Durango Here We Come… did I pack enough knitting?…

Off to the Wild Wild West

Mama is sending her baby out of the nest… This weekend my son headed east to Fort Lewis College in Durango Colorado. Since he is my youngest child I am filled with both sadness and excitement. Sad because no longer will I be involved with the daily life of my children; excited because my husband and I anticipate wonderful times together. The two of us married young and had 8 great years together before the kids came along (ok, we had great times after they came as well). Now we are looking forward to time alone again.  And we have our other babies: Abby and Ginger.

Oh, and no children means more time for KathiS Designs.

Abby Camping in Durango CO

Here is my checklist from last week:

• Determine what knitting and designing supplies I want to take. While camping alone (my husband is in NY on business) I plan is to knit and design. I will try to not take too much but I accept that this is impossible – note there is Yarn Durango…. if I need more yarn….
• Shop with my son at Bed Bath and Beyond for linen and towels as well as the all important water boiler that both girls said was essential for the late night ramen, mac & cheese, noodle soup, etc.  Check out BB&B’s college service.
• Encourage my son to pack his clothing.  (My hope was he would be packed early – alas no, he was complete about 2:30am).
• Pack the camping gear – tent, sleeping bag and pad, screened room (to sit and knit without bugs), chair (to sit and knit), lantern, headlamp (for knitting at night), mats for outside the tent, rain gear, and my camp shower bag (hang in the sun all day and there is hot water for a shower at night).
• Make new dog tags for the girls as the old ones reference our home phone number and I want ones with my cell number for the trip.
• Complete paperwork for the Durango Pet Resort where the girls will stay while my husband and I do parent orientation “stuff”.
• Pick up AAA for guidebooks and maps for Colorado and update the auto registration tags for my daughter.
• Pack clothing for camping, hiking, and parent orientation.  (Don’t take too much as room is needed for knitting supplies…)
• Check the Pilot’s oil, belts, etc. for the trip.
• Load the car.
• Recheck knitting supplies and add a few more projects and books….
• Misc. other things – too many to list – can you tell I am a list maker.

Ginger in Durango

My goal was to leave by about 3am. It was midnight when I finished what I needed to do (including double and triple checking the knitting supplies) and headed to bed with the alarm set for 2:30am.  My son was still doing laundry.  Surprisingly I was wide awake at 2:30 and my son was face down on the bed…. packed but he still needed to shower. I loaded the car to the top of the roof and made sure my knitting was there (One banker box and three bags…), and we headed out about 4:30am. Overall not bad.

First stop Flagstaff and my daughter (I had her knit blanket ready – photos to come shortly).

Brunch in Flagstaff with 2 of the 3 college students in our family.

The drive to Flagstaff was uneventful and we arrived just in time to meet my daughter for brunch before she had to go to work at P.J. Chilcottage. The store is in a cute complex restaurants and stores – stop by if you are in Flagstaff. Then we were back on the road for the last 5 – 6 hours of driving.

We made it to Cortez, CO by about 7pm and headed into Wendy’s. Because of the girls, we ate in the car with my phone plugged in and the key turned part way. Big mistake – somehow in about 20 minutes we ran the car battery down. AAA came to the rescue. Fortunately it was the battery so my panic served no good purpose – here is a sample of my crazy mind’s conversation was during the hour wait for AAA:

We are an hour from Durango and have to be to Fort Lewis by 9am tomorrow…. Towing 50 some odd miles will cost a fortune…. Where do we tow to…. How will we get to Ft. Lewis if we tow to a dealer…. what will we do tonight…. will we have to sleep in the car… will I have to keep all the boxes in my car for the 4 days of camping if we can’t move into the dorm… what if we don’t make the backpacking deadline…. what if the car can’t be fixed…. what if my son never forgives me for missing the backpacking trip …. what if he never makes friends because he didn’t do the Peak Experience…  what if he drops out of college, gets into drugs, and dies an early death all because of car trouble that surely I could have prevented if I had been better at planning…. and so on….  

Over all it was pretty ridiculous and fairly egotistical to think I can solve all the world’s problems by planning better. A good waste of time that could have been spent knitting.

By 9pm we were back on the road. My original plan was to camp the first night, but after the ordeal we needed a soft bed and indoor plumbing.  A quick call booked reservations and we headed for a hotel that would take dogs. I was asleep by 11pm.

The next morning my son moved his boxes into the dorm at 9am and met the backpacking group at 10am. Wearily I headed to the campground to set up – all I wanted was to sleep and knitting.