Before and After

Craig:

Anyone who watches Wheel of Fortune knows that "Before and After" puzzles are the easiest ones to solve...well for the Brizzle anyway. But Pat Sajak aside, I would like to take this opportunity to write about a different kind of before and after. When you are about to leave on a trip that really does not have a return date set, there are a lot of packing issues that must be resolved. If you are me, you must decide which four of your fourteen jackets you want to take, or which pair of shorts you would rather wear. Do I have enough khaki pants for every occasion? Do I have the perfect jacket for every weather scenario? What if it starts to rain while hiking through a mountainside vineyard? These are all excellent questions. After a while, you just have to buckle down and leave some stuff behind. Here is the before picture:



And after about eight hours of diligent packing and organizing we finally came to this end result:



Thanks to the nice folks at North Face (they make an excellent duffel) we were able to fit all of our clothes into one duffel bag. The other duffel has camping and dive gear, and the two small bags have jackets, shoes, electronics, and any other little thing we deemed necessary for NZ life. Not too bad I would have to say. And whatever did not make it into the four bags will be stored at D & S storage in Wayne, NE (Thanks, Mom and Dad).

Parting shot: my best new kitty friend...Elberta Bojangles. Once roaming the alleys behind Bojangles in Elberta, GA, she is now living in the lap of luxury with our good friends Robbie and Bryn.