Twenty Questions (E1): Weird Food

Today kicks off the very long lead up to my 20 year blogging anniversary. I decided that I would do it this way, as I know myself and I do not want to be pressured to cram this project into the twenty weeks (I usually only post once per week) before the actual anniversary date, so this is the plan. Taking a page from Engie's book, I will do 20 posts, which will each be lists of 20 random things. These posts will be twice or three times a month depending on how many Mondays the month has, and will culminate just before the anniversary date, which is technically April 3rd, 2026, but will be celebrated on Monday, April 6th. 

I do want to have some crowd participation and so have compiled a questionnaire for you to each fill out and I will compile your answers into some fun lists down the road. You can fill it out here. Additionally for each list, I will put the prompt or questions at the bottom of each post for you to copy and paste (CTRL-C, CTRL-V, my site does not allow right click copy and paste) and answer as well! 

Without further ado, here is list number one: strange things that I have eaten. Now, I realize that (a) some of these actually are not strange to me (in fact many of them are not strange to me anymore!), but they may be strange to you, and (b) some of them may be strange to me but not strange to you, so feel free to add your strange thing if I have not covered it! 

Rambutan

1. Rambutan (fruit). Various parts of Asia, San Francisco, US.

I have mentioned this one before but if you look at the outside of it, you would never think that it was something that you could eat and enjoy. The inside tastes and looks kind of like a lychee and is quite delicious! You can find them at your local Chinatown sometimes or possibly in an Asian grocery store, and I have actually seen them at Fred Meyers in Portland, OR, so you never know! If you see them, I suggest you get them so you can try them! 

Chapulines

2. Chapulines (roasted grasshoppers). Mexico. 

These are actually quite good, if you get over the fact that they still have legs and wings and can ignore the feeling that they may crawl around in your mouth when you are eating them. However, if you were fed them with a blindfold on, you would just think you were eating some popcorn with nutritional yeast or something like that. They are not bad at all. 

3. Sweetbreads (thymus and/or pancreas glands). La Folie and other restaurants in San Francisco. 

Neither sweet, nor bread! If you get over the fact that you are essentially eating an organ, these are also quite good. Often they are covered in sauce and again, if you did not know what you were eating, you would likely enjoy them. They are quite light and a bit fatty in a good way, kind of like foie gras, which I also enjoy a lot. 

4. Chicken hearts. Bolivia, Peru, Brazilian steakhouses.

In Bolivia, you can buy these from street vendors, who grill them on a little BBQ right in front of you. They are not my favorite organ, but they are worth trying at least once. 

Pho

5. Phở Dặc Biệt (rice noodle soup with beef tendons, tripe). Vietnam, San Francisco, any place that serves pho. 

This is my favorite pho. Usually it comes with beef brisket, sometimes meatballs, and then of course the tripe and tendons and strange pieces of collagen. It may sound strange, but I have the nicest hair and fingernails you have ever seen. :) If you are not so adventurous, you can just get regular pho, which only has the beef brisket. If you have not tried this before, I highly recommend it; it takes like two days to cook the broth and it is so flavorful. This is one of my go-to meals, as in, if I have a chance to have it, I get it! 

Oink, oink

6. Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle). Germany, with variations in Czechia, Poland, Slovakia and other countries, also in German restaurants (this one in New York is my favorite).

If you like pork, you will like this. It is an entire pig knuckle, slow roasted for a really long time so that the skin is super crispy, and then below that you have a nice layer of fat and below that you have a fall of the bone tender pork. With one bite you get heaven every time. I got it when I was in Germany with the girls and made them try it so that they could see that just because it has the word knuckle in it does not mean it is gross. They both loved it! 

I did not eat this one

7. Rattlesnake. California. 

When I was growing up, we had rattlesnakes in our neighborhood (this is a loose term since really it was a lot of land with very few neighbors) a lot. One day after killing one that was getting frisky, we barbequed it and ate it. I was maybe 13 or 14 at the time, and it was surprisingly good to me, and of course, like the cliche states, it did taste a bit like chicken. However, it has a lot of bones and very little meat (see also: #13)

8. Pig trotters (hoof). The southern part of the U.S., and La Folie, San Francisco. 

Pickled pigs feet are definitely worth trying if you ever get the chance. They usually come in a jar with a lot of them floating around, which is a little off-putting, but like most pickled things, they taste delicious. And if you are not into that, you can find them at fancy French restaurants sometimes, which is where I also tried them, in a very delicious pig foot and lobster terrine. 

9. Haggis. Scotland, the U.S., my family gatherings.

My family hails from Scotland and so we have heard about haggis all of our lives, but I did not try it until I actually went to Scotland in my 20s and it was delicious. It is traditionally made of the parts of the sheep that you could not use, which are then cooked with herbs, onions and oatmeal, by steaming the entire thing inside a sheep's stomach. So essentially, just think of eating turkey stuffing, and that is haggis. I mean, not to insult anyone, but it tastes like stuffing, and nowadays is often made with artificial casing (no stomach) and less offal, so it is not even that crazy. 

