Date: 2009-02-21
To: Three weeks and counting...
Miles today: 0.0

Dear readers,It has been a very busy week! I dove headfirst into putting together my maildrops the past few days and am almost finished. In total, I have 11, but only 5 of those will have food. I had a field day in the Target travel-size section! It is a beautiful aisle if you are a backpacker. I didn't realize how quickly things add up when everything you put in the cart only costs 99 cents. I also spent a lot of money at Trader Joe's and temporarily turned our kitchen into a "Trader Joe's Outlet" as my mother liked to put it. The highlight of the Target shopping trip, was, hands down, discovering that Arm and Hammer makes their toothpaste with baking soda in tiny tubes!!!! I LOVE that toothpaste and was bummed to see they only had ginormous tubes in the regular toothpaste aisle, however, A & H is going travel-size!!!!! As a treat to myself, I only bought a few and threw them in random maildrops so that it will be a surprise present to myself at random points throughout my adventure. It's funny that something as simple as toothpaste can get me so excited. On the topic of toothpaste (yes, there's lots to discuss on this front), I ended up going with the Colgate Total plastic squarish bottle for regular use. It's a nice size and from experience in the field, I like the bottle compared to the tubes with the caps that get nasty. As much as I wanted to stock up on a 6 months supply of Arm and Hammer, the tubes were so small, it would have been annoying to constantly be needing a new one, so instead I went with the larger, heavier bottle but that I won't need to replace often. However, bringing me back to my initial point, the toothpaste is by far the heaviest thing in my pack (relative to it's size). It's not something I've ever thought about before until I started measuring the weight of my pack to the ounce! It is really the only thing that upsets me weight-wise in my pack. Quite frustrating... maybe I shouldn't have gone with the bottle. I'm hoping that it just gives me reason and motivation to frequently brush my teeth! From experience, often times that is one of the first things to skip when I'm tired... For my 5 food drops, I did most of my shopping at Trader Joe's. I decided that I'll be eating regular grocery store food for the majority of my way North, so I should treat myself to yummy food in my boxes. I put some good stuff in there, yummy dried fruits, trail mixes, lemon pepper pasta... hopefully I will be thrilled to open up the boxes months from now. I still plan on going to Costco to stock up on Emergen-C and Power Bars and maybe a few other things, so they are not quite complete. It was hard to gauge how much food to put in since I can't imagine the size my appetite will be or how quickly I'll be hiking. I'm glad I am only doing 5 food drops - I can't imagine doing this as my main method of food-getting. Enough about food, I'll be thinking about it enough once I hit the trail (commonly referred to as food tripping). I finally packed everything up for the first time today! Good news #1. It all fit! (this was a relief) Good news #2. With 4 days worth of food and 1 liter of water, it only weighed 29 lbs!!! Questionable news #3. I MUST BE FORGETTING SOMETHING. Now, I'm not doubting my abilities to be ultra-light, but my original estimation was closer to 40 lbs, and usually, I am not one to over-estimate. And yes, there's still stuff to be added: 2 pairs socks/underwear, guidebook, journal, phone, camera, Shuffle, chargers, tweezers, nail clippers, wallet, down vest and presumably, more water (to be exact). On the flip side, I had all of my clothes (minus socks/underwear)in the pack, and with the exception of nude hiking day (June 21- Summer Solstice) I will be wearing some of those (just kidding, I don't really plan on hiking in my birthday suit). Anyway, I figure my pack should top out around 35 lbs. This has me thrilled... yes, that has always been my target winter pack weight, however, did I ever realistically think I'd be that low? No, of course not. Maybe because my winter pack at Sage Walk was in the 55-65 range... I guess what it boils down it is if you only pack what you need to live and nothing more, it's really not that much. Having a smaller pack helps, too. It forces you to be selective. Getting the Aura 65 was a good choice. For me, it's the perfect size for this thru-hike!I randomly decided to change of up some of my top layers yesterday. I switched out my 260 l/s Icebreaker for a 180 l/s Icebreaker (so sue me for not wanting to wear bright red for 6 months), and swapped out my gray synthetic insulated liner jacket for a down vest. With 2 base layers, Patagonia R2 fleece jacket, down vest, and rain jacket, I've decided to forgo a heavy jacket.That is the latest and greatest with 23 days to go... it's crunch time.Happy Trails,Amy