Our Travel Guidelines
I don’t enjoy being dirty; I like to be clean. Realizing that we need some sort of ground rules, some guidelines, to prevent petty arguments about bathing schedules, we’ve put together a simple list of travel guidelines. These are the things we feel we must do to ensure our sanity:
- Shower at least every other day. Preferably every day. Actual shower conditions are unimportant – can be $1 truck stop shower, quarter operated national park shower, solar heated bag shower, plush hotel shower. Basic requirement: water in which to bathe.
- Eat well and healthfully. Cook healthy and tasty foods and keep packaged foods to a minimum. Fast food will be a rare treat. A complicated part of this guideline is that I really want to have yogurt for breakfast every morning. This is strangely important to me.
- Sleep well. That bed had better be as comfortable as we can make it.
- Do anything either one of us wants to do. If Paul wants to stop at the Corn Palace, we will stop at the Corn Palace. If I want to go to the Mormon thrift store, then damn it, I am going to the Mormon thrift store. We won’t have anywhere to be, so we should be wherever we want. We’ve got all the time in the world.
- Cocktail hour is every night at 5pm (travel permitting). Some sort of regular, daily schedule is necessary. Cocktail hour involves the appropriate glasses, ice, a cocktail shaker, and skirting interstate open container laws.
- Be productive. Learn as much as possible. Blog as much as possible.
- Talk to people. Don’t rely on the Google to tell us where to find the laundromat or farmer’s market or grocery store.
- Schedule alone time. No matter how much you like and love someone, 24 hours a day every day will soon become too much.
These guidelines should ensure our basic mental and physical health. Topic of argument that remains open: driving skills.