10. Alligator. Florida, Australia. 

Alligator also tastes like chicken, and I have had it fried which really makes it taste like chicken, and in Florida you then even dip it in mayo based sauce, so you may as well go to McDonalds and get a chicken nugget. For real though, if you can get it grilled so that you can actually taste it, I suggest that. And actually, it tastes a tiny bit fishy, so it is like fishy chicken. Haha. Did I sell it or what? I actually like it just fine. 

Portuguese snails

11. Escargot. France, Portugal, Philippines. 

Snails! Who knew that you could take a pencil eraser and smother it in butter and garlic and it would taste good? Actually in Portugal the ones I ate were so tiny that they give you a kind of safety pin looking thing to pluck them out of the shell with and you also get like a hundred of them so by the time you are done you have burned so many calories and taken in so few that you need to go and get a pizza. 

12. Cuey (Guinea Pig). Peru. 

It tastes like very greasy chicken. The weird part is that when you visit people's houses they have them running around in the kitchen and you just know that later that day, the poor wee beastie is going to be someone's dinner. 

13. Chicken Feet. China, San Francisco, any Chinese restaurant. 

These also taste like chicken. Haha. Just kidding; I mean, they do, but they taste just fine but just like the snails, they are a lot of work without a lot of meat. (see also: #7) Worth trying, but nothing that I would order over and over. If I am going to do a lot of work for only a little meat, I would rather eat crab. 

14. Yak Milk. Nepal. 

Apparently the lady yak is actually called a nak, so technically (unless they are milking the males) you are really eating nak milk. It is quite sour, like kefir or plain yogurt, but apparently has some really healthy properties. I only tried it once and it was okay but nothing I would have gone running out to procure after that. I wonder if I would feel differently now, since I have developed more of a liking for non-sweetened yogurts etc. 

15. Ube ice cream. Philippines, San Francisco, Hawaii.

I have never met an ice cream I don't like and ube is no exception. Ube is a purple root that looks like a yam, and is often used in Filipino cuisine. In San Francisco, there is a really good ice cream shop called Mitchells and they have ube on the menu (they also have some really good ones like green tea, Thai iced tea, and seasonal favorites like pumpkin and eggnog) and it is delicious! If you go to the Philippines, you can get halo halo, which is an odd concoction of jellied things, beans, shaved ice, sugar, coconut and ube jam or ube ice cream. It is a must try! 

16. Cherimoya / Custard Apple / Sugar Apple. South America, Vietnam. 

These are strange fruits that looks kind of quilted on the outside, and then inside is white with large seeds. I first tried it in Vietnam it a little messy to eat when you are traveling by backpack, but is well worth a try. 

17. Kohlrabi. U.S. etc.

I accidentally grew these in my garden, thinking it was a beet based on the photo. However, once they grow, they are a large round vegetable with leaves growing out of it, and if you cut it up and eat it, it tastes similar to a jicama or an Asian pear or water chestnut (kind of). I found that I enjoyed putting them in salads for a nice crunch, or made into a slaw, but you can also put it into stir fries or boil them like a potato and eat them like that. 

18. Cacao fruit. Panama. 

I never knew before I went to Panama that the Cacao was a fruit. They harvest this fruit, remove the seeds, roast them, grind them and make them (the seeds) into cocoa that we are used to. However, the fruit (fleshy) part can also be eaten, and it is quite good! 

Nopales + Prickly Pear

19. Nopales (cactus) + Prickly Pear. Mexico. U.S. (+ Mediterranean, Australia etc.)

In San Francisco, you can get a burrito made with nopales and when I was a vegetarian, I would do this a lot. You can also get all kinds of dishes made with it. Also, fun fact, the nopales cactus is the same one that has the prickly pear fruit that is also edible. You can find them growing wild all over California, as well as other U.S. states and other countries. I used to work with a woman from Malta who would pick and process (peel, cut etc.) the prickly pear for us and bring it into work; I loved her, as that is a lot of work to do! 

Young almonds

20. Young Almond. Türkiye. 

When I was walking the Lycian Way, a farmer gave me these fuzzy little fruits and I was not really sure what it was but I ate it (why not, eh?). Later I Googled and it was young almonds. You can eat the entire thing (the shell is not hard yet) except for the fuzzy skin, but the outer part is a little bitter, but the inner part, which will later be the nut that we are used to, tastes kind of like cucumber! 

COPY PASTE - which of these have you tried?:

1. Rambutan

2. Chapulines (roasted grasshoppers)

3. Sweetbreads (thymus and/or pancreas glands)

4. Chicken hearts

5. Phở Dặc Biệt (tendons, tripe)

6. Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle)

7. Rattlesnake

8. Pig trotters (hoof)

9. Haggis

10. Alligator

11. Escargot

12. Cuey (Guinea Pig)

13. Chicken Feet

14. Yak Milk

15. Ube ice cream

16. Cherimoya / Custard Apple / Sugar Apple

17. Kohlrabi

18. Cacao fruit 

19. Nopales / Prickly Pear

20. Young Almond

Don't forget to fill out --> THE QUESTIONNAIRE!

Have you eaten any of these things? Or what other weird thing have you eaten that is not on this list? 

By The Numbers: April

It's May! As you may know, this is my favorite month! Bring on the spring time! I thought I would do a quick recap of the last "month" of travel, including some fun facts about ice cream consumption. I started my biking journey at the end of March, so this month will have a few non-April days in it, but here is what we have so far (through and including 05/01/24). 

Mileage Stats:

Total Days on Road: 40

Total Days Ridden: 29

Total Miles: 1,440

Average Miles Per Day Ridden: 49.6

Total Hours (moving only): 164

Average (moving) Hours Per Day: 5.7 (5:40) 

*my guess would be that average time on the road per day (moving + non-moving) would be around 8 hours. I take a lot of photos, potty breaks and food breaks! 

Sunshine Coast Highway

Accommodation stats: 

Established Camp: 4

Friend: 13

Motel: 13

Warm Showers: 2

Wild Camp: 8

Home for the night

Budget stats: 

*I will probably do this each month going forward, but this time, it will include all 40 days so far. 

Accommodation: $1,084

Dining Out: $275

Groceries: $310

Health: $234 (insurance premium)

Transportation: $79 (bus/ferry)

Phone: $81 (this is a family plan, but since I pay for it, I will account for the total)

Entertainment: $292 (bike repairs/satellite messenger)

Misc.: $17 (VPN, credit card fees, gifts)

Total spent for 40 days: $2,357

Monthly (30 day) cost: $1,767

This is good, as my thought was that I would shoot for about $2,000 per month, but I knew I may have to tweak it a little as I got more knowledge about what I was actually spending. I am happy with this, but know that some weeks I may be spending more on accommodation, which is my highest cost. 

Also, in the question form (it's not too late! You can still ask questions here), my friend Dr. G asked, "How has your spending changed? Do you spend 10% of what you did before?" Well, I do not spend 10% of what I spent before, maybe more like a third, but I think I will have a lot more clarity on this answer at the end of the year. It is hard right now, as I am still actually paying a lot for home things (repairs, inspections, upgrades) and so this cost above is really only my travel cost, and in all actuality, I probably spent more in the month of April than I have in a very long time (or ever). 

Peanut butter milkshake at Bend Burger!

Also, because I know you care, here are my specific ice cream stats: 

*I have put these in liters so that they will be consistent. FYI, a normal "half gallon" in the US is about 1.5 L (which is not actually half of a gallon anymore). 

Times I have been to the grocery store: 15

Times I have bought ice cream: 7

Total L of ice cream bought: 7.2 L (~5 half gallons)

Total cost: $22.56 (7.2% of grocery spend)

Average $ per L: $3.13 (~ $4.69 per half gallon)

Cheapest: Bremerton, WA / $2.10 per L (~ $3.15 per half gallon)

Most Expensive: Victoria BC / $5.83 per L (~ $8.75 per half gallon) (celebratory pint after good news! Totally worth every bite!)

Favorite Brand so Far: Trader Joes

Least Favorite Brand so Far: Crystal

Okay it's your turn!! How much did you spend on ice cream last month? How many times per month do you go to the grocery store? How much does a "half gallon" or 1.5 L cost in your neck of the woods? What is your favorite ice cream flavor? 

What I Love: Snacks

I spend a large part of my day thinking about what I am going to eat next, what food I am going to buy, when I am going to eat it, how I am going to eat it and how much of it I am going to eat. I am not always hungry, but I am often hungry. I can eat a disgusting amount of food. Remember when Michael Phelps posted his 10,000 calorie per day diet? He said, "eat, sleep and swim; that's all I do." Now we know that maybe his pot smoking contributed to his munchie inclination, but still, 10,000 calories is a lot to eat in one day. I am not quite there, but I am trying to give him a run for his money. I would estimate that I burn between 3,500-5,000 calories per day, depending on terrain and mileage, and I am doing my best to put that many back in! 

Obviously, I cannot carry around Phelps' three fried egg sandwiches, half a kilo of pasta or large pizza, so I do rely a lot on snacks, and many of them are sugary. Funny enough, I am actually not a big sugar eater in real life. However, I am embracing the now and doing what feels good. Before you get all worried (hi Mom!), my favorite town meal is a huge bagged salad with a extra veggies and some protein if I can find it! However, here are some of my favorite on-the-bike snacks. 

Dried fruit: I would prefer non-dried fruit, but it is not really the season right now, plus I can only fit so much. I have bought an apple or orange or banana from time to time but I try to eat it fast so I don't have to carry it. What will last longer is something like Trader Joes dried coconut or mangos or WinCo dried apples (I love their bulk bins!)

