I have way too much stuff. I knew there would be a shakeout of things after the first week or so. What’s not included in this picture are the things in my car, such as my sleeping bag, my pillow, my cooler, my camping stove, my small propane tank, and various safety items like breakdown and first aide kits. That’s right, I’m tooling around with propane. That’s why I have the first aide kit.

This is also why I’m choosing to stay at places like the Holiday Inn Express. Luxury hotels charge you to do laundry, while I am doing a load of laundry including the cost of soap for $2.25 in a clean, safe and modern laundry room down the hall. My thinking is, everything in the laundry is stuff I use and like and the rest were not my favorite items. A lot of those less loved items will end up at the Baptist church across the street.

The Holiday Inn Express rooms and bathrooms are also big enough to sort out and dry my camping gear. I had to leave my campsite in the same speed I would’ve committed a bank robbery. The rain was torrential and National Park campsites actually have a checkout time. The park rangers did not go to hotelier school, let’s just say. They made it plain I was to be gone without a trace of ever being there by noon. Or pay another day.