5 days - Food

Hey Everyone!

Yes, we are still alive! We just finished all of our classes at school and each have one more final. Friday we graduate and Saturday we leave for San Diego! One journey ends and another begins.

This is our ever famous food post.  Food has been the most frustrating pre-hike activity, not to mention the most time consuming.  Trying to estimate what and how much food we will eat for 5 months is challenging and very detailed.  Variety will be key to not getting sick of meals, so we tried hard to mix up the food we are bringing.  In some towns, buying food is not an option, but for the majority of towns we are also relying on buying a little food as well as food from care packages and hiker boxes to supplement what we will be sending in mail drops.  We were not as meticulous as some others are in food choices (calorie counting, nutrition spread sheets, etc).  We are both more spontaneous and not the planning types.  We know that food will just work out.  We would rather be satisfied with that knowledge than spend time planning for the unforeseen.

That being said, we took 3 trips to Winco, 3 trips to Sam's Club, and 2 trips to Costco. After all of our food was purchased we began the long process of packaging it all up.  Powders and dried food were put into individual plastic bags.  Trail mixes were made from an assortment of cereal, nuts, fruits, seeds, and candy.  We put meals, snacks, drink mixes, and maps in boxes.  We labeled them and addressed them for our parents.  Here is the notorious mail drop picture of all of the packages ready to be closed and mailed out.

Our parents will send these boxes out and we will get one every 3-8 days.  We are extremely grateful to our parents for being so willing to help.  Thank you!

For those interested, here is a list of some of the meals and snacks chosen:

Dinners: instant mashed potatoes, top ramen, macaroni and cheese, rice and curry, rice and beans, pesto, tortellinis, Knorr meals, cous cous, and cold cereal.

Lunch/Snacks: cereal, tuna and crackers, hummus, tortillas, PB sandwiches, oatmeal, summer sausage, cheese, trail mix, fruit leathers (only Jenna), fruit snacks, candy bars, granola bars, granola, poptarts.

Breakfast: instant breakfasts and pop tarts.

We are so excited and the reality is starting to set in that we are leaving this Saturday.  Can't wait to get out there and hike.

Be Free!
-Jenna and Nate