A few weeks ago, if you peeked into my home, you would have found me packing for travel. I was on my way to Utah to visit my kids and grandkids. Wahoo!!!!

While a bit rusty on the packing procedure, it felt good recovering some sense of normalcy.

My wardrobe is in process of getting narrowed down to a few outfits that I enjoy — all easily washable and pack-able. Too bad the quest began as the world shut down. But yay for now. It worked 🙂

On this trip I knew I would need:

• Clothes that would sustain playtime with young children.
• A fancier outfit for Easter Sunday.
• Gear for a potential snowboard excursion (Snow pants, Under Armour, winter gloves with wrist guards built-in, snowboard boots). I’d borrow a board and helmet, but needed my other personal gear.
• A swimsuit for a possible Hot Springs visit.
• Enough clothes for 12 days away from home.
• I also wanted to bring my Oculus Quest 2 so I could play with the kids, and we could share the headset and play each others while in the same room.

As packing began the day before I was going to leave, I realized that my carry-on bag was at the New York house, and I was in Massachusetts. Ack!

Thankfully, resources were at my literal fingertips.

I reached out to my team asking for expert opinions since several of them are nomads. Grounded nomads at the moment, but nomads in experience and heart. It was bittersweet sharing all our travel tips. But they had good ones. And saved me.

One asked if I had the compression bags we often use for travel, and I said they were at the other house, so they recommended Ziploc bags. Brilliant!

After mentioning that to my husband, he told me he had his own compression bags there in Massachusetts. They were right in front of my face the entire time! Super helpful.

Thanks to his donation of those bags, the traveling tips of my colleagues, and my new-ish wardrobe, I fit everything into two bags.

At first I had two backpacks. That didn’t work so well since they were the wrong shape for the compressed bags I was using. Then I remembered that I had a basic bag that might do the job, and it worked beautifully.

I took this pic of my bags upon arrival in Salt Lake City while I was waiting for the kids to pick me up.

Everything on my original list is packed there. Even the Oculus. It was a great start to an amazingly wonderful trip.