When you forget to pack...

[SteveSueMac]

God I can be a doofus sometimes!

Forgot to pack our camp chairs. I know - first world problem to be sure :-)

Thankfully, this trip is about 45 minutes from home and DW made the trip back for the chairs. Also forgot Daisy's leash with ground screw. Sheesh! Over excited to hit the road I guess. I've forgotten meds too and that gets solved with a call to CVS.

What have you forgotten and how have you solved for that??

[Protagonist]

There's only one time I've forgotten something I just couldn't do without.

On one trip, I forgot to pack a spare insulin pen. I had enough for about three days left in the pen I was using, but I was on a seven-day trip. Luckily I remembered less than an hour after departing from home, so I just turned around to get it. I arrived at the campground a couple hours later than I intended, but still had just barely enough daylight to get set up.

If I'd been farther down the road before I remembered, well, then there still wouldn't have been much of a problem. I make a point of carrying copies of all my prescriptions— including my eyeglasses prescription— in my Airstream Interstate in case I have to bug out for a hurricane. I might have had to pay full price for the scrip, since the refill would have been too soon for Blue Cross to pay their share (they won't pay for out-of-schedule refills), but I could have gotten more insulin if I really needed to.

That's also why all of my prescriptions (except my eyeglasses) are filled at the Walmart pharmacy; no matter where I go in North America, there's always a Walmart somewhere along my route.

[Sbb]

Forgot meds last week(although I did leave in a hurry one day sooner than planned, needed to avoid a storm) and this week, well.....I am finaly in venue with power(5 days of boon docking last week) and hubs who unhooked the shore power from home, left the adapter at home i triedtwo. walmarts, no luck, gave up, this is only a three nighter.

One time we forgot one of our five kids! Hey it happens, always a lot of confusion when loading up. We went back

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by Sbb

Forgot meds last week(although I did leave in a hurry one day sooner than planned, needed to avoid a storm) and this week, well.....I am finaly in venue with power(5 days of boon docking last week) and hubs who unhooked the shore power from home, left the adapter at home i triedtwo. walmarts, no luck, gave up, this is only a three nighter.

One time we forgot one of our five kids! Hey it happens, always a lot of confusion when loading up. We went back

Did you forget the kid because you were off your meds?

[m.hony]

I keep medicine in the trailer. I keep chairs in the trailer.

[BAB]

I kind of duplicate the medicine chest in my house in my trailer. Since I use the trailer a lot, I'm pretty careful to make sure I replenish stuff as I use it. The nice thing about my set up is my trailer is about 75 feet from my back door, and when I'm headed out, I pull it out of its shed into the driveway for the load-up. Oh, that takes about 20 minutes, BTW! Now, if I left the camp chairs....hmmmm, not gonna happen as mine stay stored in there!

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by m.hony

I keep medicine in the trailer. I keep chairs in the trailer.

Insulin has to be refrigerated, and I don't leave the fridge in my Airstream turned on 24/7/365. So my meds are something I have to load for each trip, same as the refrigerated/frozen food.

But I do keep chairs in my Airstream. And bedding and towels. And a week's worth of clothes. And a week's worth of non-perishable food. And cookware. All part of my hurricane bug-out kit as well as my camping kit.

[Olie]

One time we were going to drive about 400 miles the first day out. We were so excited about getting away for a few weeks. We had the AS packed the day before and decided to get an early start so we got up about 4:30am, loaded the few personal things, locked up the house and off we went about 5:30am.

Probably everyone does the same thing the first few miles of any trip. You start thinking about what you may have forgot. I was asking wife if she packed this or that and she was asking me the same thing. After about 30 miles she asked me where I put the cell phone. I told her I thought she got it. Well you know how this story ends.

Good thing we were only 30 miles into the trip. After turning around and picking up the phone we lost only about 1 hour driving time. So much for getting up early.

[cwf]

My wife LOVES lists... usually helpful!

#3 on the sign leaving the KOA in Alma, AR, was 'Wife aboard?"

[A W Warn]

We went on a two week trip to FL and left the front door open.
Another trip we left the garage door open and doors unlocked, but our neighbor notice and closed it.
Forgot our folding tables last week.
Forgot a prescription a couple years ago.

Can't remember if I forgot anything else but I'm sure I did!

Every time we leave I tell DW if we forgot something Walmart will always have another if we can't do without it what ever it might be.

[polarlyse]

I forgot something once but for the life of me I can't remember what it was !!!!

[Protagonist]

Originally Posted by cwf

My wife LOVES lists... usually helpful!

#3 on the sign leaving the KOA in Alma, AR, was 'Wife aboard?"

What number was "Kids aboard?"

