Date: 2009-02-16
To: Stoves
Miles today: 0.0

I am still on the emotional high of the thru hike being just a little over a year away. I started doing some stove experimenting last night. I have probably over 10 different types of stoves. Out of all of the stoves I have I narrowed it down to two of the stoves in my inventory that I will bring. That is not one 100% either because I am going to visit Tinny of Mini Bull Designs within the next month to talk stoves. I have an idea to talk to him about to see if he can implement it into a stove. If that cannot be done then I have pretty much narrowed it down to the stove I will bring. It will be the Mini Bull Design called the MBD SITH. I can boil water to a roaring boil in just over three minutes on that stove. I am very impressed with that stove. My idea is to see if Tinny can make a smaller version of that stove. If he cannot then I will go with the MBD SITH.   I am pretty sure I know the under quilt I will use for my hammock for the first part of my thru hike. I still have one more to test though. I am really leaning towards the Snugfit by Speer Hammocks. The one I have left to try is from Warbonnet Designs and is called the Yeti. It is not a full quilt though so I am thinking it will not keep me as warm. The Yeti is designed to cover the mid section of your body while under the hammock. This means just below you butt to above the shoulders. It does not sound like it will work for me but I am keeping an open mind and going to give it a try. I have to send my thanks out to three individuals from HammockForums that have gone out of their way to help me with finding the right under quilt that will work for me. Those three are AngrySparrow, FishinFin and Headchange4u. That each have sent me their own personal under quilts for me to use and test out. The people on HammockForums are some awesome people.   After the stove I can move on to looking for a good down jacket. I have one in mind that I have had my eyes on but I need to do some more research on the web. I have to admit I have not done a lot of research on down coats yet. I just research the current one from a suggestion by someone else.   Within the last week I have been working on my journals on the Trail Journals web site. Doing that has helped get the spirits up and the excitement going. I am still very scared still though. The thought of dropping everything in life and completing this dream is so exciting but leaving everything in limbo is the scary part. Quitting my job and not having one to come back to, leaving the wife with only her income and my military retirement check are my two biggest concerns. The wife only works 20 hours a week at a minimum wage job but with my retirement check she should be able to handle the mortgage and the bills. I will still worry though because we do not have much room for error if some emergency come up. The other worry of not having a job to come back to is really scary. I will be 50 years old when I complete my thru hike and with the economy the way it is not I don¢t know if anyone will be willing hire someone that is 50 years old. The way it is not the younger people are having a hard time jobs. Everyone is laying people off.