Hiking

T minus 20 days. What am I doing?

Packing Resupply Boxes

Leaving home and job aside, the hardest prep part of getting ready for the Continental Divide Trail is having an exceedingly limited sense of how long any section of the trail is going to take me to walk. Because of that conundrum, planning any mail drops takes awhile, and even then I’m not sure whether I’m even close to what I need.

I just keep making the best guess I can and throwing beans and rice or noodles into a box. Really, I worked a bit harder at it than that. Bags of dinners are set up for four days (beans and rice), three days (Thai noodles) or two days (curried couscous). Beans and rice has dried jalepenos, onions, kale, tomatoes, and Fritos with it. Thai noodles have soy sauce, sriracha sauce, peanut butter, dried vegetables, dried cherries, oil, and peanuts. The couscous contains curry, onion, and garlic powders along with oil and dried vegetables. The number of days in the meals was established by the retail packaging of the beans and noodles. I didn’t want to break that packaging apart, so I’m rolling with it. Couscous comes in a 16oz box and it can be broken apart anyway I want. Most of the time using 4, 3, and 2 I can hit the right number of dinners I’m guessing at for the resupply.

After I get the dinners set, I throw in three-day bags of oatmeal or Grapenuts. Whole powdered milk and dried cranberries round breakfast out. I like to start the day with a bar of some kind, so I’m not waiting around. Getting miles early in the day works best for me. Larabars are my favorite right now because they contain just a few ingredients. Eat one of those along with a Carnation instant breakfast, and I’m good to go for the first 90 minutes. If I’m eating oats, I’ll soak them along with the dried berries for an hour in a plastic peanut butter jar. Cold soaked oats with powdered whole milk are pretty good. Soaked oats without the milk are only pretty good when you’re really hungry.

Lunch is almost always a tortilla with peanut butter or humus. I like chips, trail mix, hard candy, cookies, pretzel pieces, and almost anything else for snacks. Just have to make it fir in the box. Seriously, though. How do I plan for a 120 mile walk without knowing much about the terrain or how my body is going to react to the miles? I’m not sure. Guess high and the pack is heavy. Guess low and I’ll be hungry coming into town. 

T -22 days. Getting my head straight. 

With just 22 days till go time, the emotional side of preparing to leave my family and my job is a constant rub. I’ll share with anybody that I see a social worker every month or so for a precious 50 minutes. It’s one slot during the month that’s all about me. Well sort of. Because me really is how I relate and interact with others. It’s a chance to talk about those relationships; how to sustain and cultivate the good ones, and how to diminish and minimize the destructive ones. It’s not mamby pamby stuff. It’s about being a good human being in search of continual improvement. 

The next five months are all going to be inside my head. Resetting my head is a big part of why I need this journey. I’m tapped out. The last six years as a superintendent/principal with some side gigs doing anything else imaginable within a small school district has left me physically and mentally exhausted. I’m constantly in a survival mode these days. Allostatic overload. I need a break to steady out my head.  

Therapy has helped prepare me as much as possible to work with my wife, Michelle, as together we take on this event of me voluntarily going away. She’s giving me a gift, so I can come back stronger with my brain reset. That’s love. That’s the strength of our love. 

Is it time yet?-Continental Divide Trail SOBO

The days until June 20 and my start on the Continental Divide Trail are crawling by despite being crushed with finishing work related responsibilities and the myriad of last month planning details. I’ve jealously watched the blog posts flow by on The Trek while packing my maps, fine-tuning my gear, and getting maildrops ready to go. Reading posts by Stubbs and watching Rhys star in trail video has kept me sane, but I’m absolutely ready to go myself.

Check out the rest of my post at The Trek.

 

 

T -37. 9 miles. Althea told me

IMG_6238.JPGNice hard 9 miles with Althea in the early morning. Everything is feeling good. Pack, shoes, legs. Seems like it is all coming together.

Spent the dark hours before walking putting together some dinner bags for maildrops. 8oz of dehydrated beans, 6oz of Minute Rice, four packets of olive oil, and small bags of onions, jalapeños, kale, and tomatoes. Just need to add Fritos and some cheese. I’ll add Fritos to some of the boxes. At other stops I’ll just look to add the chips and cheese. I can eat this dinner hot or cold by soaking it for an hour in a peanut butter jar. Each day gets 2oz of beans and 1.5oz of the rice with a portion of everything else.

IMG_6242.JPGSlow progress on my organization of maildrops. It’s a puzzle that doesn’t  have a picture. I’m going to have to make some hard decisions soon. Maybe some divine intervention will occur, and I’ll be blessed with fantastic insight.