Holy crap

We leave in the morning.  That's crazy.

We have a lot to do still.

Not too get excited...

...but I think we're leaving soon.

Itinerary is we are on a bus to Georgia on December 29th.  Arrive and spend the night in a campsite at Amicalola State park on December 30th, where we'll enjoy a buffet breakfast.  After a yummy breakfast we'll head up the approach trail and spend our New Year's Eve with each other on Springer Mountain.  Appalachian Trail starts first thing in the morning, headed north.

Next stop, Maine.

Nebraska is long.

As you move west on 80, things change a bit.  At first, the tolls start to get cheaper, then they disappear.  States get less populous, and bigger.  The first really huge state you hit is Nebraska.  You basically transverse it for 500 miles, the first couple hundred of which are pretty interesting for someone from the east;  They're flat and long.  You can see forever.  This is a genuinely new experience for some of us.  It's also a great place to think about where your food comes from and who you shit on for being from out-here.  Don't snark too much my snobby coastal friends- these people feed you.

Also, people are really nice here.  They're not too eager to be your best friend, but to be honest I respect that.  However, they will hold the door for you, smile and say hello, and not give you dirty looks for being the wierdo you probably are.  I went through this trip last year with a much more attention attracting vehicle and a mohawk  I got many more judgmental stares when I was home  back east for that then any of these fine states we get to pass through when driving home.

We still have 32 miles left in Nebraska.  Off to Wyoming :-)

Stay tuned for a review of some new regional fast food, the Runza  http://www.runza.com/
I can do it here, or dedicate a new page to fast food from around the country.  What do you think?

Trials and tribulations and the trail

Planning for an Appalachian Trail thru hike is a pretty involved process.  Beyond the pounds of dried food we produced and stored, there's also gear to consider (and every ounce counts, so choose wisely), spare money, emergency plans, bail-out plans, and even reading the occasional map or book.

Mindy and had a lot of it under control, but not quite enough apparently.  Life threw some pretty big twists at us this summer, and consequently we won't be hiking the AT this year.  We're going to try and hike The Long Trail in Vermont though.  It's a much shorter hike (about 300 miles).  The shorter time and distance just works much better for what we can spare for time and money right now.  More on this later.

In the mean-time though, we're on our way to Burning Man!  We're in bumper to bumper traffic, and haven't managed to get out of CT yet, but we're on our way!  This year it's a bit different for us, as we're in Steve's truck with a trailer (Thanks Aunt V and Uncle D!!)  The neon was a bit upset she's going to miss this year's burn, but we reminded her this year's theme was Rites of Passage and that Steve's car needs a chance to go too.  As a giving burner-car she didn't have an issue with that.

Looks like traffic is lightening up.  Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

More delays

So things are going well here, but slowly.  With the amount of loose ends we're trying to tie up around here unfortunately we're going to have to delay our trip once again.  Things aren't completely in place, and without making sure everything is ready, attempting the trail is a fool's errand.  More updates as we figure it out.

Buy our things!!

In an effort to make a little extra cash for our trip we're having a tag sale on Saturday, the 25th! Come buy things!!!! It'll be happening rain or shine because remember, we're burners, so we can turn the front yard into an indoor yard sale. 300 Firetown Rd in the bury!!! See you saturday!!!!!!

test runs

So sleeping in the tent was successful. The tent, (having been set up in a weeks worth of thunderstorms) didn't have a single leak! The vestibule can be a little awkward to get in and out of because when you unzip it there's nothing to hold it up so it just falls on you, (if trying to exit), and then you might get a bit wet if there's any water on it. But, other than that it was quite the comfortable sleep. The sleeping bag and pads were comfortable too, though Miister discovered he needs to stuff more clothing into the pillow pouch in the future. With a few revised clothing choices for sleeping I think, especially with all that walking ;-), falling asleep won't be an issue.

Brief thought...

Hah we also very very briefly thought about taking my indoor claw-less old timer cat with us. She was doing pretty well with the whole "being outdoors on a leash" idea, but clearly it would be a huge pain in the butt. So kitty stays home hehe. Cute though at the time.

Crunch week!

Alright so super prep time has begun! We both have most of the clothes we need for the trip, aside from a couple of pairs of pants and rain gear. My pack has been ordered and I'm very excited to get it :). Miister already has a pack, an older one his dad had, so as soon as mine gets here we should be able to start some packing. The sleeping bag we got is sooooo nice! It's a double, so it fits both of us and is quite comfortable. We also got our sleeping pads to go in the sleeping bag at EMS because the guy who "helped" us at REI was well not so much helpful to say the least... Fortunately the price difference of the pads was only a couple of dollars. In case you were wondering EMS, (or as we like to call it: Expensive Mountain Sh*t), is generally twice as pricey as REI and they both have the same products. Still dehydrating foods; we have so far angel food cake for some desserts, lots of bananas (my favorite, which dehydrate very well and taste way better than banana chips you can buy at the grocery store), a 5lb bag of onions, 10lbs of ground beef, tuna fish, canned chicken, mixed vegetables, yogurt roll ups, and apple sauce roll ups, some shrimp and tartar sauce. We bought all of the breakfasts we'll need, all from Bob's Red Mill. Most of our food shopping has been done at Cost Co. because you can get everything in bulk. The Fivefinger shoes a re working out great, but we will be getting at least a second pair of hiking shoes. Actually we'll probably each go though a couple of pairs of shoes each from all that walking ;-). Oh and we got what is quite possibly the best tent  ever!!! It's a three person tent so it fits the two of us quite comfortably. Tonight we'll be sleeping in it to give it a test run before we leave. Update you all again soon, Cheers!
~Porcupine

What's cooking?

We're dehydrating like crazy!

Food and Time

Lockdown on the dehydrator

We've been dehydrating lots of food for the last week.  This thing has been running non-stop, and we're going to need to buy a bunch of food along the way even still.  To date, here's what we've managed to crank through this shiny new dehydrator:

• 12lb sliced strawberries
• 12lb ground beef
• (2) 5lb cans tuna
• (6) 12.5oz cans chicken
• (2) 5lb cans peach slices
• (2) 5lb cans pineapple bits
• 5lb broccoli florettes
• 5lb asparagus
• 3lb string beans
• 2qt yogurt
• 1lb hummus
• 10 jars apple sauce
• 5lb shrimp
• 2lbs worth of beans turned into stew

Next on deck will be some various banana purees.  We bought a lot of bananas with the intention of slicing them for use, but we didn't get to them fast enough and they've started to get a bit mushy.  Now we have to mix them with other fruits (strawberries, pineapples, oranges) and make fruit leather out of it.

We chose an Excalibur 3900 food dehydrator because it's huge, has good reviews, and it's simple to use.  I looked around a ton and settled on buying a refurb direct from Excalibur.  It's actually the place to get the best deal on the ParaFlexx liners that I could find as well.

Despite all of this effort though, Mindy and I will have trouble making enough food in time for our trip.  We'll either buy some dried stuff to supplement what we make, or rely a bit less on maildrops and pickup food in town.  Decisions decisions....

Some info to begin with

We decided we were going to hike the Appalachian Trail at some point in November this year.  We were visiting friends near Sacramento and watched a special about it on Netflix.  Shortly after that we headed south to L.A. and spent a day with a friend who was in the midst of preparing for her thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. (Read about that at http://www.pcta.org/)  The combination of being on a long trip like that and Sherri's talk about the adventure she was preparing for really gave us the impetus we needed to start planning our next adventure

After hemming and hawing over a date and how we wanted to go about this, we decided we are going to head out in a southbound direction on June 21st this year.  This is a very short amount of time for prep for two out of shape 3rd shifters like us, but hey, if it wasn't for the last minute We'd never do anything at all!  Southbound is not the traditional choice, but hiking the other way would have necessitated starting earlier in the year.  Also, we like the idea that there will be less people in this direction.

At this point we're still very busy dehydrating food and procuring gear.  We also need to make sure all of our business at home is taken care of for the 6 month period between June 21 and the end of December.

Maine to Georgia, 2188 miles and a lot of prep work to go.  Oh, and we leave in 35 days

Well...

Here it is, this is where you can finally come to find Mindy and I talking about our adventures.  We love to travel and love to talk about it.  We like to hop in the car and drive obnoxious distances to go to Burning Man, visit friends and family, and to go eat random food.

Flying is pretty annoying, it's expensive, uncomfortable, and you have to be in the mood to let a lot of underpaid folks violate your rights.  It makes me mad.  Mindy just doesn't really like it.

Due to our dislike for air travel, we end up traveling by car a lot.  Driving 3 days straight to get to the west coast really allows you to see a lot of neat things.  If you have the time to stop here and there, the sights just along the main highways themselves in this country are spectacular.

That's probably what lead us to the silly decision to walk the entire Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia (because why go with the crowd?)  Taking your time to go from point A to point B is worth it.  We're going to try it on a grander scale than a 3 day drive -- A 6 month stroll

-Drew