I am getting my bags sorted out for the upcoming trip to Yellowstone. My suitcase is pretty much packed with just enough room left for my winter parka. It’s supposed to be in the teens next week, so I’ll need that parka for sure. And contrary to my running gag on Facebook, I will have a change of clothing.

The other issue is my camera bag. After the first round of packing, it was too heavy. I’ve now minimized the photographic equipment to the bare essentials. I’ve tossed the 24-70mm lens back in to the cabinet and reverted to my original plan of using 28mm and 50mm prime lenses. Both combined take up less space and weigh half of what that 24-70 f/2.8 weighs. So, I’ll have two bodies, 4 lenses, batteries and a minimum amount of support stuff for all that. I have a carbon travel tripod and mono-pod which fits in my suitcase without adding a lot of weight to that.

The last remaining issue is the Dell 17 inch laptop PC. I’ve decided to leave the laptop at home. Adding it to the camera bag would make it quite a bit heavier, and it’s an expensive laptop and I don’t want to damage it. The camera pack has a padded slot for the laptop but I can survive without it. I just won’t be browsing photos a lot. I’ll still have the iPhone so I can pull shots from the cameras and post them if I get all itchy about it. Maybe bring along the iPad too, not sure yet.

At my age, and in my physical condition (two bad shoulders, deteriorating lower spine, a healing left wrist which I sprained two weeks ago) I need to take it easy with the amount of stuff I’m lugging around. Now, if I was going by car, it would be a different story, but hauling all that stuff around airports in blizzard conditions isn’t my idea of fun. Plus the laptop is a one and done deal. I’m doing all my computing with it now so any damage to it would take me offline.

Old age isn’t for wimps.