Ryan McFarland

1. Pen and paper - Even in the digital world i still need paper and pens on occasion. If you have not already, writing your name, address and phone number on a piece of paper and putting it on top of your stuff inside your luggage can help if your tags are torn off of your luggage in transit. Keep one handy on the plane so you can jot notes of thoughts (like a list of things to steal from a hotel). When you get home keep one by the phone for messages or one at the table for shopping lists or things to do.
2. Toiletries - Of course grabbing the shampoo and conditioner is a good idea. If you use some of them then they will just throw them away anyway. If you use the soap bring that home too -otherwise it will be trashed. Use the bag from the ice bucket or the laundry bag clipped to a hanger in the closet to transport your wet soap home. It is supposedly good for your hair to switch products fairly often. Throwing in a sample size will sure help. But maybe i’m making up the switching products thing.
3. Sewing kit - You should have these stashed everywhere. Have one in the car, at work, camping gear, in your travel bag…
4. Fist full of tissues - Put them in your pocket for the rest of the trip. I get sick often after travel. I get bloody noses sometimes now because i’m used to high humidity.
5. Laundry bags - If you don’t already have a barely used bar of soap in it then you can double bag your toiletry collection or put dirty laundry in it. Once it is home use it as a small trash bag for the laundry room or bathroom.
6. Coffee and tea - I don’t drink coffee but i know plenty of people that do. I especially like finding regional coffees so that i can put them in my brother’s stocking for Christmas. Having a few around our house is good for when we have long term guests. Or it would be good if we had a coffee maker! Some places will also have tea, spiced cider or cocoa.

I stayed at the Seattle Airport Doubletree hotel on my way to and from D.C. It is not possible to make the trip from Petersburg to D.C. in one day now that Alaska Airlines only has one flight a day from Seattle. I used Priceline’s name your price booking service and asked for a three star room by the airport for $50. Adding taxes the room came to under $65. Cena did the same for me the day that I was stuck in Seattle (I was actually in the parking lot while she made the reservation).

It’s a nice hotel but some rooms you have to walk quite a way to get to. They give you a warm chocolate chip cookie to eat just after checking in. There are a few fast food restaurants extremely close (Taco Bell and Jack in the Box are on the same intersection.) And you can walk from the baggage claim area to the hotel in about 15 minutes. They have a free shuttle that runs every 15 minutes also.

The shower head wasn’t so low that i had to stoop and they were quite generous with the toiletries… shampoo, conditioner, shower cap, lotion, facial cleanser and medium size bars of soap. Here are some pictures of the hotel.

When Kevin and i were driving across the country this fall i thought that it would be great to buy my next vehicle in Florida and drive up to Alaska with it. I’ve made quite a few cross-country jaunts now. In 1995 i drove from New York to New Mexico in early May with Scott Schaeffer. In the summer of 1996 Naomi and i moved from New York to Alaska. We drove clear to Bellingham, Washington and tried to put our trailer on the ferry. It was over $500 so we decided to just make the rest of the drive with the darn thing.  I probably should have though. We made it back to Missoula, Montana to head north on the Alaska Highway and ended up spending over $500 on upgrades to the trailer. We kept exploding tires on the hot road. The trailer was overloaded for the size of the axle and the leaf springs. We ended up driving clear to Whitehorse and getting on the ferry in Skagway. When we moved from Sitka we drove from Haines to northern California before turning left and landing in Utah for six months. The spring of 1999 we packed up, moved our stuff to Colorado and then continued on to New York for a month or two before driving back to Colorad,picking up some stuff from storage and then driving north to Prince Rupert, BC to board the ferry and take our summer jobs for another whirl.  That summer i got the position in Petersburg so we flew to Denver and made the drive to Seattle with a U-Haul truck and loaded our belongings onto a container van.  This past fall i flew to DC and Kevin and i drove to LA in two weeks — with a long stop in Indianapolis for a conference.  Soon, Cena and i hope to drive up here from Florida after buying a vehicle for her.  Taking a few weeks to take in the sights of course!