10... no 9... no... 8?

H:
The calendar speaks... we have but 8 days remaining before we finally start our hike.  The last 2 weeks has been spent in highly productive ways.  But it will finally be good to get to the trail and put all of this preparation to use!

We've never worked so hard to carry so little.  But one "extra" item we wanted was an umbrella.

The concept of carrying an umbrella while hiking is that it can act as a windbreak as well as to keep the rain off.  If the terrain is conducive to hiking with it, you can prevent having to put on your rain jacket which can heat you up unnecessarily.  If it's raining in the middle of the night and you need to find a bathroom, and by that I mean just get out of your tent, it can keep you dry enough.  It can also work to keep off the sun.  We've walked and bicycled in rain gear and we know the benefits to staying out of it when working up a sweat, so we're going to give the umbrellas a try, if we could just find the right kind!

You see, not just any umbrella will do.  Most umbrellas we have found are too big or too heavy.  The "dream" umbrella is the folding style, not the telescoping collapsible ones that have a lot of hinges and breakable parts.  It would also be light weight, say less than half a pound.  And it would be cheap.  This combination is pretty much impossible to find.  There are a few "backpacking" umbrellas on the market but at $30 a piece we weren't in a rush to buy two.  We've been looking everywhere for the right umbrella.  I even started hunting for a "kids" umbrella but the few we found were too tiny.  

Today we held out hope when we went to K-Mart.  But, our hopes were dashed by the umbrellas we found there in the clothing section.  Perhaps we just weren't going to be able to get umbrellas.

Dave wandered off to use the ATM inside the store.  Eventually he called to me.  He'd been standing by the ATM waiting for it to process his transaction.  While the computer was spinning, Dave's boredom got the best of him, and he looked around to find himself standing by a wire bin filled with giant patio umbrellas.  I shrugged my shoulders at him as he pointed to what was hanging off the outside of the bin.  Then I realized he was pointing at dozens of small, folding, lightweight, and most importantly... cheap umbrellas!  They were designed to bolt to a table or chair's arm rest.  A quick look revealed that the, unnecessary to us, bolt mechanism spun off the end.  Success!

At $6.99 each and everything we hopped for we bought two.  Final weight after removing the bolt mechanism... 225 grams. Around half the weight of another hikers lightweight umbrella.

There may be a living room in the background, but Dave was checking out the use of the umbrella for the trail in his mind.