Meat and cheese: For some reason I often crave protein, but I obviously do not have a fridge. My trick is to buy precooked bratwurst and a block of cheddar on an evening when I have a fridge and then try to eat them the next day. If need be, the cheese will last for a few days, although if it is warm, it does tend to get a bit slimy. However, the brats need to be eaten fairly quickly. I have been known to have two for breakfast and two for lunch to use them up! 

TJs Boba Mochi: I looked at this and thought that it was a bit strange, but then I thought I would give it a shot, since they are individually wrapped. They are good! So nice to have one of these for "dessert" after a meat and cheese snack! 

Fudge dipped coconut granola bar: As I mentioned, I eat a lot. In an effort to not spend $2 per bar and then eat 6 of them in one day, I tried to find a cheaper granola bar. These don't have the best ingredients for sure, but they are only $2.50 for a box of 10 and they taste pretty good! 

Chocolate covered gummy bears: I also like plain ol' gummy bears, but the chocolate covered ones are my favorite. However, these do melt, so as it gets hotter, I have to have the naked ones... 

Cottage cheese and tortilla chips: This is like my all time favorite snack, but I usually have to buy it on a town day, eat the cottage cheese with chips and then I can carry the remaining chips as a snack. There is nothing better than some salty corn goodness when I have just climbed up a big sweaty hill! Also, I don't care if they are tiny or smashed, they still do the trick! 

Yogurt and peanut butter: I only carried this once when my eyes were way bigger than my stomach and I had a lot of fridge food that I did not eat on the night I was in town. So I wrapped the yogurt in a plastic bag and planned to eat it for second breakfast (or elevensies). Then I sat down on the side of the road, put a couple of scoops of PB in it, stirred and ate while I watched the cars go by. It was great. This is one of my favorite snacks from home when I trying to pretend that I am eating ice cream, but I am also trying to be healthier. 

Speaking of Peanut Butter: This is such a versatile thing; you can just eat it right from the spoon, or on a cracker, or tortilla, or apple, or banana, or you can put it in yogurt or cottage cheese. I could go on, but I do not want to sound like Bubba. Peanut butter etouffee anyone? 

What is your favorite hiking/biking/road trip snack!? What is your favorite way to eat peanut butter? 

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

I recently listened to the book Food, A Love Story by the comedian Jim Gaffigan where he talks about his relationship with food. I don't know much about Gaffigan and have never seen his stand up or a movie with him in it, but the book was available at my library and I wanted something light so I picked it up. It is read by the author and in the end, it was surprisingly funny. I am not always a fan of memoirs as they just talk about themselves the entire time, but he talked about himself in a depreciating but comedic manner. 

One of my favorite places to think deep thoughts...

In addition to that, this book made me think. Of course I was out hiking when I listened to it, and that already lends itself to deep thoughts, but I do love a book that makes you consider things you may not have thought of before. In this case, he made a joke about eating when you are not really hungry: “Ugh, I’m so full. I guess I’ll have some cheese. Hmm, I don’t even like this cheese. I guess I’ll finish it.” It got me thinking about how often I do this (a lot!) and how some people don't seem to have this issue. Why can I not open a bag of tortilla chips without eating the entire thing when some people CAN "eat just one?" I don't know the answer to this question, nor do I know if I will ever change, but it got me thinking! Here are a couple of other recent reads that have got me saying hmmmm lately...

The Measure: this is a book about everyone in the world receiving a box with a string in it. The length of the string indicates the length of your life. I will not tell you how I felt about this book, but it got me thinking... would I want to open the box? What would I do (differently?) if I found out that my string was long/short? The book also explores the politics surrounding the strings: should you be required to disclose your string length? Should you run for office or be in the military if your string is short? It was very interesting and really make me think about a lot of different social and political issues. 

Living Without Plastic: this book is, not surprisingly, about trying to use less plastic in your life. It talks about some of the substitutions we can initiate, like some obvious ones such as our own reusable grocery bags, own own produce bags or some more not so obvious but easy ones like wooden combs and toothbrushes, bar shampoos and soaps, non-plastic straws and utensils etc. I try to do my part, and don't use a lot of single use things like plastic water bottles or takeout containers etc., but there are some changes I will make due to reading this. It even inspired me to finally take a load of old grocery bags to Sprouts for recycling (also did you know you can recycle plastic wraps, like the ones that are around a case of water or toilet paper, at some grocery stores too?) I still have a long way to go, but I feel like this book has given me some ideas to move in the right direction. 

Can you "eat just one" chip? Would you open your box/want to know how much longer you had to live? Do you do any of the anti-plastic activities I mentioned or do you have any other tips/tricks for not using so much plastic? 

The Money Pie Deconstructed: Groceries

Every year I do a recap of my spending, and I have broken the items into nine categories: Dining Out, Entertainment, Groceries, Health, Home, Misc., Shopping, Transportation and Travel. Last year I broke down my transportation category and went into more detail about where I spend my money in this category, how I get to work, how hard it is to park sometimes and what's in my trunk. 

