Shopping!

Three days, three insane shopping trips.

Monday: Berkeley Bowl. I spent an obscene amount of money, literally none of it on fresh produce, which I think may be illegal in Berkeley. I was actually a little embarrassed checking out, but then the bagger smiled and said it looked like I was going camping. "Backpacking," I said, and she laughed. I think I spent about half an hour just in the section with nuts and dried fruits and organic snacky things (so many to choose from!). They were out of the yummy coconut chews I discovered a few weeks ago, so I guess those won't be going in the resupply buckets.

Tuesday: Annie and I hit Target. I bought more snacks, some treats for the resupply (Pringles! Goldfish crackers! Snickers!), and a few travel-sized toiletries.

Wednesday: REI again. I finally got my underwear and a sportsbra and socks, plus a few things to round out my first aid kit and some other odds and ends. I also returned the two extra backpacks, which was satisfying. Then it was off to Home Depot for 5-gallon buckets to send my resupplies, and one more stop at a different Target to pick up the couple of things I couldn't find at the first one.

And now I think I'm DONE. Well, for this week, anyway. I should have everything I need for the resupplies (plus plenty of extra for the rest of the trip). Now I have to bag all of my meals, which will take a few hours this weekend. The good news is I realized I don't actually have to send the buckets until Monday, so I won't be rushing to put them together tomorrow and Friday.

Tonight's backpacking dinner: Beefy Noodles (I didn't name it -- that was the recipe I found online. I would never call something "beefy" because that's gross.) It's beef jerky, ramen noodles, onion soup mix, dried veggies, some garlic, ginger and cilantro, and then soy sauce on top. It was fine. Not my favorite, but you can't really go wrong with ramen noodles and soy sauce. I might skip the beef jerky and add chicken or tuna instead. But it was very easy and super filling, so I'll call it a win.

And here's the disaster that is my kitchen right now. (The Aero bar in the middle? Eaten.)

One more note that's possibly (probably!) TMI: yes, there is a pack of OB tampons in one of the bags. I mean, three weeks, I'm probably going to be bleeding at some point. Many months ago, Shizu wisely suggested I consider going on the pill so that I could arrange to not have a period during the trip, and I did think about it but finally decided I didn't want to deal with the pill for several months. Then a few weeks ago I seriously considered the Diva Cup, but from what I've read it takes a few cycles to really get the hang of it and I don't want to be fussing with something like that out in the wild. I'm kind of annoying with myself for not thinking about that earlier, though, because damn, it'd be so convenient. I've never been all that into the idea of a Diva Cup but it kind of seems like it was made for backpacking. Oh well!

And still so much to do

I had a very productive day today -- in large part because I realized last night that I need to send out my two resupply tubs this coming Saturday. Yikes!! So I needed to firm up my food plans for the five days in the Red's Meadow resupply and the six days in the Muir Trail Ranch resupply. It took a couple of hours, but I've got all but three dinners figured out. I'm going to screw around with a couple of ramen-based dinner recipes tomorrow, and if those work then I'll use them. Otherwise, I'll just fall back on a few freeze-dried meals from REI. And speaking of meals, I tried another one tonight that included orzo, dried tomatoes, parmesan and tuna and it was DELICIOUS. Like, really really yummy. I'll have to save it for nights when I've got a "fresh" supply so the cheese is an option, but I'm excited about it.

Tomorrow I have a monster shopping trip planned to buy all of my breakfasts/lunches/dinners/snacks for those 11 days. I'll worry about the rest of the days later (I still have a few weeks). I also need to buy two tubs to mail the resupplies, and figure out what other stuff needs to go in them -- batteries, toilet paper, sunscreen ad toothpaste, socks and underwear, etc. No sweat.

