Sunday Edition: The 'Sudoku Method' for Packing is Actually Genius
Plus a dry shampoo that is *actually* worth the hype.
The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.
When I pulled out of my driveway on Tuesday morning, I had no idea where I would be spending the next few nights. I only knew that I didn’t want to drive much longer than four hours per day, so planned to divide my sixteen-hour drive to Ojai, California into four parts. The days leading up to my trip had been so packed—seeing friends, wrapping up projects, prepping my house for our move—that it’s a miracle I had the wherewithal to prep a few bags of vegetables from my garden and stumble upon a packing tip at the exact moment I needed it. Along the way, I managed to find spots to spend each night that felt safe and even worth returning to (like this beautiful, remote trailhead in southern Oregon with easy access to the PCT).
Solo traveling in a van is, I’ve come to learn, either stressful beyond measure (as on Wednesday night when I couldn’t easily find a spot to sleep, then discovered mice had made a bed out of my paper towel roll) or indescribably incredible (hiking part of the PCT at dawn with Toast, watching the sun set from a campground at Pismo Beach beneath the full moon). There’s rarely any in-between, except for maybe the mind-numbing dullness of driving down the 5 for hours (thank god for Lena Dunham’s audiobook, which I devoured and loved).
There’s so much more I could share about my trip so far, but until then, I have so many recommendations from the week, including:
A genius packing method I used to quickly pack my “city clothes” for this trip
I found two holy grail hair products (a dry shampoo and tool) that are so simple and effective I’ve even been using them in the van
The insanely good (5 minute, one pan!) spring meal I’ve been eating on repeat
A simple spring meal. Just before leaving on my trip, I harvested a row of spring turnips, rinsing and chopping their greens, which made this meal wildly easy to assemble (it says a lot that I made it three nights in a row, even when I absolutely did not feel like cooking!). Here’s how I made it:
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