Now its time to talk about groceries. Before I start, I have a confession to make. I like reading posts and watching YouTube videos about how people spend their money, and specifically how they spend their grocery money and/or how they save money on groceries. Some of my favorites are Frugal Fit Mom, Mary's Nest and FlavCity. 

I am not a doomsday prepper, but I definitely could last for a few months on the stores that I have in my house. Much of this is due to the fact that I have a good supply of camping food, which lasts for a long time, is lightweight and can be eaten by just adding water. I also have amassed a good supply of staples over the years, such as rice, dried beans and canned tomatoes. 

I am not an extreme couponer; however, I do like to sit down with the ads each week and compare prices at my local stores. I prefer to do this on paper as it is nice to be able to compare the different places side by side, but a lot of stores have apps and I will sometimes browse them instead, which is nice because you can make a list of things to buy right on the app. However, using the apps does sometimes mean toggling back and forth or making notes about which store has better deals. I usually base my weekly shopping trip on whichever store has the better deals. If one store has one of my staples at a great price, I may just shop at that one store for the week, or if the deals are split, I may go to two. 

I make a list in Google Keep and to be honest, a lot of weeks I just duplicate the list from last week and change a few things. There are a few staples I often buy so my list looks very similar each week. This app is also good if you are sharing shopping duties as you can add a collaborator and they can also add or cross off things from the list.

I generally shop at Safeway for most basics, and a local store called Farmer Joes for produce. Farmer Joes is a combination of expensive specialty items, bulk items and produce; if you want a head of lettuce, their prices and quality can't be beat, but if you are looking for a gallon of milk, you will pay out the nose for it. This makes it worth my while to go to both stores, plus they are only a block apart so it does not take too much extra time. 

I have a two tiered method of shopping: (1) fresh items that I use each week, such as milk, eggs, vegetables and fruit and (2) longer term items, such as dry goods like beans, rice or oatmeal, canned goods and meat, which I will buy in bulk and freeze. For the fresh items, sometimes you just have to pay a little more, but I try to buy what is in season and work around that rather than having a specific dish in mind and buying specific items for that dish. I am happy to eat oranges instead of apples, or use oat milk over almond milk if one is cheaper or fresher than the other. For longer term items, I try to get them when they are on sale and I store them until I need them. For example, last week Lucky's had pork chops for $0.99 per pound, so I bought ten pounds and froze them in two packs for later. Again, I don't really need specific items so will buy whatever is cheap at the moment. 

The "pantry"

I do not plan meals per se, but will see what is on sale and will then loosely plan around that. If pork chops are what I bought, that week's lunches will be pork chops and I will add whatever veggie I bought along with rice or quinoa from the long term section. I usually cook enough for one week's worth of lunches and prep them all at once. For dinners, I will normally go to the freezer where I have stored my prior deals in convenient serving sized packs, and I will take something out in the morning and then cook it at night with some other veggies etc. 

I guess I will be having pork butt soon!

I do not mind eating the same meal several times a week, and a lot of my meals consist of meat/tofu and a veggie with sometimes rice or potato. Other standbys are beans, lentils or some sort of Indian or Thai inspired "stew" (usually beans or tofu) over rice. If I am feeling lazy, an old standby is miso soup and if I am feeling frisky, I may add chicken or pork or rice noodles to it and call it ramen. 

Weekly meal prep

Lunches for the week

Let's talk about the costs, my favorite part! I love hearing what others spend on their grocery bills and why its higher or lower. I know a few of you chimed in on my purging post and I am amazed at what a range there is of how much people spend! Over the last six years, my average grocery bill per month has been about $320. This is inflated by the amount I spent in 2020; without this outlier, the average would be about $290. For the first quarter of 2023, the average is about $200, but my goal for this year is to shop more from my pantry and use up some of the items I already have rather than buying more, so I expect my grocery costs to be lower this year. 

Fun facts: in 2022, I went to Costco 17 times; my average spend per trip was $115. My three top purchased items by count at Costco were blueberries, strawberries and cucumbers and by dollar amount were coffee, strawberries and blueberries (yay fruit!). The price of two pounds of strawberries ranged from $6.99 to $10.79 throughout the year. The average cost was $7.97. 

What is your grocery shopping schedule/method like? Do you often buy the same things over and over or are you more exciting than me? What is your favorite "go to" meal? If you have not already answered this, how much do you spend on groceries? 

Looking Back: Purging Progress Report Q1

I am a big fan of accountability. People who say that they are going to do something and then don't do it really get my goat. This can be a meetup, a big project, or even something as simple as (and this is a real example) picking up pastries for a client meeting. In this case the person attending the meeting said he was going to bring the client pastries. I spoke to the client before the meeting and talked up these pastries and then the person going to the meeting did not take the time to stop and get them after saying that he was going to, so now I look like I am not accountable. 

Listen, I don't live under a rock; I realize that stuff happens and sometimes we get waylaid, we get stuck in traffic or our priorities change. I am a realist; I get this. However, being a realist, I also try not to overpromise and underdeliver. In fact, I will often say no if I am unsure if I will be able to commit, which may make me a glass half full person in the eyes of some, but I guess I would rather disappoint people in the front end than at the last minute.