In addition to doing a bunch of meal planning today, I got out most of my equipment and piled it all in the living room. I'm pretty well set! Still to do:

-Thin out the first-aid kit. (Sounds like a bad idea, but my kit has waaaaaaaay more stuff than I need, and it's super heavy.)
-Decide what clothes I'm bringing.
-Figure out how much fuel I'll need and make sure I've bought it all (or know how much to buy at Muir Ranch).
-Buy spare batteries/memory cards for my camera.
-Buy a new bandanna. I lost mine at Tilden last week!
-Go over my itinerary again. And again and again and again.
-Buy a watch (from Target).
-Arrange for stuff to borrow from James and Shizu for the folks joining me.
-Buy extra socks/underwear/sportsbras. (I couldn't find what I was looking for online.)
-Finish meal planning for the rest of the trip.
-Practice packing my bag.
-Buy new stuff sacks to hold clothes, toiletries, etc.
-Buy cords/ties as needed.
-Finish the Spot subscription so the SOS feature actually works.
-Figure out what book(s) to bring.
-And what journal I'm going to use.
-Build tent/blow up air mattress/start stove -- ie, test all equipment that needs testing.
-Try to replace the battery in my Swiss army knife so the altimeter works.

OK, that's the list for now. I swore I wasn't going to do a to-do list yet, but it's been kind of driving me crazy having all of these plans swirling around my head.

Far more fun: I went for a nice 7-mile hike with Michael and Camper on Saturday. So pretty in Redwood Regional! We tackled a pretty steep, long climb so it felt like a good workout.

And now, pictures of Camper tuckered out last weekend. Too much hiking!

Take all of my money, please

Big moment yesterday: I think (hope!) I made the last of my big (expensive!) purchases.

I dropped by REI after work to get a new sleeping pad and a Spot, which is like a big SOS button in case anything goes horribly wrong. Of course I had to wander through the backpacks again, and yay, they finally had the backpack I've been looking for in the size that had been recommended. I tried it on and walked all around the store with it, and I'm glad I did because it's obvious now that the small is a much better fit for me than the medium. So now I've got to return the medium, but whatever -- it's not like I won't need to stop by REI a million more times between now and the hike (which is a month away from tomorrow!).

Last weekend I did a bunch of hiking with Camper. I found an awesome 8-mile loop around Tilden. And I think I figured out how to get from Redwood Regional to Lake Chabot, which should be about a 12- to 13-mile roundtrip hike. I'm thinking I'll try that one this weekend, or maybe finally tackle that 8-mile Briones hike, depending on how much time I have (and who wants to join me -- I wouldn't take Camper on a 12-mile hike, anyway).

In food news, tonight I tried another quinoa recipe that was much improved over the last ones. This time, I added the dried veggies (seasoned tomatoes and zucchini that I got at Berkeley Bowl) to the quinoa while it cooked, and the texture was much improved. Then I stirred in some olive oil, pine nuts, and a good pinch of salt. Very tasty! I did another batch with dried kale added after the quinoa was done (I figured kale wouldn't need as much cooking as the other veggies) and almonds instead of pine nuts. I only had a bite or two of that -- I'll eat the rest for lunch tomorrow -- but it tasted pretty good too.

Still SO MUCH TO DO to get ready for this hike. Yeesh. I'm not even going to make a list here because it'll just look overwhelming. Instead, my goal for the night: buy socks, underwear and sports bras online. Classy.

Quinoa. Everywhere.

I experimented with quinoa for dinner tonight -- tried two backpacking recipes with mixed results, I guess.

The more successful was quinoa with dried cherries and roasted pine nuts; the less successful was quinoa with wasabi edamame and dried mushrooms. For both of them I fully cooked the quinoa, then split it into two tupperwares, mixed in the other ingredients and let sit (covered) for another minute or two. I think the edamame one needed more cooking for the mushrooms and edamame, so I'd probably just boil them along with the quinoa; plus, it could use more salt. The cherry one could probably also use some more salt and fewer cherries (they're a little overwhelming on the sweet/tart). I might try adding a splash of olive oil to each of them too.

Anyway, they're both edible, very easy to make, and will probably taste 300 times better after a day of hiking.

And speaking of food -- the cake!