Prep for Departure, or The Many that Got Away

Preparing for a long-haul season of fieldwork has never been an easy job for me. This probably has to do with a life-long procrastination habit - witness the creation of my first blog at age...well, we'll leave that part blank - and my unwillingness to make lists to accomplish "simple" tasks. As many times as I've done this, I serially forget how complex packing for a three month field season can be. There are field clothes, the true beaters of the bunch; lab/town clothes, a step up from field clothes and generally not as sweaty or dirty on any given day; and conference clothes, the top of the heap, true finery reserved for the end of season symposium. And that's just the clothes, let alone all the gear. Not quite the same as your average vacation in the tropics, and yet each year I attempt to sort this out the day, or perhaps the night, before departure. This always leads to things being left behind that are difficult or impossible to replace in the field.

Compounding my regular packing difficulties was a two-step departure plan fit only for a madman. I would drive about three hours to my parents' house in Lansing, MI, on Friday (April 14), and there acquire some of the last things I thought I needed for the trip - again, no list. I would go to sleep at some point and awake at 2:30 am to drive toward Detroit, where my flight would leave at 6:30. After a long morning layover in Denver, I would board another flight to Ladyville, Belize, and arrive in the late afternoon. What could possibly go wrong with that? Turns out, plenty, and plenty did.

The first leg of travel was supposed to have one major upside: a simplified first stage of packing, where I had only to gather everything I needed together in piles, shove all the items in a suitcase and two backpacks, and sort it all out later. There was ample space for everything I needed, and I knew the whereabouts of all my gear. So I rounded up what I thought was all of it, put the bags in my car, and hit the road. It was only after I arrived in Lansing, road-weary and absolutely unwilling to visit another shop, that I realized a few crucial items were somehow missing from my "carefully" laid-in stores:

1) My DSLR camera - it's a bit hard to overstate the shock I felt when my camera case failed to materialize from the various bags I'd packed. A good camera is an archaeologist's best friend, and I'd spent hard-earned grant money on that sweet machine. In the ensuing panic - there was no way I was driving six hours round-trip at that point, so retrieval was out of the question - only one thought kept me calm: the camera, beloved though it be, was now seven years old, and the camera on my smart phone boasted six more mega-pixels. I never jumped on the "use my phone for all things archaeology" bandwagon, and I'm still learning to reach for a tiny, delicate rectangle instead of a big, bulky, irregularly shaped object when I want to snap a pic. We'll see how that goes.

2) My wireless mouse - not a biggie for the field, but I was really looking forward to not using the touch-pad on my new laptop. I can't stand them. Plus, the mouse was a graduation gift, and it seemed fitting to put it to use in my chosen profession. There are a few spare mice running around our field house, so the disaster here is mitigated somewhat.

3) Batteries - these are comparatively expensive in Belize, so it's always a good idea to bring extras. Perhaps I won't need as many without a wireless mouse?

4) Flashlights - why bring flashlights if you don't have batteries to power them? (I do have a phone and a camping lantern)

5) The 3rd book in a series I'm reading - this is perhaps most maddening of all. I'm nearly done with the second book, and somehow I managed to pack the fourth and fifth. I refuse to read those out of sequence! (I do have some other books to read)

The second leg of travel exacted both a human and materiel price. A conservative estimate of hours I slept on Friday night would be around three; the actual total was probably closer to one and a half. Coffee and a shower were enough to get me to Detroit, but caffeine lost all efficacy once I passed through security, even though I must have been approaching the lethal dose for someone my size. The prospect of a three hour morning layover in Denver after flying for over two hours was grim. Happily, the bars were open in Denver, and with little trepidation I imbibed a few micro-brewed porters and was merrily human again by my 10:30 flight. I was also able to partially replace a piece of equipment left behind at the previous stage:

6) My cell phone charger - given the new role of my phone as primary personal camera and potential flashlight, I nearly had a breakdown when I realized I'd left the charger plugged into a socket at my parents' house in Lansing. This, after I was mistakenly admonished for having left it in my own home, a high crime of which I was not guilty and loudly said as much. I'd never been inside one of those chintzy electronics shops they have in airports before Denver, and now I know the reason; but I did come away with a USB cord that will charge my phone from a computer inside 24 hours, give or take a few. I'd guess the packaging cost more than the product in this case.

Check out that sweet sweet case! Definitely worth all $16 on its own.

That important items were left behind is particularly galling this year, as for the first time in recent memory, my flight to Belize allowed two checked bags to come along free of charge. I had plenty of space and no need to cram, which perhaps induced a relaxed state of mind that ended up working against me. I will miss all these items - some of them sorely - over the next three months, but I take consolation knowing that alternatives and backups were embedded in the system. Flexibility is the key to a successful field season; my forgotten things will cause inconvenience, but as Gloria Gaynor once said, I will survive.



Well, there it is, my first full blog post. Looking back, it's a little text-heavy, but who videos themselves packing, and who would want to see pictures of suitcases or missing items? I'm not even sure how I'd manage the latter. But there will be more visuals to come, and perhaps some links to famous French philosophers if I want to sound smarter than usual. Thanks for reading!