Bag it!

H:

When we started dehydrating food we looked into vacuum sealers and all that they encompassed.  Then I read several dehydrated food books and several people suggested double bagging with disposable zipper style bags.  Alright, sounds good, cheap, reusable.  But I need quite a number of baggies to hold all the food that we're dehydrating.  Dave picked up a small box of Ziploc brand bags when we got the dehydrator up and running and we're quickly going through them.  

I considered purchasing more at Meijer the other day when I was there.  I looked at store brand versus name brand.  Ziploc brand were running $7.59 for just over 100 sandwich bags.  I was just going to get the cheaper store brand... but then I remember seeing huge boxes of Ziploc brand at Menards and I thought I remembered the prices being a fair bit better than even store brand.   

I skipped buying bags last week and then I ended up procrastinating a little more.  Finally I bought boxes of Ziploc bags yesterday at Menards.  For once procrastination paid off!  The jumbo boxes of bags were on sale... $8.00 for 460 sandwich bags.  Wow!  Big difference in price there.  Same exact bags, just in bulk and one of those oddities that Menards carries.  

One thing I did pick up at Meijer last week was cans of pie filling.  They're full of fruit and sugar and we like to experiment with the dehydrator.  Below are trays of the pureed pie filling: apple, cherry, strawberry.  They have been drying for 12 hours and I will leave them overnight because it is too late for me to do anything with them now and they are still a bit tacky.   

Update on the pie filling dehydration:

The pie fillings didn't exactly dry.  They had far too much gelatin in the mix and they stayed insanely tacking.  So much so they stuck to the trays and my hands as I pulled them off and to everything else in my kitchen.  I'm posting some graphic pictures below... they look a little scary!  

Experiment FAILED!  

But don't worry, this won't go to waste.  Our worms will love to eat these (we vermicompost, if you don't know what that is... Google it).

Gobble gobble...

H: Thanksgiving this year we ate lunch with my cousin and her family.  While we maintain a vegetarian style diet most of the time, I decided to purchase a fresh turkey so that whatever was left over would go into the dehydrator and become jerky for our hike.  

My cousin and her family eat very similar to what we do so take a moment to think how funny it was for a couple of vegetarians to cook a turkey.  Not having cooked a turkey in over 10 years (and having only cooked one or two in my life) I picked a 20 pound fresh turkey.  There should be leftovers from that right?  

My cousin and I stayed up gabbing about everything until about 11:59 PM on Wednesday when we started trying to figure out how early we'd have to get up the next day to get the bird in the oven and ready by 1:00 PM.  Then we realized that the biggest roaster pan in the house was only big enough for a chicken.  A debate was waged as to whether we should go out right then or in the morning for a disposable roaster.  

In the end we ended up not going out.  I pulled a magic trick and sawed the turkey in half.  Actually I carved the bird into pieces and part went into the tiny roaster and the rest went into a crockpot which was a bit bigger than the roasting pan!  In the end we had a cooked turkey (the meat was very juicy) and a ton of leftovers, but it wasn't pretty.  After the turkey was all cooked up I finally looked at jerky recipes and they all called for raw meat!  

Another funny twist to the day was that my cousin had bought a frozen 13 pound turkey without telling me.  I took her raw turkey home and once again mutilated a bird to make jerky... later I found that the dehydrator's website gives instructions on how to make jerky from cooked meat!

Below you'll see a pictures of turkey pre and post dehydrated.  

Somewhere between four and five pounds of turkey dehydrated down to about a pound.  I need to get better at keeping track of before and after weights.  I dried both white and dark meat.  Though I had removed all the fat possible, dark meat is just inherently too fatty to store long term in the way we are doing it but it does taste very delicious.  One baggie of dark meat went into the fridge for immediate consumption and three bags of white meat went into storage.  

About half the turkey went into the dehydrator and the rest ended up in soup.  It was quite a lot of work for the end result.  In future I plan to use ground meats as I have read that this will produce jerky with far less work.  Additionally, I will be able to use high quality lean meats and have them freshly ground.  

I have also been reading several recipes for dehydrating tofu into jerky and recently had a taste of mushroom jerky so I'm very excited to try this both out!

All dried up...

H:

Food.  That's another big topic for hikers.  Okay, that's a huge topic and one that can be overwhelming.

I just finished reading a hiking resource book that discussed food in some depth and I don't know if I've learned anything.  The difference of opinions on this subject are so varied that the experiences of others make for muddled reading.  There are those who survive on Ramen noodles and hope while others prefer freeze dried meals.  Some send packages to post offices along the way and another group shops at whatever store they find in whatever town they come to.  

We're opting to dehydrate as much food as we can before we leave and then have it sent along to ourselves.  We will supplement with food from stores along the way. 

