Yeti cooler that held half and half, jelly, small veg like cut carrots or snap peas, gogurts, string cheese, and small snacky stuff like that;
a bag of my workout stuff (just a few small things – a yoga strap, a stretchy band, a theracane, a TRX);
a small square laundry basket to gather up miscellany like books and hats and chargers, Nalgenes, an old towel for cleaning emergencies, an empty backpack, small purse, and canvas shoulder tote so I could pack daily needs into a day bag appropriate for whatever day it was;
one long huge umbrella/bumbershoot, which I used more for sun protection than rain!;
As for clothes, I brought two carry-on sized suitcases, and packed each with 5 days of stuff for all 3 of us – the itinerary allowed for a few scattered nights of laundry so I could repack. That way we only had to carry in one small suitcase on any given night.

Most places, we only hauled in the applicable suitcase and cooler into the room (plus all electronics so they wouldn’t overheat). We’d just fish needed shoe-changes out of the bag that stayed in the car, and would snag the swimsuits only if it was a swimming day. Our Ford Expedition Max with the third row seats folded down was big enough in the back that I could spread everything out in a single layer and easily spot what was needed and grab just that thing.

Here are a few items that I got for the trip which I highly recommend – links are not affiliate or anything, just stuff I got and liked. [Edited to add – I wrote lengthy captions for each of these and they have DISAPPEARED, how annoying, so I’m having to re-write them, just in case you saw this post appear and disappear]:

These hook onto your headrests and can hold your purse, looped up chargers, anything you want really. V. handy.

This insulated, waterproof trash bin was perfect. It also hangs from the headrest, and the hooks on the sides hold the handles of a plastic grocery bag/trash bin liner so it doesn’t get shoved down in the bottom as you put trash in the opening at the top. I put a bunch of spare grocery bags in the bottom, lined it with a grocery bag which I emptied and replaced each day, and even the mesh pockets on the sides served as great extra cupholders on occasion!

I wore these SPF protective arm covers while driving, and occasionally also while hiking/poolside/at Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo. Your forearms just get a lot of sun in your life, and in the arid punishing Western sun, I preferred to be extra protective. They looked weird as my children chose to repeatedly remind me, but I am forty four and I do what I want (as I repeatedly remind them). I kept them in a small mesh delicates-laundry-bag, along with our masks, and washed them in that bag too.

I made lunches most days on our trip – PB & J plus carrot sticks, goldfish, snap peas, that sort of thing. I looked up bento boxes first but hoo boy those things are pricey, so I ended up with these. They were perfect except that I wish the big section was a little more shaped like a sandwich. I ended up having to cut up the sandwiches into multiple weird small shapes to get them to fit. When not in use these things nested nicely, so took up minimal space.

We already had these vacuum insulated tumblers, and they were CLUTCH. When you go from swampy below-sea-level New Orleans to arid 7,000 foot desert, a gal gets thirsty. We got into a routine that each morning Liam would fetch ice from the hotel icemaker and fill these to the top, then fill them with water. The ice would stay cold all day, even in the hot car. I had a cheap gallon jug of water that we would use to top them up. The kids asked for top-ups all day, and it reduced the amount of whining for Gatorade or Cokes at gas stations. We had Nalgenes for hikes, but these were our car cups, and we used them every day. I washed them every few days.

I already had this hat. I like it because it rolls up small to tuck into a backpack if you don’t need it, and the top is open so that makes it less hot than a traditional straw hat. We each had a baseball cap too, but I preferred this wide brim most days. The only negative is that it doesn’t cover the back of your neck, but if I could feel it burning I’d just scooch the hat around to put the “seam” to the side. It looked weird, but as we established above with the arm covers, I am willing to look weird in the name of sun protection.

This is not what my shower caddy looks like, but same idea. I kept my full sized Eucerin SPF 15 lotion, Cetaphil cleanser, and the boys’ body wash in here, plus razors, small travel shampoo and conditioner, and foot scrub in one side. The other side held the first aid kit (described below), a couple covid tests, our dish liquid and scrubber, and my pills. We kept deodorant and toothbrushes and such in separate small zipped bags, but this was nice to just hoist out of the car and straight to the hotel bathroom.

Driving is sleepy work, and I relied heavily on hard jolly ranchers to keep me awake on long drives. I have a dentist appointment next week and I might hear about it from them, but I figured slightly sugared up teeth is a better health outcome than a fiery rollover crash due to a sleepy driver, so there ya go.

I kept super long chargers in the car. The Ford has car play, meaning you plug in your phone and then all your apps (including google maps) appear on the car screen, so you don’t have to look at your phone to navigate them. With the long charger, I could give a kid my phone to take pics of the scenery, change the podcast, look up stuff to do, etc. and not lose my Car Play connection.

I already had this pill sorter. For the trip I just pulled out the individual containers I needed (plus a couple extra) and put them in a soft sided packing cube, and it was perfect and easy to keep up with the pills.

We already have these reusable, dishwasher safe dish scrubbers. I packed a fresh one on this trip, and it was great – it dries quickly and doesn’t get grotty and stinky like a sponge would. I was able to wash the lunch dishes, our water cups, whatever else we needed and then just stick this sponge and the small dishsoap into my shower caddy, no probs.