As they say, when your memory goes, you can just forget it!

[Phoenix]

We load up, hook up, and get everybody buckled in their seats. Then, we sit in front of the house with the engine running for about 5-10 minutes while everyone gets settled and figures out what they forgot. On one occasion, after multiple trips back inside the house to get stuff our granddaughters had forgotten, and we sat so long that one of our neighbors came over to see what the problem was.

We didn't forget anything leaving the house. However, later, I lost the slinky on the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado, between Durango and Silverton; and I couldn't stop to go back to pick it up due to traffic and no shoulder on that highway section. I got a new one at the Montrose WalMart; and, of course, it wouldn't fit in the storage tube.

Also, one granddaughter left her cell phone on the toilet paper dispenser in a truck-stop bathroom stall. Thank goodness there are still honest people in this world. When we got back to the truck stop almost an hour later, her phone was under the counter. The cleaning person had found it and given it to the cashier. -- New rule for granddaughters: Electronics stay in the TV when we stop at truck stops.

[MrUKToad]

We've not forgotten anything significant and we never stray too far from civilization so it's easy enough to re-equip if necessary. It made me think, though, about the things we would turn back to pick up. Meds, wallet, passport, phone would be on the list I guess, all that personal stuff that you can't get in Walmart!

[slowmover]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

Insulin has to be refrigerated, and I don't leave the fridge in my Airstream turned on 24/7/365. So my meds are something I have to load for each trip, same as the refrigerated/frozen food.

But I do keep chairs in my Airstream. And bedding and towels. And a week's worth of clothes. And a week's worth of non-perishable food. And cookware. All part of my hurricane bug-out kit as well as my camping kit.

This is the way I grew up learning to use a TT. Grandparents were fulltimers half the year or more and parents did the same then and later (even without the threat of wildfire or hurricane). Living on the Gulf Coast gives me that much more impetus to see to copies, spares, etc. As a fullltimer the spares can be between the TV and TT, now.

As to buying on the road what we've left behind, we've all done it. I have a "trunk" on the new TT and the door is sprung. Can't get to the 30-50A dogbone. Bought a new one yesterday as the other is "left behind" until that door can be rebuilt/repaired.

A TT as nice as these can be kept a quarter-century or more. Thus, no furnishings should be of low quality as one might do with an SOB that will be traded in five years. If the temporary item is "cheap" there is always someone to whom I may donate it. I may dislike buying something two-three times (have done that), but someone, somewhere can use it. Even if I give it to a park manager that he may have need of it for another customer.

[m.hony]

I have forgotten socks of the right color, matching shoes, etc. so therefore walk around all mis-matched. I lived through it.

[A W Warn]

Originally Posted by m.hony

I have forgotten socks of the right color, matching shoes, etc. so therefore walk around all mis-matched. I lived through it.

Your story reminds me; Three years ago I left on a trip for a couple months without any shoes except the pair I had on. That's a real problem for me! Since I wear a size 15, it is almost impossible for me to find shoes in a store. I looked in every town we went to, but found nothing in my size. So, I went on the two month trip with one pair of shoes and one pair of to short size 13 sandals from wally world, hanging 10 the whole time.

[SteveSueMac]

Just to make it interesting - we packed up to head home today and I tried to do everything by memory. Amazingly, it took about an hour - that's the fastest we've packed up so far (not that it's a race but it felt so efficient). Just to be sure, I went to the truck to get my notebook with all my trailer notes (scale tickets, checklists, etc) and went through our list and was glad I did. I forgot to put the TV antenna down so we did that - and that was all we missed!

So we pack up the dog, pulled away and remembered (so proud of myself) to get the last 2 Lego blocks we had used for levelers, packed them up and hit the road. As we were about 10 miles away from the camp my wife was talking about how efficient this one was and I mentioned how we had done it almost completely from memory without the checklist.

At which point we both realized, I had left my checklist/notebook on the picnic table at our site!

It was there when we returned. But on the way back to pick it up, my wife coined a new phrase, "clown camping".

:-)

[Len n Jeanne]

Once we didn't bring enough toilet paper.

We weren't close to a store and hadn't planned on leaving our site for a while.

We handled it (thankfully) by having a package of baby-wipes on board and some paper towels.

Just wondering how the forgotten child handled the experience, psychologically....

[Rollster]

So far, the only thing we forgot was both water hoses; we weren't near a Walmart, or anything else for that matter, so we just half-boondocked. I was carrying buckets of water from the spigot (no Jerry jugs either) to flush the toilet and doing all my dishes outside, when lo and behold, we discovered that there was a little leftover water in the freshwater tank, enough to get us through the rest of the long weekend. Problem solved, but we felt kind of stupid ... !