This is our borrowed food dehydrator maxed out at 12 trays and loaded with dehydrating frozen vegetables.  The dehydrator is wedged between the stove hood and the stove top but I wired it into place to keep an inquisitive cat from knocking the whole thing to the floor:

Our diet in "regular life" is complicated.  After many years of a diet that went from "whatever and however" to the far side of veganism, we settled into an ovo/lacto vegetarian mode.  If you don't know what that means... we eat vegetables, eggs, and dairy.  However, forays into world of meat consumption are permitted when we are served food at someone else's residence and recently when the eating of meat is a better option than other items at a restaurant.  We eat meat, at most, twice a month and often not at all.  For our hike I am occasionally incorporating high quality meats that we will have dehydrated into jerky.  

We got soul... I mean soles.

H:
Hiking, for a large number of us, means that we will spend many miles on the soles of our feet moving down an established path.  Yes, hiking means a lot more than that but for this installment we're just talking feet.

What one keeps between their soles and the trail turns out to be a very personal subject.  I have read books that push hard for BOOTS, yes boots in capital letters because nothing else is good enough for your feet.  Some suggest wearing light-weight hiking boots, because you're not going to be bushwhacking so why weigh down your feet but you need stability around your ankles.  We have a friend that hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in tennis shoes, he went through 3 pairs.  Still others walk trails barefoot, but this does limit you to warmer weather unless you are a very tough cookie!

We've debated for some time as to what shoes to wear.  We have hiked a good bit on trails in tennis shoes without trouble but we've been reading quite a bit about "trail runners".  Not having experienced "trail runners" we finally tired of reading online about shoes and worked our way to REI today.

Dave has big feet, size 12 to 13.  I have wide feet mainly because my littlest toes stick out far too much.  I've often wondered the purpose of those toes as they don't even touch the ground.  In the end I just resort to men's tennis shoes because they're typically wider and easier to find a fit.  But both of us have trouble finding tennis shoes that really fit so when we do finally find something we just know they're the right ones.

We worked out for a couple hours at the Y today then went off to sample shoes hoping our feet would be a bit more swollen than normal.  The first thing we tried on at REI was a pair of trail runners.  The pair we tried had a firm, and not very flexible sole.  They were incredible light weight and we climbed around on the rock they have in the shoe section without trouble.  The laces were adjusted with a sliding clip and were something that seemed like high density dental floss.  All the trail runners seemed pretty similar in style with varying degrees of sole stiffness.

Josh, our patient helper, talked with us for some time about the cons of trail runners and eventually showed us a pair of Keen Marshall low-cut boot/shoe hybrid.  I didn't have high hopes, but I never do when trying on shoes, and while these were "lower case" boots and not the big waffle stompers, they were still boots.  We'd come to see trail runners.  Still, we tried them on.

When I slid my foot into that shoe a mouse ran by, turned into a horse, and promptly rode off with a carriage that looked suspiciously like a pumpkin.  Josh said a few times that Keen shoes are known for running wider in the toe box and he was right.  I didn't even have to cut off that little toe like the wicked step-sister.  My toes never felt so free in a pair of shoes.  I opted to try a half size shorter as the shoes were so wide but when I put on my half knitted wool sock (good thing I'd turned the heel yesterday, more on hand knit socks another day!) I decided on my standard size.  The only addition will need to be a bit more arch support.

I looked over the plethora of shoes on the wall, picked up a few different ones, then looked at my feet.  When you have a shoe that fits that good, why keep looking... we each bought a pair.

My handsome prince picked one size larger than normal and was very satisfied.  With the help of another great employee, Stephanie, Dave was also able to pick a pair of minimalist shoes off the clearance rack.  These will be for wearing in the evening when we're "in camp."  They didn't have any that fit me comfortably so I will just keep checking back, we have oodles of time right?

Oh, about 120 days.

It's here!

H:
I stepped outside my door today to find a large box on my doorstep.  The box is THE box, as in the box full of our recent order of from the Ray-Way website.  I picked it up and tossed it into the RV where a cat decided to promptly play King of the Mountain:

 I know that we ordered light weight gear but it was a bit of a laugh lifting that big of a box and barely feeling any weight.  When opening the box I found the filling for our sleeping bag we will sew.  This took up 90% of the box.

 The remaining 10% is everything else to pack it all in...

What was inside this box?  Well, I'll tell you...

Backpack kits.

Zippers for pockets on the backpack, not necessary but a nice addition.

Tarp Kit

A door for one end of the tarp, known as a BatWing.  This will be a nice addition to the tarp.  A few times on our bicycle trip we pitched our tarp 3 sides low due to various weather conditions.

Net-Tent Kit
Another wonderful addition to the tarp set up!  No mosquitoes when we sleep.  Yay!

The Quilt Kit external parts that will get wrapped around that big bag of lovely warm stuffing. 

Knife Kit

Leather Sheath for the Knife made from the kit above.

Net tent stuff sack.

Tarp stuff sack.

