The Hiker Beans

D:
Been busy, that's the general theme, but it's coming together. There's obviously a lot to do in organizing your life to be in a holding pattern while you're hiking for 6 months.
1. We sorted all of the dried food over the last 5 months in to 350 to 450 calorie meals. The total was 234 meals, yes that's a lot of dehydrating, and each one of those meals feeds us both. So far that is over 1 meal per day for both of us, given 180 days on the trail. The idea is, that sometimes we'll eat in town, and not need 3 dehydrated meals each per day. We also have the option to dehydrate some more, before we leave. We could even put someone up to continue to do that for us while we're on the trail but Heather believes we have what needs to be dehydrated under control.

2. Ah, the art of inventing. I've been up to inventing one or two things in my time, and this invention is my own design cook stove. Saving money is always good, but making a stove out of a cat food can that weighs 10 times less and a cost of 30 times less than another model of hiking stove is a good benefit.
I simply peeled off the lid, fed the cat (makes sense) Put about a half dollar sized hole in the lid, turned the handle around 180 degrees to be able to place the lid back on the burner to lower the flame, called a simmer ring. Then I placed 30cc's of Heet, a gas line antifreeze in the base of the cat food can (Rubbing and denatured alcohol work too). Not only did it boil in about 8 minutes, it continued to burn for an additional 20 minutes with the simmer ring placed. That will be handy when we want to continue to cook longer after the water comes to a boil.

The first burn test.

 

3. Being back on my bike after a hand injury and the last deposit of snow and ice, I transported a 100lbs of food from the RV since we won't be living in it much longer. My operating room friends will quickly recognize some of the supplies I required for this motorcycle transport.