I started driving south for only the second time in two months and kept getting little notes from my GPS that there was ridiculous traffic around the next corner and it remapped me.  I followed these the first two times but after it told me to move from a 6-lane highway to what looked like a suburban development, I assumed it had gone loony and ignored it; a time-consuming mistake.  The drive from Waltham home was supposed to take a little over five hours, but again, the American Recovery and Reconstruction Act destroyed that possibility as large stretches of road were reduced to one lane from three.  My GPS knew something, I should have listened.

I drove south and after forgetting to get off the NJ Turnpike I made it home at around 5:30 AM.

My father was up, he hugged me, and we both went back to sleep.

Pictures from Phone

I took some pictures with my phone rather than my camera and found some neat ones:

Stuff Usage

As I unpacked my car I put everything into two piles: what I used, and what I didn’t.  Here’s how the piles stacked up.

Used

• All shirts, shorts, socks, and pairs of underwear
• Winter gloves and ushanka (King’s Canyon National Parks)
• Winter coat (Great Smokey Mountains National Park)
• Fleece (various high places)
• Hat (Joshua Tree National Park)
• All pieces of camping equipment including portable pump
• Giant portable battery pack
• Both laptops
• Sandals, boots, and black slip-ons
• Every cable in my bag and back-up computer crap box

Not Used

• Pair of dress pants (you never know)
• Canon G9 point-and-shoot
• 15W back-up battery
• Cooler

Stuff I Picked Up Along the Way

• Rechargeable air pump
• 15 foot piece of CAT5 cable

Stuff I Wished I Had Brought

• My gigapan pano stitcher

I’d probably ditch the cooler if I did it again but would otherwise pack the same after adding in the gigapan.  At the end, I was able to get everything I brought with me to fit in the trunk and the foot space of the front passenger seat.