Wonderful thread!  I ordered some of this when making the last tarp and the spool lasted for many projects after.  It was a great addition to my sewing kit.

Seam sealer for the tarp and such to keep out rain from the stitching.

More books!  Top Left: The Tarp Book.  Top Right:  Trail Life
Bottom: Siku Kayak, a story of how a couple kayaked along Alaska... who knows, maybe our next adventure!

Power!

H:
When you think about hiking for 6 months you think first of the hiking, but there will surely be a bit of time on your hands when you're not walking.  Some folks talk about falling exhausted into the sleeping bag and waking the next day to do it all again.  When we bicycled we each kept a daily journal of our thoughts about life and the trip, but we were often looking for additional entertainment throughout the day.

In the end we hit up libraries when we found them to update our blog, check emails, etc.  Instead of taking entertainment we found it.  We went to a cinema, went to a couple parties, floated down a river on a boat, watched a sailboat tack under the bridge we ate lunch next to, visited some museums, took a few hikes, and mostly spent a lot of time being the center of entertainment telling stories of our trip and of ourselves to complete strangers.  But all these things are less likely to be found on the trail.

I once read about a hiker who ripped apart a paperback novel by the chapter and included it in their restock parcels they had mailed to them as they hiked.  Others tote around the whole book and some take magazine.  My reading of modern hikers tend more toward hauling some sort of electronic device for entertainment: cell phone, camera, MP3 player, Kindle.  We are in the process of sorting out exactly what we want to try.

The following are items we are planning on taking:

• 2nd generation Kindle = 170g 
• Cellphone.  Dave has a Samsung Galaxy S2 = 166g 
• Mini MP3 player for listening to music and audio books = 56g (1 for each person = 112g)

Total weight: 448g or just under 1 pound.  

But now we come down to battery power.  The Kindle will survive for a couple of weeks of use on a single charge.  Dave is currently performing tests on his phone to find out battery capacity.  The MP3 player is new and hardly used so we need to run tests on that as well.  All of these device recharge via micro or mini USB and there is a proliferation of rechargeable battery packs available.  

Our first battery pack purchase weighed 280g (over half a pound) and held a 10,000mAh charge.  The drawback to this battery pack was that once discharged it took over 9 hours plugged into AC power to recharge itself.  Dave wanted the recharge to happen faster and decided on smaller battery packs and more of them.   

Our next attempt will be three 3,000mAh batteries that weigh about 85g each.  A sight loss of battery capacity but may be worth the drop because these are reported to recharge quicker due to being smaller so long as we take enough recharge adapters to plug into AC power.  Dave also likes this idea because of electronic redundancy and weight distribution between packs.  

Now... what books to take along?!

The color of life...

H:
We finally ordered our gear! Well, some of it. The really important bits... tarp, net tent, sleeping bag, backpacks, knife.

We purchased kits too! Not only do we have the fun of hiking but we get to make our own gear. This might be daunting to some and not advisable according to many websites that I've read... then again, they don't know us. While we're not normally the kind to buy kits we found that this was a very economical way to go. Usually we just look around (often in trashcans) and we just make up whatever we need. I recently recounted the story of how I made part of a costume out of a sheet I found in the middle of the road. One response was: "I don't normally look at things in the road and think... hmm... I can wear that." We get that a lot.

The kits we ordered are from rayjardine.com.

We purchased a tarp kit. We'd bought a tarp kit from this site and used it on our bicycle trip but this time we added the net tent that is rigged up underneath. On our bike trip we had just the tarp. When spring finally melted into summer we made an emergent alteration to the sleeping bag in the form of a roll of screen from a hardware store sewn to the top of the sleeping bag. It was a setup that worked just fine until the summer finally (FINALLY) warmed up and we sweated to death as the mosquitoes swarmed the net over our heads.

We already live with very little accessories in life so we plan to hike the same way. We've opted for lightweight packs to haul our lightweight gear around for the hike. These packs are 2800 cubic inches each and have an extension collar for adding extra capacity when hauling a full load of food.

We opted for a quilt kit as well. Previously we shared an unzipped sleeping bag and it worked most of the time. It was a bag we already owned and had purchased when we had been car camping. This kit is supposed to be lighter weight than that bag and more of a custom fit.

To round it out we bought a knife kit that Dave will get to carve out the handle for our blade for the trail.

In addition to all that there will be a bit of stuff sack sewing.

The hardest part of all the ordering was picking colors! There were too many to choose from. We worked hard not to double up colors of stuff sacks and such. You don't want to try to pull out your tarp and find that you've grabbed your spare clothes or sleeping bag because all your stuff sacks are the same color! Now that we're color coordinated we just have to wait for it all to arrive. More gear is still needed but this is a good start. We will post updates and photos as we get to the sewing.

6 months and counting...

Less than 6 months from now we'll start in Georgia on the Appalachian Trail.