You may recall a newsletter I wrote about a week and a half ago entitled, Pack the Car...Twice. In a nutshell, my husband and I will be driving our daughter halfway across the country for her first year in college in a few weeks and my husband wanted to pre-pack the car as a "practice session" just to be sure everything was going to fit.
Yes, it was a big pain to load the car...and then unload the car.
But...
I'm very happy to report that, with the overhead storage compartment we purchased, we were able to squeeze it all in. We were able to see out of all the windows and had enough room for our own comfort.
The feeling of knowing this is going to work is very comforting. The time and effort was definitely worth it.
But for sure, we cannot add anything else. It's tight.
Some GON readers wrote in suggesting that we mail some items to the college. For some college students, this is excellent advice...if the college allows it and it's an easy process.
In our case, after researching a bit, we decided against this. Our daughter, Amanda, will need many of her dorm items right away, on move-in day. We were told that in her college, the mailroom gets very backed up in the first few weeks. They asked us not to ship anything right away.
There was a very good chance that Amanda would not be able to gain access to her belongings immediately. Since this is her first time on her own, we didn't want her running into any issues...and we didn't want to add any burden to her school mailroom either.
Other GON readers suggested ordering from a big box store, like Target, and then picking up these items upon arrival. I learned, upon investigating this, that Target will hold an order for three days. That being said, the supply shortages isn't making this task as easy as it should be and I can already see
that a few items aren't as easy to get as we thought they would be.
So, here is part two of our plan:
1) Pack the car the day before we plan to begin our two-day road trip to the college. In doing so, we'll be able to leave bright and early.
2) Pre-order what we can from Target (we still need to buy cleaning supplies, laundry supplies, etc.).
3) Drop off the items in our vehicle at the college during our early move-in day appointment. This way, we'll have room in the vehicle for additional items as needed.
4) Pick up our pick-up order from Target.
5) Shop for any last-minute items (snacks, etc.)
6) Finalize any items we still want to drop off on regular college move-in day.
7) Relax and be happy that we were prepared and didn't handle this in a haphazard way.
