Traveling a little too lightly

I love traveling and was super lucky to spend this past weekend in Austin, Texas. Not only did we get to enjoy celebrating two friends' wedding but I also got to meet Austin Eco Mama Megyn! She's an awesome lady and I was thrilled that we got to enjoy being outdoors and having a tasty lunch together. 

While the weekend was awesome, it had a few funny mishaps. I definitely learned that a little minimalism is good but sometimes it helps not to be trying to pack as little as humanly possible. Neither one of us had traveled by plane in over a year and we'd forgotten a few things.

If you're going to be stuck on a plane for hours, don't forget your entertainment at home!  I hate traveling without anything to do and yet managed to bring an audio book but no headphones. I spent $10 on new headphones. That's okay, I now have a spare for the office. 

If you do bring entertainment, don't leave it in the seat pocket! The Chief Engineer is mildly addicted to his kindle. Unfortunately the addiction wasn't strong enough to keep his kindle from finding a permanent home in the seatback pocket of a Boeing jet. I don't use mine much so I suppose he'll be getting that one instead of us purchasing a new one. 

A spare copy of your itinerary will keep you from accidentally leaving your car at the wrong airport. D.C. has a lot of airports and it's not uncommon to purchase airplane tickets that have you leaving from one airport but coming home to another. We neglected to print out copies of our itinerary and just went on our memories. Unfortunately this meant that we left our car at the Baltimore airport but found out on our way back that our return flight would take us into the Reagan airport in DC, a good hour away from where our car was parked! The Chief Engineer heroically metro'ed it up to Baltimore, got our car, and drove home after I took the train home from Reagan. 

Girl Scout cookies shouldn't be dinner! Food in airports and on airplanes is expensive. In fact, sometimes it's downright non-existent when you only have 1/2 hour between flights, like we did on our way home. I had potato chips and girl scout cookies for dinner on the way back because we forgot to pack a meal. 

In the end all was good and we had a very enjoyable trip. But next time I'm definitely going to write down what I need in advance and I'll follow that list. A few extra items would've saved us a bit of money and aggravation. But still, it was an awesome trip. Thanks again to Megyn for the wonderful afternoon out!