All of that blather is a lead in to my main point which is that earlier this year I talked about doing some purging and since we are now one quarter into this year, I am going to be accountable by doing a quick progress check and update. My three areas I wanted to work on for the first three months of they year were paperwork and files, go bag and kitchen/fridge/freezer. 

Paperwork and Files: The goal here was to throw away and/or reorganize old hard copy files and to update and organize my yearly electronic spreadsheets (address list, money pie list, account list etc.) Note that this gets less hard copy and more electronic as each year goes by, but I do still have hard copies of some of my home, car and medical related paperwork as well as some tax and financial items. 

How am I doing? Good! I did all of this and even went through some of my memento boxes where I keep old holiday cards and stuff and threw a lot of those away. I had a good time reliving some memories and in some cases only shuffled things around and then ended up keeping them anyway, but I do think that each year when I go through this kind of stuff I pare it down more and more. I used to keep all thank you notes and I finally threw them away after reading them one last time and taking a quick photo of any that were really sweet. I am really trying to adhere more to the "touch once" principal where instead of moving an item somewhere just to move it somewhere else, cut out the middle man and just put it where it is going to be for good (which is often the trash can!)

I love this card! (I did throw it away though)

What is next? I still have a lot of memento boxes (these are my Achilles heel), some of which are in the garage, and I need to go through them and either put them in an album or throw them away. They are not doing me any good in a box and speaking of the touch once principal, it is probably time for the final touch for some of these items. Also an extension to this category is electronic files, which I need to tidy up. For some reason before I had the cloud for photos, I saved them in several places (!) and I need to cull the duplicates. Unfortunately they do not have the same file name and so it is not as simple as just sorting and culling. I also have an ongoing task of unsubscribing and culling emails, which is something I do a few times each month. 

Go Bag: The goal here is to make sure all of the items, documents and information in my go bag are current and updated.

How am I doing? Good! This go bag is twofold - one is emergency supplies like food, candles, flashlight, etc. and the other is important docs like my passport, birth certificate, deed to my house etc. I also keep a list of all of my accounts in this folder so that if I have to leave in a hurry I will have everything in one place (this also doubles as my death list, which I will talk about in a later post). Most of this stuff is also electronic, but I do like to keep a hard copy as a backup. I updated all of the food that was close to expiration and made sure all of my batteries were in good shape and updated my folder, so I am all good here. I also started up my generator and charged my Caterpillar supercharger thingy so that they are ready if I need them. I hope that I never need to use any of this stuff, but I think it is good to be prepared just in case. (P.S. I could write an entire post about the Cat charger - it is awesome.)

What is next? The generator and Cat charger need to be started and charged once per quarter, but the other stuff is pretty much good to go unless there are any major changes. 

Kitchen/Fridge/Freezer: This involves throwing away expired items, and eating things in the freezer rather than buying more. One of my traits (faults? habits?) is that I do like to have a few extra cans of olives (or beans or tomatoes or...) laying around just in case I feel using them (I am not a fan of going to the store after I have run out; I would rather go before I need the item) so I have amassed a pretty good backup of certain items. I also like to purchase things when they are on sale rather than when I need them when I would have to pay a premium, but it is a delicate balance between being a smart shopper and being a hoarder. I am working on being more of the former than the latter! 

No more room! (Also, clearly I need to use more butter)

How am I doing? Good! In the first three months of the year, I spent approximately $575 on groceries and used up a lot of cans of olives! I cleaned out the fridge and freezer and took stock of what I have so that I can better plan my meals and grocery shopping trips. I also finally used those frozen peaches from my tree and made peach cobbler and lots of baked peach oatmeal! However, I did do one Costco run for meat (which was about a third of my grocery spending for the quarter) and caved a couple of times and bought items like tortilla chips just because they were on sale.

What is next? I will continue to do light grocery shopping and will try to use up pantry and freezer items for the next three months. I still have a lot of beans. One of my tasks for this quarter is also to go through my camping food and gear and prepare for summer trips, so I will take stock of the food I have (in a box in the garage) for that too and can probably consolidate some things. 

What is your take on accountability? How much do you spend on groceries each month? How are you doing on your goals so far this year? 

My FODMAP Journey

I have always been a good eater. A member of the clean plate club. A proponent of eating anything and  everything and lots of it. I have never been a picky eater. However, I have always had an issue with slight bloating. It never was horrible, but if I ate a big bowl of cauliflower for lunch, a bowl of chili for dinner and two apples with peanut butter for dessert, I would probably have a slight stomach bulge, or what we would call a burrito baby, and would definitely have tight pants. Usually it was gone the next morning and I could go about my day. 

