Some people pack swimsuits and suntan lotion when they go on summer vacation. They pack sandals and shorts and loose-fitting shirts. They pack sun hats and untaxing novels just right for falling asleep in the middle of.

Here’s what we pack.

8lbs of ground turkey
16lbs of chicken
9lbs of sausage

To this we will add:

10lbs of potatoes
10lbs of onions
5lbs of carrots
several large cabbages
several heads of sturdy-looking lettuce
various turnips
whatever else is hardy and edible that we throw in to the coolers at the last minute to get each cooler as close as possible to 50lbs without going over.

For now the meat is in the freezer. We have not yet purchased the vegetables. According to Newton’s Third Law of Relative Freshness (and Behr’s Eleventh Law of Maximum Panic), it is best to wait until 9:00pm the night before we depart to purchase the vegetables we will take to the tundra. Swanson’s Fourth Law of Thoughtfully Planning Ahead thoroughly trumped by the preceding laws, resulting in the obviation of Swanson’s Ironclad Need for Adequate Sleep and a bleary-eyed drive to the airport the morning of our departure.

But given that the Law of the Undeniable Toll of 36-hour Voyages leaves every party equally exhausted at the other end, one might argue that any amount of preemptive rest is wholly moot.

We leave on Saturday morning. The ungodly early part. More tales of packing to come.