Upcoming Trip; Schedule-Problem Solving

We are on the verge of a two-week trip involving time with my parents, and then a road-trip to visit Rob and to visit a bestie who lives in the town where Paul and I got married and where Rob was born. I get a little flustered packing for one/familiar journey, but this is a whole new pack of eggs. A major soothing element is that with a ROAD TRIP it is super easy to stop somewhere and buy something. It can even be FUN. For example, we are going to need a cooler, and Paul suggested we buy it at the local chain where we used to do most of our shopping in those early days, and maybe we can even find a cooler branded with the name of the store and that would be fun; but even if we can’t, we will have the memory of buying the cooler there. Meanwhile we are also preparing for Edward’s surgery next month. We have been back and forth to the hospital half a dozen times for various preparatory tasks (MRI, ultrasound, etc.); each journey takes 6-8 hours, depending on whether it’s a 15-minute…