However, a couple of years ago, I noticed that it was becoming more frequent and more severe and it seemingly didn't really matter what I ate, if I ate or if I didn't eat, how much I ate etc. I was often so bloated that I looked I was five months pregnant (and felt that way too!) and was having severe pains in my upper stomach at times. I went to see a gastroenterologist and she gave me a blood test which came back all clear and then put me on a low FODMAP diet. What the heck is a FODMAP, you ask? FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols. So now that we are clear... But wait, what? We are not clear? What is all that gibberish, you ask? 

Disclaimer: I am no doctor, nor chemist, nor biologist. But I took organic chemistry once a long time ago, so I will attempt to break it down. These are short-chain carbohydrates (sugars) that the small intestine absorbs poorly, and eating them can cause digestive issues (often due to them fermenting while in the intestine). All of the fancy names have to do with how many units make up the chain. For the purposes of matching the Monash list, let's refer to them as Oligos (which include fructans, not to be confused with fructose), Lactose (Di), Fructose (Mono) and...Polyols (which includes mannitol and sorbitol). Still a bit lost? 

You will be familiar with many of the main culprits: beans, wheat, cauliflower, lactose and garlic, along with many other fruits and vegetables. Some of the items are red, as in do not eat at all, and that is manageable. However, some are yellow, as in you can have 10 grams of it and be okay. However, you may not be able to have 10 grams of one yellow and 10 grams of another without having issues. Plus, who eats only 43 grams of corn? P.S. That is about 2 tablespoons. You can see the full detailed list here (as of 2022). 

From Ecosh

The first step of the diet is the elimination phase. For me, this was an eight week period where I eliminated all of the red and most of the yellow items on the list. To be honest, I did feel better during this phase, but it is a pain in the butt. You can't have garlic or onions or beans or wheat or lactose. I definitely did not eat out except for maybe once (Japanese was really the only thing I could eat, except soy was also not allowed - sashimi anyone?) and was "that guy" at any dinner with friends ("I'll just have a plain lettuce leaf with a whipped air dressing and a glass of water, thanks"). It did keep me from snacking (I ate A LOT of carrot sticks) because my main go to is fruit, which was probably the hardest part of this phase. I love fruit, especially apples, which are on the red list. 

The second part is the reintroduction phase. Do not think that this is all an all-you-can-eat fun party, because its not. This is another eight to ten week phase where you introduce one food from one category for three days straight, ramp up the quantity each day, see how it affects you and then go back to elimination for four days. Then on week two, you try a different category for three days, take four days off, try a new category for three days... you get the picture. The twist is that even if you think that the item does not bother you, you do not continue eating it. Basically except for the three days where you ate it, for the other seven weeks and four days, you are essentially still eliminating that category. You can read more on the Monash website. 

The reason you do it for so many weeks even though there are only four categories is that you may need to try several things in the same category. For example, garlic, onions, beans, bread and many common vegetables are in the oligosaccharide category. Its best to test out each one separately, as one of them may be the trigger, but you won't necessarily have an issue with all of them. And who wants to give up garlic if they don't have to!?

You also want to make sure you are trying things that are only in one category. For example, apples have both fructose and polyols, so you would not want to see if fructose is your issue by having an apple because if you did have an issue you would not know if it was the fructose or the polyol. You would be better off to have orange juice, a fig, or a mango to see if fructose was the issue (or rum apparently, although I would stick to something you consume often - you do you). For polyols you might want to try a yellow peach, cauliflower or a mushroom. This NHS video is also very helpful in explaining the reintroduction method. 

My nine weeks worth of tests were: 

Oligos (broken into five): black beans, garlic, onions, bread, artichoke

Lactose (Di): yogurt

Fructose (Mono): mango

Polyols (broken into two): avocado (sorbitol) and cauliflower (mannitol)

Of course all of this is done alongside journaling and really trying to be at one with your intestines, which can be fun but tedious at the same time, and trying to live life. Was that stomach rumble hunger, or should I have not eaten more than 27 grams of cauliflower today? Do I have a tummy ache from the bread, or was it the two bowls of oatmeal I ate this morning with butter and maple syrup? 

To wrap this up for now, I know you are wondering what the end result was. I would like to say that one thing really bugged me, I stopped eating it and I am happy and svelte and bloat free. However, that is not the case. I have learned that there are a few things, or high quantities of other things, that do seem to be worse, but there are still times when I do not eat those items and I have issues, so it is still a work in progress. Usually I find out by making a mistake (i.e. do not eat two large bowls of popcorn in one sitting, especially after eating three bean soup) but at least I am on the right path. I am not on full reduction, but something more like a maintenance phase for now. 

Also, like I said, I am not a health professional and I usually am not a proponent of supplements either but I started taking two probiotics that were recommended by a friend of my brothers and they seem to help a little: the first you take right before you eat, and the second you take at the end of the day after you are done eating. They are kind of expensive, and it took about a week before I noticed any effect, but they do seem to help reduce the tight pant syndrome! Sometimes that feeling of tight pants is not just physically demoralizing, but mental too and so in this case, I will try anything! 

Feel free to reach out personally with questions; I am happy to get into (TMI) more detail if needed! 

