My mom and I went away for a weekend trip to the Gulf Coast and had a fabulous time walking along the beach and exploring the national & state parks down there, with all of their bird life. It was a 4 day trip altogether, so I ended up bringing my tweed wool skirt, my looser jeans (straight leg maybe?), and my newly acquired Trench of Contention. However, the weather seemed like it could swing quite a bit, and I wasn't sure what temperature our b&b would be kept at, and since we were driving, I didn't make myself pack light for tops. I brought a wool cardi, 2 silk sleeveless blouses (for layering), 1 short sleeved linen/cotton blouse (ditto), a wool jumper/pullover, a striped cotton shirt, and a long sleeve tee. And 3 shoes! Flats, my hiking boots, and my knee high boots. I ended up wearing everything except the wool jumper/pullover and long sleeve tee, so not too bad, but I did feel silly bringing all of that for such a short trip. My colour scheme was all of my favourite neutrals (navy blue and greys and taupes and browns) plus French blue, to match the surroundings. However I forgot to ask my mom to take outfit photos, so I've only got 2: the warmer day, which saw me in jeans & my striped shirt, and the evening of when we arrived, where you can see my skirt & boots & coat but not the silk blouse or cardigan underneath. Whoops! Before I do the wash I'll try to hang everything up & get a picture of the capsule as a whole. I especially liked wearing the skirt on our second full day, which was quite windy, making the skirt dance around in a most satisfying way (but the tweed kept it heavy enough to not flip over my head and expose anything, which happened to me once at another seashore).

Even when I pack lightly, I don't tend to limit my colour scheme to 2 or 3: I figure as long as all of my tops go with all of my bottoms & toppers, it doesn't matter if they match each other or not. But it is important to me to blend in with my natural surroundings, although I'm not sure why. It makes me feel more a part of the landscape I suppose, which is good since I spent quite a lot of time on this trip sitting around watching birds do their thing. Do you enjoy matching your colours to your surroundings when you travel?

A few bonus pictures that I couldn't resist: this red plant was just gorgeous on the sand dunes and made me wish I'd added some red to my backpack, a funny photo of my dog (wind: 1, dog: 0), and since I keep mentioning the birds, here's a sand piper, my favourite of the shore birds.