Tactical Pit Stop

The Great American Zig-Zag Day 164 | Lexington, KY

Who knew that driving constantly would mean constant tire rotations? Because it takes a full 1.5 hours of my day every time, and I don’t have access to transit while it happens, these pit stops feel extremely unproductive. However, I also decided today was a laundry day, so I felt even less productive. So, I decided today would be a tactical pit stop and focused on maintaining my journey for the future.

I resupplied at Costco, filmed two more ice cream reviews, did a bit of car organization, and did some project reading. It’s funny. When I left for my trip, I was worried I had underpacked and that I would be missing so many of my daily conveniences. However, now that I am 6 months in, I could probably do without 30% of the volume I have packed in my car. I don’t need more than two swim suits, I have way too many formal clothes, I have an entire medicine cabinet and junk drawer of stuff I will never need, and my organization system is organized chaos at best. I am not being too hard on myself however because this is my first time doing a trip like this. I do know however that this trip has made me an extremely efficient packer and I don’t foresee any future trips where I take anything beyond the strictly necessary.

One major life lesson I have extrapolated from organizing my car recently is that every item carried is associated with an opportunity cost. When I started my trip, I held 6 rolls of toilet paper and 2 rolls of paper towels. I imagined if I was camping, it would be good to have. But I have yet to use a single sheet of personal toilet paper and I have maybe used 6 sheets of paper towels. So I donated all my tp and the second roll of towels. If I get close to running out before the trip’s end (highly unlikely), I’ll just buy more at the grocery store. Same goes for cosmetics. I have all my earrings and nail polishes. Why? I am not going to have the time nor the opportunity to wear either accessory. And why did I bring 15 t-shirts? I could have easily gotten by with an 8-pack of solid colored t-shirts.

It’s not as though storing this extra bulk is necessarily harming my ability to exist on this trip, but the more space my stuff takes up, the less space I have to sleep, the less space I have for food & water storage, the less space I can allocate to hauling extra cargo. For example, when I went to NYE, I went on a Costco run beforehand to get some champagne. I barely had enough space for the box to fit in my car. If I had less unnecessary stuff, I would have had zero issue. I low key wish I could go back to Maryland for a day or two just to do a proper drop-off of the stuff I don’t need. I didn’t have enough experience when I went back on the three month mark to fully de-dupe, but I did drop off some stuff.

I also feel as though the sub-trunk isn’t getting the utilization I would like. Being an EV, I have so many extra compartments for storage. My front trunk is being properly utilized storing food and my charging cord, but I don’t even remember what is being stored in my sub-trunk. It might be towels? Either way, I can’t easily access it because of all the stuff piled on top of the hatch. A 20lb weighted blanket is no feather.

I decided tomorrow is going to be a tourist day. It has been a while since I have had one of those. A trip to the Buffalo Trace Distillery, a drive around the Red River Gorge, and a proper meal of Kentucky fried chicken (or chicken and dumplings). I’ll resume my rural exploration after that.

I closed off my day with a 4 hour D&D session. For clarity in future entries, I am currently in two campaigns. One is called Yonder in Yvelle (the one I played in tonight) and the other is called Apex of the Void. In Yonder in Yvelle (YiY), we got into some serious sci-fi out of nowhere. One moment we were falling down a massive pit, the next moment we were in a spaceship being chastised by one of the player’s in-game father. My character Tar almost died from a psyonic shock and now sees a little guy on his chest whenever he goes to sleep.

I love playing D&D with this group, but something I recognized after the session concluded is that I don’t get to see this specific group of people in person pretty much ever. With the AotV group, I see them at least twice a year, but with YiY, it is a group solely focused on D&D. So it is really special to be playing with them again since they are all very close to me and they are some of the funniest, most creative people I know. I am easily inspired by passion, and everyone in YiY has it flowing out of every pore. I am grateful we are able to find regular time to play again after our several-year hiatus.

Today, while feeling slightly boring for the first half, was a day well spent. I made sure my chariot will continue to pull me, refilled my supply of clean socks & underwear, and got some much needed social interaction.

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