Weigh-in and Weigh anchor.

Let me start with the weight and get it out of the way.  256.5 is a drop of two pounds.  I'm not too impressed, but a drop is always better than a gain.  Today is the last day before we weigh anchor, so to speak, and head out west for a month. My goat was to weigh 245 today, so I failed to reach that goal by a whopping 11.5.  Sigh.  When I returned from our three week trip up north, I was 258 and I wrote about how I was going to drop 13 pounds in the month that I'd be home.  I definitely failed to do that.  I guess I will just have to be very, very careful on this month-long trip beginning tomorrow.

I packed my suitcases yesterday, which really took two days.  I was tearing my hair out over this packing because of all the types of clothes that needed to be packed and the limited suitcase space, but Mark gave me an excellent suggestion on Tuesday. He said to write each day down and plan what to wear, see where we could do laundry, see what can be worn several times.  It took me several hours on Tuesday to do that but it was a great idea.  I laid everything out on the spare room bed on Tuesday.  Then yesterday, I just gathered a few more items and put it all in the two suitcases, so now all that's left is to pop in the last minute toiletries tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow morning is going to come quick, too.  We plan to be out the door at 3:45 a.m. to catch our 6:30 a.m. flight.  Today I have a mani/pedi at 10 a.m. and a choir rehearsal at 7 p.m.  In between I will be puttering around the house trying to be sure everything is in order for the early exit tomorrow. 

So where are we going and what are we doing?  Here's a day by day list.
Thursday, 8/16 Fly to Las Vegas, visit a fort and a museum, go to the Rat Pack show at the Rio
Friday, 8/17  Drive to the Hoover Dam, then back to Vegas to visit another museum
Saturday, 8/18  Shabbat, play in the hotel pool, possibly visit Frank's niece and nephew
Sunday, 8/19  Start our tour of the railroad towns of Nevada by driving to Caliente, Pioche, and Eli, NV.
Monday, 8/20  Explore Eli and its museums and take an historic train ride
Tuesday, 8/21 Drive to Elko for some museum and then on to Winnemucca, NV
Wednesday, 8/22 Visit the historical museum in Winnemucca
Thursday, 8/23 Drive to Sparks, NV and check in to the convention hotel, visit sites in Reno
Friday, 8/24 Explore Virginia City, NV
Saturday, 8/25 Shabbat, hang out at the hotel pool
Sunday to Thursday, 8/26-30  NARFE Convention in Sparks, NV  Mark and I are our chapter's representatives to this national convention
Friday, 8/31 Drive to Sacramento, CA for the Gold Rush Days over Labor Day Weekend
Saturday, 9/1  Shabbat, relax and swim
Sunday and Monday, 9/2-3 Gold Rush Days in Sacramento
Tuesday, 9/4 Drive to Santa Clara, CA and take Evey and Eric out to dinner on their first wedding anniversary
Wednesday to Sunday, 9/5-9 Hanging out in Santa Clara with the kids with some side trips to SF
Monday, 9/10 Fly back home

AWESOME trip!  It's going to be fabulous. 

I am taking the laptop, mostly so that I can upload and caption the many pictures I plan to take.  I will try to write some blogs from the hotels and put a few pictures up on the blog, too.  A lot of that depends on how tired I am each night. LOL!

I am NOT packing the scale; there's just no room for it.  I will weigh myself as soon as we get home, and I can only hope that all the walking we will do as we tour around the various sites will help to keep my weight at least the same.  OK, got to go shower, dress, and get off to my mani/pedi!