Thursday: (07/24) A relaxing morning at home for me. Dawn and Lou were out all day with appointments and shopping. Nice that Lou is driving again! I spent the morning working on my hike planning. Other than getting the right amount of supplies to the right places I don't really do much planning. I did check on what fire closures exist now though. There are two in Oregon now, none in Washington where I'll start. After lunch, I finally went outside. I cleaned up my rocks. Sounds weird, but I have a pile of rocks in the front flower bed near the tree that I removed. They were leftover from previous projects. There were leaves, twigs and now chainsaw chips from the tree removal mixed into the rocks. I wanted some clean rocks to add to the bottom of several of the planters in the rear yard that whose drains have plugged and now contain standing water. I removed the plantings and added the rocks with some geo=textile drain fabric over the rocks. Should work better now, I hope. After a shower I was off to REI to see what I might need for the hike. I got a mosquito jacket. Sounds like they are really bad right now.
Breakfast was leftovers. I expanded the leftover corned beef hash for Lou and Dawn by adding another potato and some onion. For breakfast i had some biscuits Ernie delivered. I tried out a couple of packets of peanut butter, one with honey and one with chocolate. I think I'll be adding the packets to my supplies for the hike. I had leftover dim sum for lunch. For dinner I had chili with rice. Lou and Dawn were out for lunch at Original Joe's and dinner at Sweet Tomatoes.
Friday: (07/25) Tinkering after morning tea in the yard. Granola for breakfast. Meili took us to lunch at the Chinese Super Buffet in San Jose. Interestingly, my fortune said "You should be able to undertake and complete anything." That's comforting! I continued working on my pack inventory.
Saturday: (07/26) We did our shopping run first thing today. Breakfast at A Good Morning Restaurant. Corn chowder soup for lunch. Tuna stuffed tomatoes from our garden for dinner. Dawn and I picked some grapes at our neighbors. I continued to prepare for my hike.
Sunday: (07/27) I expanded the leftover roast pork hash with a couple of potatoes and an onion for a nice breakfast. Sort of a Mulligan breakfast. We're doing pretty good getting rid of leftovers and emptying out the freezer. Lou had me busy cleaning out the side yard of leaf debris. I then got to my main task of preparing to leave. I applied some anti mosquito and tick spray to my outer garments, socks, hat, backpack, and tent. That should help keeping them at bay. I completed getting my pack loaded. There are a few more things to get though. I still need to prepare my resupply food boxes. That includes my first load of food which I'll be mailing to Portland to lighten my load. My base pack weight is now 25.7 lbs by calculation. I still need to actually weigh the combination of loads. The 12 days of food I'll be starting with will double the load. I don't need to lug that around on the train. For lunch I made open faced toasted pork hash with thick sliced tomato and black pepper cheese sandwiches. Our garden tomatoes are so good! Chinese chicken salads for dinner.
Monday: (07/28) Cottage cheese and fruit for breakfast. lo and Dawn were off to an appointment early. I finished loading my resupply boxes through Washington. If all goes well Lou well prepare the Oregon boxes later. I don't want a bunch of food items leftover if I stop before doing Oregon. I made a shopping run including Fry's Electronics, REI, and Home Depot. Lunch at Los Altos Taqueria, a nice chili relleno. Salmon with broccoli and rice for dinner.
Tuesday: (07/29) Sausage hash and eggs for breakfast. I sent off my first two supply boxes and bought my ticket to Vancouver, Washington on Amtrak. My train departs San Jose tomorrow evening. Hopefully it's on schedule this time. Last time I took it it was six hours late. I should be in Vancouver late Thursday afternoon. I sent a resupply box to Cascade Locks to lighten my pack for the ride. I should pick it up Friday and then get on the trail. If I'm real lucky I'll make it to Vancouver in time for the evening bus to Cascade Locks. If not, there is always the morning bus. Just a few things yet to be done. Lou and I went shopping in the afternoon and had lunch at Los Altos Taqueria a torta for me and super nachos for Lou. In the evening we all, Ernie, Courtney, Dawn, Lou and I went to Andy's BBQ in Santa Clara for a celebratory dinner for Lou achieving 120 degree flex of her new knee.
A typical PCT hike meal bag contents. These items are supplemented with granola bars, trail mix, peanut butter and tortillas. My final base pack load was weighed as 40 pounds. I'm not sure what the extra 15 pounds are but solving that will be for another time. The pack is generally the same weight as it was for my fist part of the hike even though it now contains a real sleeping bag, not a quilt, an ice axe, rain gear, and some other things needed for potential colder hiking.
A news article today said that Palo Alto, my home town, is the number one snobbiest small town in the country. Nice to be know for something. Highest household income, housing cost, Highest education level, and a good deal of art galleries, performing arts activities and private schools. Also the fewest fast food restaurants. Too bad I couldn't have contributed more (something) (anything) to our receiving such distinction.
Wednesday: (07/30) Dawn made a Mediterranean breakfast of cereal, tomatoes, onions and ? Leftover ribs and stuff from last nights dinner. I modified mine to a sandwich. I dumped the holding tanks on the RV and washed the bugs off the front of it. Now it can sit for a while, again. I did the final tasks to get ready to leave and tried really hard not to start anything new. I have an app on my phone that I can check the train status. Now, at 1542, the train is estimated to be 4 minutes behind schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment