Time to Clean!

We arrived home from the Olympic Penninsula after 10pm, so after unloading the bare minimum, we went inside and got ready for bed.  That leaves a little clean up for us to do tonight:

• Put the recycling out - we improvised where to put our recylcing.  For beverage containers, I threw many of them back in the cooler - that's where they started, so they weren't taking up additional space in the van.  We also packed some away in a behind the seat garbage bag.  This really got in the way behind the driver's seat where we stow the tables, fan and step stool, though, so I don't recommend using any behind the seat items on the driver's side.

Storeables.com

• Get the last of our clothes out of the van.  We purchased a multi-hanger and put some shirts and jackets on it - it worked okay for those items, but the closet is short, so all of the items touched the "floor" of the closet.  

Packing cubes: from ebags.com

• We also packed many clothes into packing cubes - these were much more handy.  We could fit small or medium sized cubes into the shelves in the closet or into the body of the closet and the large packing cubes fit neatly into the under seat compartment.  This kept our clothing much contained than during our first trip when A put his clothes directly into the van and I used a tote.  

• Wash the dishes.  We put our last day's breakfast dishes in a tote and brought them home dirty to speed up our departure, but I haven't gotten to them yet.  We talked about making breakfasts that don't require cooking - like cold cereal, protein drinks or bars - to get us up and out earlier on days that we have a lot planned.  I tend to like a hearty, hot breakfast, even in summer, so I'm grumbling in my head about this, but only a little.  I'll forego a hot breakfast if it means I get to see and do more. 

• Speaking of washing dishes, one of our friends we camped with says she washes all her camp dishes when she gets home every time.  Is that normal?  Should we just assume that our dishes aren't fully clean when cleaned at the campsite and wash them again when we get to where we can?  We picked up some clearance sale picnic dishes, so we have ample supplies and this would be potentially a lot of rewashing.  

• Resort and stow miscellaneous items that have migrated.  We're still figuring out where everything goes and how it fits there, but for most non-cooking, non-food items, I've bagged them into thick plastic zip up bags.  I have most of these stowed in the "funny" cabinet below the medicine cabinet.  This works well because this cabinet is accessible at all times.  And the bags help a lot because even if we have to pull literally everything out of the cabinet, it's easier to re-stow a bunch of plastic bags than 100 individual small items.  

• Shake out the rugs, wipe down the surfaces and pressure wash the bug residue of the outside and we're ready for another trip!