Keep Calm and Carry a Towel
Sorry for the clickbait title, but I haven’t read the book. The phrase just occurred to me as I was driving back from a short canoe paddle with my wife today and saw my quick-dry towel hanging on the passenger seat that carrying a towel in my car has really paid off all summer.
I’ve slowly been turning into someone who just carries a bunch of extra stuff in the car at all times. It’s frustrating when you get somewhere and need something — like a towel — and even though you have dozens of them at home, you don’t have one right now. So I stuck a little microfiber, quick-dry towel that packs down super small into its flexible zippered case into one of the seat-back pockets. And since I have a towel, I might as well throw a pair of swimsuit/running shorts in the pocket as well. Now, I can go for a swim at the drop of a hat! Which, in this decidedly hot summer, has proved entirely worthwhile.
Some other things that I just always carry in my car now:
- An Apple Watch charger (you’d be surprised how much it can charge up in a 20-minute car ride)
- A beefy battery that doubles as a car jumper
- A sleeping mask for nights spent sleeping in back of my Subaru
- A rain tarp (more for professional purposes since I kept forgetting to pack it on rainy days and it’s a figurative life-saver for clients when rock climbing on dreary days, can can be a literal life-saver on hiking trips in the backcountry)
- Canoe straps and other lengths of tie-down rope
- An ultralight headlamp (another item that often gets forgotten, and I’ve lent it to plenty of friends)
- A small pillow and puffy blanket (the pillow gets used most often on flights, but it’s nice for long car rides too; the blanket is equally perfect for laying out on the ground for a picnic or napping in the car)
- A portable hangboard (it doesn’t get a lot of use, but can be strung up to keep working on finger strength no matter where I am)
- Extra sunglasses
- A multitool
This is post #3/31 for Blaugust 2025.