We’re getting down to the wire, and although it seems like I’ve spent the entire week organizing, packing, and reorganizing our bags, it’s going to end the way it always does – with me throwing in everything that’s laying around the house (which is a lot) and crossing my fingers that each bag is less than 50 pounds.  We’re actually in pretty good shape – just doing the last of the laundry (bathing suits from camp, etc.) and then I’ll stuff the rest of it in.

The kids’ carry-ons and 3 of the 4 big bags are packed, the electronics are charging, the snack bags are in the fridge in hopes that the Luna Blobs form back into Luna Bars in time for breakfast (it has been 95-100 here all week and no AC).  If I had another day to prepare I’d still find myself in the same spot – I just need to stop adding things and accept that we can do without whatever we forgot.  Plus we have the safety net of Ben arriving in 2 weeks, and it’s always possible that Elizabeth has packed whatever I didn’t.  And it’s not like a lot of places I’ve traveled in Africa where we had to bring everything we MIGHT need because there was no place to buy anything.  There’s plenty to buy in SMA…I think we can get more toothpaste if we need it.

The kids had “overday” at camp yesterday which means that they stayed until 8 instead of 4.  I woke them up a little after 6 this morning, and after another day of constant activity at camp I picked them up, fed them an early dinner, and had them asleep by 7:15!  3 a.m. will still come early but at least they will have gotten a couple of extra hours on the front end.  Ben and Chris are driving us to the airport in 2 cars, departing at 3:30.  Hopefully we will all sleep on the 4-hour flight to Houston.

I’ve been meaning to make a video of the kids discussing our trip, but since it didn’t get done until tonight it became 9 minutes of Norah talking with Adlani interjecting comments.  Aliya was mad because she is a tween and apparently that’s how tweens are.  So she didn’t have much to say but they’re all excited and I’ll get some commentary from her when we reach SMA.

So for the grandparents, who are probably the only ones who will commit 9 minutes of their lives to watching the Norah show, heeeeeeeerrre’s Norah!

The first time I traveled out of North America was around 1995, when I went to England and Ireland.  In 1997 I went on a safari which began in South Africa, went to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and back to S.A.  In 1998 I met Ben and we went to Morocco, and then I dragged him along on my next safari which started in Kenya, went through Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zanzibar, Botswana, and S.A., followed by a stop in Amsterdam.  After that we eloped to Turks and Caicos and went back to Morocco a few more times.

On every one of those trips I was totally unplugged.  If we happened to spend some free time in a town that had an internet cafe, and if the internet was working that day, I might check my personal email or send an update to my friends and family so they’d know I hadn’t been chomped in half by a hippo while canoeing on the Zambezi River (no joke).  But the rest of the time I had no cell phone, no wifi, nobody asking me door-related questions (don’t get me wrong – I love door questions).

Times have changed.  Five years ago when we’d go on a U.S. road trip, I’d have maps printed out, hotel reservations made, and a detailed itinerary for each day.  All of this took prior planning.  Now when we head out we just take the iPad with 3G, and figure things out as we go.  When I went to Costa Rica with Sherry in 2010, I took a NetBook so I didn’t risk losing/breaking my company laptop.  Even that has changed because with the advances in automated back-ups (I use Carbonite), if something happened to my laptop I could be up and running again quickly.  Not that I want to break my laptop, but the computer is now more like a tool for viewing my data, rather than a storage locker for it.

On last year’s extended trip to Morocco and this year’s trip to Mexico, being unplugged was not / is not an option.  With my current job I can’t imagine just hanging out a “Gone Fishin’ ” sign and taking off – even for a week or two.  So the compromise is that I will be away longer (4 weeks!) but working part-time while I’m there.  It worked really well in Morocco and the infrastructure in Mexico is much better.  I think it’s a very fair compromise – 4 weeks of maintaining emails, magazine articles, blog posts, etc., and giving myself permission to put the big stuff on hold until I get back.  It’s weird what a difference that makes to me – no guilt about what I haven’t done…and I feel like I’ve really accomplished something if I keep my email under control.

We don’t have a lot of concrete plans for this trip, although we do have the travel and lodging nailed down.  After that we’ll play it by ear.  But I did download some AWESOME apps to help us out!

GlobeConvert Currency and Units Converter – I seem to have lost the ability to do math in my head – I blame the pregnancies, so I know we’ll be using this app all the time.  Although according to Hannah, Elizabeth is good at math as well as “making toast”, so maybe she’ll be responsible for all of the conversions – and the toast.  I ordered my pesos and travelers checks today (not quite last-minute!) and will pick them up at the bank on Wednesday.  I can use the ATM too, but I like to have some dinero in case the bank gets suspicious about large withdrawals made from a foreign country (yes, I told them we were going but you never know).

SMA Tránsito – Since we won’t have a car in SMA, we will have to take the bus if we venture too far from home.  This app has all of the transportation info, bus routes, stop locations, etc., for SMA!  It also has emergency numbers for los bomberos, sistema de emergencia, and loads of other places I might need to call for assistance.  I’m going to need some help with the Spanish, but that’s why we’re taking the 5 little translators.

TripWolf – This app claims to have all kinds of info about restaurants and things to do, but we’ll have to test it out when we get to SMA.  One GREAT thing it does is allow you to download a map to use offline.  Although it won’t know where we are if we don’t have cell data enabled (no blue dot), we can search for street names and points of interest, and navigate the old-fashioned way.  I also downloaded an SMA map from Google Maps that we can use offline and add points to…like all the most beautiful doors of SMA.  😀

iTranslate – This app was free, and I paid $1.99 for the voice version.  I can speak into the phone, the app converts my voice to text so I can see that it understood what I said and is not translating something random and embarrassing.  Then it shows me the Spanish translation but also SPEAKS the translation!  For you hard core Spanikopitas, it may not be perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than my Spanglish.  It’s also great for entertaining bilingual children, who think it’s funny to try to come up with words that it can’t/won’t translate – like “butt”.  Adlani was in hysterics over it.

Heads-Up – Speaking of hysterics, I ran across Ellen Degeneres’ Heads-Up game the other day, and coughed up the 99 cents to download it.  It is SO GREAT!  You hold the iPhone up to your forehead and it displays words that everyone else has to act out, give you clues for, or hum (the “Hey Mr. DJ” category), depending on which category you’re playing.  If you guess correctly, you tip the phone forward to give yourself a point, or you tip it backward to pass.  You have a minute to get as many points as possible.  If you have a phone with a front camera, it will make a video of the person/people giving the clues.  The kids absolutely love it and I think we will be pulling this out at the city bus stop, the line for churros, el baño, etc.  It’s well worth the buck and maybe even the other 99-cent add-on categories.  I hope Ellen is donating the proceeds to charity.  Here is the “best of” video from Ellen:

If you have any indispensable travel apps, let me know and I’ll download them!