psipsy

Woohoo, one week to Otakon. I have a big wad of preparations to do, but at least a good chunk of that was largely taken care of by the road trip, such as the part where all my necessary personal care items are present and accounted for. What's next is getting my laundry done so I have the usual batch of clean clothes.

One thing I didn't take on my road trip that I tend to take to conventions is a big red suitcase that

rubian77 brought back for me as a replacement for a duffel bag that didn't survive the rigors of checked luggage very well. That's because on road trips, when I check into a hotel/motel for the night, I only need a day's worth of clothes while the rest can stay in the car, not a full week, so a smaller item works better. But for conventions, where I'm going to be in one place for several days or longer, and possibly have a fair amount of loot to show for it, yet I'll want to minimize how many trips back and forth to the car, the big red suitcase shines. Except that it didn't have wheels. So if it has 50lbs of stuff in it, that's what I'd have to lift and carry. Then I discovered the small plastic feet were held on by screws, which came out easily enough. A few casters and some support hardware? We're rolling now. It remains to be seen how well the casters themselves hold up on future trips; if I have any doubts I can always take them back off or add reinforcements or use something else.

Post road trip data:
Total miles: 3572 across 9 states
Fuel used: 116.6 gallons of premium (that's how

nozomichan05 rolls)
Number of pictures and size: 1174; 8.36GB (yay 18-megapixel DSLR)
Total cost (gas, food, hotel, souvenirs): about $2200 for 9 days/8 nights, within the expected range.

In about 5 years, I can expect to have another week of vacation time available per year. That plus the capability of carrying over/borrowing vacation time means that I could have over a month available, which would make for an amazing road trip. It remains to be seen what the health of the girls will be like at that time (Nozomi will be 12 and Ai will be 22), not to mention the flurry of other variables. A lot can happen in 5 years.

Then again, 5 years ago to the day I was in a hotel room at Otakon, and probably drunk/passed out.