Trip prep

Have I mentioned lately that I'm going to Utah? We're flying to Salt Lake City next Tuesday, driving south to the canyons on Wednesday.

C. and H. and I went out for lunch and then shopped for rain gear, riding boots and gloves last month. They bought brightly colored bandanas but I demurred—I have my long-owned and oh-so-soft Heyes bandana after all. Of course, the last place I can remember seeing it was on the floor by the window in the bedroom a few months back and it's not there any more. Maybe it's with the missing portion of my long underwear, also not to be found.

Organizational skills would help in a time like this.

Yesterday I went to my doctor for a check-up and to beg for steroids to keep my allergies under control while I'm on the trip. I expected her to yell at me for being so stupid—what business does anyone who's been so allergic to horses in the past that her eyes swell to the point that she's functionally blind have signing up for a extended riding trip in the San Rafael Swell? Fortunately, she's ridden horses in Jackson Hole, so she was most sympathetic. She doesn't think steroids work well with eye allergies, so she wrote a perscription for Patanol instead.

A petting zoo is coming to the field in C.'s neighborhood this Saturday—I intend to put the drops and the Claritin to the test by dropping by that morning to sniff the pony.

Otherwise, I'm reading a book about Butch Cassidy to prepare for the trip. L.'s loaded my Audible player with Macbeth, A Death in Venice, and The Lambs of London. I have my Lightwedge for middle-of-the-night tent reading and a stack of books I'm attempting to choose from. I study topographical maps in the evenings. I check the weather in Torrey two or three times a day. I'm reminding R. to bring her camera's memory card home with her this weekend so I'll have two to take and I'm planning entries that L. can post while I'm gone.

I'm not all set, but I'm getting there.