Today was a big day, in more ways than one. What better way to celebrate the day before leaving for Chicago for a month than to celebrate on July 4th. I started off my day hiking in Oakland with my family. We left home at about 10 and came back at 1. It was nice to spend time together, especially because we have all been quite busy, me with school, extracurriculars, and work, my brother mostly with school and my parents with work. I'm definitely going to miss them over this next month, and I hope they miss me too (at least a little bit)!
This will be the longest amount of time I have spent away from home alone. In eighth grade, I was away in France for two weeks, but I was with people I had known for a while, and the difference between two weeks and three will probably be quite noticeable.
After our outing, we all packed as my brother and my parents are also flying out tomorrow, they're going to see the Grand Canyon. Packing turned out to be much easier than I thought. Don had told us that we were allowed two checked in bags, plus a carry-on, plus a personal item, which seemed like overkill to me, and I was sure that I didn't want to drag around three suitcases and backpack whenever we changed hotels/dorms. But the question remained: how much should I bring?
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| A month's worth of clothes |
I settled on taking advantage of both checked bags because we have nice big suitcases with the four wheels, and one backpack. I had finished stuffing my first suitcase full of clothes and the loaner items Don brought me yesterday (thanks Don!) when I remembered that it had to weigh less than 45 lbs (50 officially, but leaving room for souvenirs and error). I crossed my fingers that I wouldn't have to repack and weighed it. 35 pounds! It was clear sailing from there, and my second suitcase weighed in around the same as the first.
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| Don's loaner items |
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| Two finished suitcases! |
With the packing done, my neighbor had asked me to check on her dog and play with him a bit as she was gone for the day. I don't have a dog that will miss me, so I guess I'll settle for the neighbor's. Plus, I earned a couple of bucks to buy an extra shake on the trip.
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| What a good boy |
To round off a pretty nice day, in true 4th of July spirit I hit the grill to cook some bacon-wrapped sirloin steaks. I love cooking, and one thing I'll miss on the trip will definitely be making my own meals, as strange as it sounds. But man, what a good last meal to send me off!
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| Hoping for some good dorm food! |
And now, off to bed to be ready to leave for El Cerrito High at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning.
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| One last sunset (in California) |
Bacon wrapped barbecue? That's just plain mean.
ReplyDeleteI splurged and had two ears of corn on the cob but that was all I had time for. That was actually breakfast since to was the first meal of the day even if it was served at 8:45 PM.
It's bad enough you had to describe out but a photo? I repeat--that's just plain mean.