What to bring on a trip of this sort is always a series of trade-offs.  A person can't obviously bring all the comforts of home, yet there are a few basic life necessities that nobody can live without. Given this dilemma, we both agreed to choose what our absolute essentials were and stacked them next to the bike to do a "trial" packing.  Realize that these items were selected by each of us as absolute "must-haves" on the trip.  The photo below shows what we consider the minimum life sustaining essentials, but it is important for you to understand why we each consider the items as absolutely necessary while on the road.

Starting at the left we have three steamer trunks filled with our personal grooming products.  These include not only the usual assortment of creams, ointments and perfumes, but also a portable full length mirror, a table-top facial steam generator (for Kevin to keep his skin boyishly fresh), an iron and portable ironing board, a yoga mat, two sets of electric hot curlers, a fifty foot industrial extension cord, a free standing bathroom scale and a George Foreman Grill.

Moving to the right there are Kevin's golf clubs in case he's invited to play somewhere on the road that includes free beer with the green fee.   There is a stereo receiver (tube type - because they have the best sound) and a hand held blow dryer because the ones in cheap hotels never work right.  Speaking of cheap hotels, in the far right is a 27 inch plasma high definition television because, while even the cheapest hotels have pay-per-view porn, it just isn't the same unless it's in high def - right?  There is also a DVD player in case the pay-per-views don't have "Crazy Teenage Cheerleaders Pillow Fight - the Morning After" as one of the selections.  And while we're on the hotel topic, the white box right in front is a 20 foot flexible swimming pool vacume hose because cheap-ass motels never keep their pools clean - so we'll clean 'em ourselves. 

At the far right is a plastic milk crate with files of articles on everywhere we want to visit and also printouts of where Yahoo Travel said the cheapest beer could be found.  We also threw in several hardback books on travel, including two on the Bhutan, a few cookbooks and the 1987 Major League Baseball Statistical Abstract.   The black bag next to the milk crate is Kevin's briefcase  because, even after being retired almost a year, he refuses to admit he's no longer a banker.  He even sleeps with it - but his therapist says he's adjusting well, sooooo.....

Directly in front are a few clothing items we plan on taking.  It's not really much - just a few Summer and Fall dresses, a couple of cotton skirts, some flowerprint blouses, a few corsets and silk panties - and Stacy has some things on the rack also.  The real advantage with Kevin being a cross dresser is that we can share garter belts and thigh high stockings  Finally, at the far right is a 36 pack of Charmin double layer bathroom tissue because, once again, the toilet paper in cheap hotels is rough and irritating.  Also, a last minute addition occured to us when we bought the tissue at Walmart, and that was the Queen-bed foam eggcrate in the upper right because the beds always suck in $19/night motels too.

With each of our necessities selected we now can begin to pack them into the saddle bags on the bike.   It shouldn't be too difficult, but we might have to leave the hand held blow dryer behind - it just takes up too much room.