I learned on a Disney trip years ago that nothing revitalizes aching and exhausted feet after a long day of walking like a foot scrub. I always take it on trips – seems like a luxury, but it is so helpful for enduring through several days of walking. I didn’t have this exact one, but any one will do – I perch on the edge of the bathtub, run a shallow bit of lukewarm water, and scrub my feet and calves, then pat dry and rub in some lotion. Magic.

My multi-prong charger doesn’t look like this, but this is the idea. I left the charging cords in here – a couple for phones, fitbit, earbuds, etc. Easy to move in and out of a hotel.

This game pad was so fun. Craiggy loved it. Couple other fun car things linked below.

This one lived in the glove box. Fun little cards, some lame, some good. Very small, fits in the palm of your hand.

There are twelve license plate sticker booklets in each packet. Not one. So if you have three kids, for example, no need to buy three of these. Just one will suffice. (Anybody want a license plate sticker book? I have 33 extra).

Craiggy spent hours reading us these riddles. Lots of fun. The book itself is not well made, pages kept falling out, but it served its purpose.

Other key items we relied upon included:

Audiobooks – we checked out audiobooks from the Libby app, which links your library card to your library’s e-book and audiobook collection. We listened mostly to Rick Riordan novels – the Magnus Chase series – perfect for an 8 yo and 12 yo, and I enjoyed them too. We also listened to The Watsons Go to Birmingham, some books by Nick Offerman (a little language but not bad), and I put several Bill Bryson audiobooks on hold but they never came off hold so. Oh well. Next time.
Mad Libs app on my phone. Self explanatory – you don’t need the Mad Libs book and a pen! You can do it right on your phone!
Podcasts – the boys loved Flightless Bird, a podcast attached to Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert (my fave, but even for a pretty uncensored mom like me, it’s not really appropriate for their age!) In Flightless Bird, a New Zealander stuck in America discusses uniquely American things with humor and affection and occasional bafflement. We also love The Big Fib, where an adult expert and an adult lying and pretending to be an expert are brought on and asked questions about different topics by a kid, who then has to pick who’s the real expert and who’s the liar.
Kitchen kit – I bought a Caboodles style tackle box thing to contain my kitchen stuff, and it absolutely did not work – too small. So then I got just a small shoebox sized rubbermaid box, and it was much better – I’ll give the Caboodles to some niece or nephew. In my rubbermaid I took a few small containers of spices (cumin, oregano, chili powder, red pepper flakes, onion powder, garlic powder), a small plastic picnic-sized salt and pepper, travel sized olive oil, Cutco knife (with sheaf for the blade), can opener, bottle opener, ziplock bags in various sizes, a few folded up pieces of foil, some serving spoons, and some plastic cutlery. I also took a small cutting board – maybe 10 inches diameter, in the shape of an apple – and I used that thing a lot. I also separately brought just two sizes of tupperware storage container, and used both several times so they were worth the space they took.
First aid kit – I packed first aid items into a small soft-sided packing cube as well, and it worked great – I could throw it into our beach bag, or hiking backpack, or whatever we needed for the day. Besides the usual bandaids and aquaphor and children’s chewable pain meds, I also had small scissors, moleskin in lots of sizes, powdered children’s Tylenol (came in very handy when Craig got a tummy bug, it dissolves on the tongue so he didn’t throw it up), Cortisol for bug bites, nail clippers, travel Kleenex packs, Claritin, Immodium, Tums, Zyrtec, and a foot brace for my old lady foot. The MVP here was the moleskin – so glad I had it, so needed for all the hiking.
Crappy towel – I sensed having a crappy old beach towel might come in handy, and boy did it – to clean up spills, to catch vomit on one particularly awful drive, to sit on while eating a picnic lunch on the ground. I might bring two next time.

Things I brought that I would not bring were I to do this again include a ceramic serving bowl and some mugs (thought I might need them to cook microwave meals in hotels, but never did use them), laundry soap and dryer sheets (at all our laundry places, they were available), and Cup O’ Noodles (they took up a ton of space). That’s genuinely probably it.

Things I wished I’d brought included my callus sander (cracks in my heels were painful and the sander is not that big, I could’ve managed to fit it), a large cloth dirty clothes bag that I just couldn’t find before we left (the plastic bags we ended up using kept ripping), portable phone charger (I had to buy one in Disneyland for THIRTY AMERICAN DOLLARS), and a small medicine ball (good for exercise but also for rolling out sore muscles).

Last tip to record for posterity – when I was leading outdoor national park trips years ago as a young free lady, I learned a trick. We called it the “day song” – you pick a song that you play every day of your trip, usually first thing in the morning if you can. Then, ever after when you hear that song, you’ll think of your trip. The Prof picked “Strange Magic” by Electric Light Orchestra, which the children pretended to hate and loudly complained about. But I tell you, when those kids are forty they will hear that song and think of our adventure.

I shall describe the adventure shortly. I kept detailed notes throughout, just never had a chance to fully write them up since I did all the driving. Join us for a fun trek across the Western states!