Talking Trash

Well not trash exactly, but that pile of stuff that you try and fit into whatever luggage you (and the airlines) have allotted yourself. I don't know about you, but the suitcase is invariably just too small for your stuff. There appears to be a natural constant like PI, let's call it SI (I don't know why, but lets try), whose value is approximately 1.1. Thus if you have L cubic feet of luggage capacity, you have L*SI cubic feet of stuff.

And how does one pack for an extended trip like this anyhow? The old rule of bringing a change of underwear for each day, plus an extra, doesn't work as the day count moves into the dozens. Add to that the fact that we start in what is likely to be a late winter climate (Rapid City May average temperature range: 52/35) and pass through Death Valkey and Las Vegas in early June (Death Valley June average temperature range: 102/90). So we're looking at a lot of stuff and complexity here, folks.

Luggage at airport, February 2007

Now let's layer on all the non-clothing stuff. As I mentioned above, Guitar Man may be the name but photography's the game. And you can't pack your cameras and lenses in your checked luggage. If you do, then you're likely to find at the luggage carousel one of two things: a big empty space where your gear used to be, or a pile of parts where your gear used to be. So you need to carry your photo gear on board and hope the gate police don't say those words you dread the most: "I'm afraid you'll have to gate check that bag, sir".

To be continued ...