Relocation Update

Sometime tomorrow, a package should arrive. As soon as it does, I depart Tempe for Cooler climes. I've been going over gear, equipment, vehicular preparedness, routes, timing and weather, while creating an USB OS X boot stick and trying to transfer a few datas from my hard drives up to the internet and retrieve other bits from the internet down to my machine. Lots going on, and more to come, too.

I think it's time for a travel checklist:

1.    Weather                        So far, things look rather good for travel. Low chances of precipitation, with generally clear skies. There could be wind, however, so I’m watching out for that.

2.    Vehicle                          I’ve been getting the Gila Monster ready for a long trip. Tires, gas, oil have been checked, and the problem with the battery not holding a charge was easily fixed by replacing the six year old battery with a brand new one (it wasn’t covered anymore by the two year warranty, but the auto parts guy took $15 for trading in the old one at the time of sale).

3.    Equipment                     The equipment is the stuff that lives in or near the Gila Monster, so this includes the five gallon water can, tools, blankets, a tent, camping stove, fuel, matches, some canned food and such. This also includes the Gila Monster’s extensive ten-year-old highway map library for the western United States and a few National Forests too.

4.    Gear                             Yeah, this includes the photo stuff, tripods, and cameras, off camera flash, film holders, film (yes, 35mm and 4”x5”), batteries, chargers, bags and sleeves. This also covers clothes, laptop, hard drives, accessories and the accompanying goodies.

5.    Other Goodies                The catchall for things that missed the other super broad categories. These include coffee! (I think the exclamation point should become the final character in any good spelling of the word), the package, a couple good books, Green Chile, window cleaning rag and a GPS for backup.

So now I’m trying to think of a way to attach the point and shoot to the dash and have it record a low-res video of my drive. I’ve got room for days of crappy movie footage, but there would be a plan going in to shooting, and I’ve got space for editing. Time will tell on that project.

 I will be tweeting progress, so stay tuned for departure and trip info!