I wrote the other day about packing. If you missed it, I was discussing two alternate approaches to packing for a trip, mine and Sally’s.  Mine is to bring only what’s necessary, while Sally tries to be ready for different circumstances and plan for contingencies.  

Sometimes my plan leads to a problem.

Falling apart at the seams, April 2017

Sally brought a favorite pair of comfortable shoes, and another pair of comfortable shoes to switch off with.    This afternoon – the second day of our two week trip – the one-piece heel and sole started to come unglued from the body of the shoe, making it unusable. Since she has the other shoes, this will merely be a mild inconvenience, rather than a crisis.  We are planning a lot of touring on this trip, and not having some comfortable shoes would be a problem.    She’ll try and get them repaired on the ship, but we don’t know about that yet.

I brought two pair of shoes: a pair of nice leather shoes for the evening, and a pair of sneakers.   If one of them had failed, I’d be shopping in Monte Carlo tomorrow and undoubtedly paying thousands of dollars for a pair of shoes.