Ryan had his first trip nightmare last night.

It was thick with practical concerns and reminders. Seriously, the dream was so practical and obvious that there was no need for forays into dream interpretation to explain deeply veiled symbolism.

In Ryan’s nightmare, we had just returned a rental van and were trying to check in at an airport for a flight to Paris. The rental van had deep pockets along the seats and we had utilized them during our days in the van. In fact, the file with all our most important travel documents, including Ryan’s passport, had been left in the one of those deep pockets. Of course, by the time we realized this, we couldn’t remember exactly which van we had driven on the rental car lot, and we were risking missing our flight to Paris!

Lesson: Passports should be kept safely on our bodies, especially on days involving transportation.

Lesson: Keep all important documents together and store them in one adult’s backpack.

Lesson: Take photos of the front or back of every car we ever rent.

Once Ryan had located the rental van and was checking through it for our stashed documents, he ended up finding additional items we hadn’t even yet realized were missing. Apparently, during our time using the rental van, we had stuffed bulky items, such as down jackets, into the deep pockets of the rental van since we didn’t need them during those days. We had forgotten them since our bags seemed completely full already.

Lesson: Over-packing is a risky burden.

Lesson: Pack only what we can’t live without, rather than taking up space “just in case.”

We know this won’t be the last travel nightmare for our family — in either our dreams or in real life. We plan to pay attention and learn from the lessons of travel nightmares, they are all part of the edventure!