How much planning do you do?

(The Coquille Valley, a traveling route to and from the coast from I-5 Oregon's biggest thoroughfare.)

Most of Oregon is this pastoral! We can stop and count cows, or elks, or sheep many times on the hour and a half windy road that takes us from our coastal village to the big (ger) towns dotting the I-5 up and down the length of the state. Once we get inland, the weather changes, and the sights change too. By the time we reach our doctors, 150 miles later in Eugene, the second big town in Oregon with @ 150.000 people, we are beat. No way we can then turn around and return home the same day.

For visits that are planned, we take an overnight bag with enough clothes and meds for a couple of days.

Many people end up in emergency rooms in Eugene because the doctors on this coast do not possess all the various specialties and surgical expertise for all cases. So, in case of an emergency, we may end up 150 miles from home in a hospital, accompanying a relative who is being transferred unexpectedly all the way to the Riverbend Hospital in Eugene.

Fortunately, Riverbend Hospital has a guest bed in each patient's room.  All patients' rooms are private with beautiful views of the tended grounds and the Willamette flowing down river. I've spent days and nights in the hospital, and their food and hospitality resemble those of an elegant lodge. The grounds are great for solitary walks too, and stopping under a thick canopy of pines on a river's edge is the best medicine for a worried soul.

You can't plan for all emergencies; but, you should be able to survive if you are away from home for a few nights unexpectedly. 

With so much wildness surrounding us, we could be stranded without any way of getting a message out  mere miles from home, on a wet and windy night when the cell phone and the battery are both dead and we end up in a ditch or off road to no fault of our own.

This is what we keep in our car at all times:
a first-aid kit, water, paper towels, a colorful tea towel, blankets, coats, sturdy shoes, meds, snacks, a change of clothes, big flash lights and a lot of change.

If you are stranded, stay in or close to your vehicle!
If you can't be seen from the street, drop coins from the street to your car and tie your tea towel to your mirror.
Portion your water and snacks to last at least three days.

Better than anything, tell someone where you are going and when you're coming back so they can alert emergency personnel if they don't hear from you.