Days slipping away

I am now in final throes of packing for my 5 month backpacking trip.  As a natural born procrastinator, I am in my element.

Food: Introducing Speltmeal

I am making and sending almost all of my trail meals.  There are roughly 120 of them.  Although I’ll rotate through  about 7 different dinners for variety, breakfast is pretty tough.  I basically have two breakfasts that are quick, easy, and nutritious. (note the absence of the word delicious…)

First up is good old granola.  I found some ancient grains brand that I like at Costco.  I package this with a small zip bag of powdered whole milk.  In the morning, I’ll add water to the small bag, mix, and then add to the granola.  I’ll let that soak while I pack up and then eat the granola while walking (due to my ungraceful nature, I will proceed slowly since doing anything in addition to walking pushes the limits of my abilities).  I keep the whole milk powder separate for two reasons.  First, I want to make sure I can get the powder and water to mix well enough to resemble the texture of real milk.  Second, let’s face it, powdered milk is not the greatest tasting thing in the world and I may get sick of it.

My second breakfast choice is a combination of spelt and rolled oats.  I add in cinnamon, a little sugar, a pinch of both salt and powdered butter. Unlike the Granola, I do add powdered milk to the mix.  I bag portions up and throw in small bags with various treats to break up the monotony.  Examples are freeze dried fruits, chia seeds, or nuts.  At night I open the pouch, take out the treat, add water, and let the “Speltmeal” rehydrate overnight.  In the morning, I’ll add the treats.

Spray versus Spray
I have been testing all my equipment.  It is important to make sure things work and that I know how to use them.  This seems obvious, but my usual instincts are to just go ahead with something and figure it out on the fly.  There can be unfortunate consequences.  Everybody knows what bug spray is, right?  I have this small pump-spray container.   It works better on my thinning hair than a lotion.  Well, on this trip, I am also bringing bear spray in the National Parks as a safety precaution.  However, I need to to emphasize that bug spray and bear spray are quite different.  It turns out bear spray is not applied topically.  (Well, it can be, but it is ineffective against bears and very effective at repelling humans.)

Store Runs
Finally, I have a few last store runs to complete.  I need to get a few small items at REI.  On top of that I need to visit Trader Joe’s for some dried fruit to ship out.  The likelihood that I will enter these two stores with a short, fixed list and emerge with only the items on the list is close to the odds of winning the lottery.
Did squeeze in a quick hike yesterday.

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Perfect day for test hike

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