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!