Planning Vacations and Souvenirs (again?)

I pretty much have settled on my itinerary projections. Remembering it is projection based on possibilities based or projected outcomes of speculative ventures. In other words, when I go, a plan to stay 1 hour may escalate to 4 or 8 hours and 4 or six hours may end up on one hour. That 8 hour projection on travel may end up 5 or 10. I might even bypass an attraction all together, when I get there.

I begin thinking about souvenirs, again. Mainly because I am looking a display factors of these old souvenirs. I pin my patches to cloths stretched on canvass stretchers, that use by artist for oil paintings. That idea came from my sister, who stretched unique fabric for use a wall hangings. I found a nice set of shelves with six in deep shelves, perfect to display my mugs, except that I need another one.

I started collecting patches for railroad excursions and railroad museums back on 1978 with the steam excursion of the Chessie Steam Special. That was a part of my vacation, that year, the second one I took after college and the first touring type (my first vacation, I visited a commune). These patches were sewn to a  shirt which became my uniform for all future railfan events.

My vacation of 1981 was to visit my parents in Mississippi. As part of that visit, I took the train, via Chicago. In Vicksburg, I began collecting patches for destinations other than railroad. However, it was the only patch gotten for that vacation.

Enter 1986 and vacation to Kiwah Island in SC. In looking for a patch, no patch was found but a mug was found. This set my souvenir process, used until now. Several years ago, I realized that I did not have a mug or patch to represent all my vacations. I had overlooked a few. I looked on Ebay and online stores for the various destinations. Several questions remain concerning getting these souvenirs. 1. if I had been there before and did not get the souvenir and returned, what order would place it in my display. 2. How far back before my first vacation where I first collected, should I look?

I have tried various ways to order the patches and mugs. I recently went back to my timeline to figure out on vacation. A few years, as a part of journaling, I laid out a timeline of when I live where, who I worked for. I found out at a few patches and mugs are out of place because I placed them where their second visit was not the first. I noticed that this vacation will finish getting all patches and mugs.