Have you ever had gastro issues? If so, what did you do to get rid of them? If not, what other issues have you had and how did you overcome them? 

Slovenian Mountain Trail: Logistics, Gear and Planning

Slovenia is a country that I wanted to go to for a long time. There were a few times where I tried to tack it onto the end of a trip to Austria or Italy or Slovakia, but I felt like it would not do it justice for it to only go there for a few days at the end of a different trip. So in September of 2022 I dedicated an entire two weeks to this little jewel of a country. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but the country has a lot to offer, including mountains, cities, beaches, wine and food! 

However, my main focus was to spend some time hiking the oldest long-distance trail in Europe, the Slovenian Mountain Trail (SMT), otherwise known as the SPP-1, the Slovenska Planinska Pot or the Transversala. It is a ~600 km (375 mile) trail from Maribor in the east to Ankaran on the west coast. It goes through several ranges of the Alps, including the Pohorje, the Julian Alps, the Karawanks, and the Kamnik-Savinja Alps. It also goes right past (and to if you like) the highest point in Slovenia, Mount Triglav, which sits at 2,863 meters (9,395 feet). 

The Plan/Logistics: Getting to Slovenia is not hard, but there are no direct flights to Ljubljana, and even if you do have a layover, flying into Slovenia’s tiny capital is not cheap. I ended up deciding to fly to Vienna, where I took a three-hour Flixbus to Graz Austria and then two trains to Maribor to start my trip. You also have the option of taking a five-hour bus directly from Vienna to Maribor. My original plan was to get to Maribor early in the morning and start hiking right away, but due to some travel issues, I arrived there around 5:00 pm, so I stayed one night in Maribor instead. This gave me the chance to buy fuel, which I was planning on either buying in the morning or doing without for the first few days, so that was a silver lining of starting a day later. 

There is no camping allowed in Slovenia; this hike consists of hut-to-hut travel and there are a total of about 60 huts along the way. They suggest that the huts be booked in advance, but most of them do not have online booking and you must call to make a reservation. I suggest becoming a member of the Alpine Club, which costs about $30.00 and gets you 30% - 50% off of hut costs, which is a savings of about $9.00 - $13.00 per hut. Figuring out which hut to stay at each night was actually not as easy to plan as you may think. I could not find one single website in English where you can see how far it was between huts or how much time it would take to get from one to the other. There was a GPX Track on the main Slovenian Alpine Club webpage, and I ended up using that and Gaia to figure out how much mileage and elevation gain was between each hut. I then exported this data to Offline Maps where I could use it to determine my route each day. 

I also came up with a possible daily plan, but I wanted the flexibility of being able to go further if I was feeling good, or to stop if I was not feeling well or if it was raining. So even though I mapped out all of the huts and data for them, I did not make a single reservation in advance. I wanted to go approximately 20-25 miles per day, but was aware that some days may be a little easier than others, so this would need to be flexible. 

The Route: The plan was to go from Maribor to wherever I ended up on day twelve. I knew I wanted to make a stop in Bled for a couple of days, so would get off the trail and take a bus there and back, but other than that, I was not set on getting a certain distance, as I have learned from past trips that things don’t always go as planned. I would know more once I was on the trail, but did not want to pin myself down to one specific plan. I also knew that I wanted a couple of days at the end to visit either the coast or Ljubljana or both. Therefore, my rough plan was to end up somewhere in the Bohinj region where I could hike out and get a bus back to Ljubljana. 

I ended up doing the following. You can find the CalTopo route here.

Day 1: Saturday 09/03/22. From Maribor to Koča na Pesku. Time Elapsed: 10:47. Moving time: 08:14. Miles Hiked: 22.86. Elevation gained: 5,896 feet. Elevation lost: 2,331 feet. 

Day 2: Sunday 09/04/22. From Koča na Pesku to Slovenj Gradec. Time Elapsed: 09:19. Moving time: 06:32. Miles Hiked: 19.85. Elevation gained: 3,031 feet. Elevation lost: 6,166 feet. 

Day 3: Monday 09/05/22. From Slovenj Gradec to Dom na Smrekovku. Time Elapsed: 09:28. Moving time: 07:17. Miles Hiked: 21.25. Elevation gained: 6,070 feet. Elevation lost: 2,935 feet. 

Day 4: Tuesday 09/06/22. From Dom na Smrekovku to Luce. Time Elapsed: 07:11. Moving time: 05:02. Miles Hiked: 14.59. Elevation gained: 2,674 feet. Elevation lost: 5,355 feet. 

Day 5: Wednesday 09/07/22. From Robanov Kot to Sedlu. Time Elapsed: 08:53. Moving time: 04:01. Miles Hiked: 10.20. Elevation gained: 6,703 feet. Elevation lost: 2,604 feet. 

Day 6: Thursday 09/08/22. From Sedlu to Jesezsko. Time Elapsed: 06:34. Moving time: 03:25. Miles Hiked: 11.38. Elevation gained: 2,562 feet. Elevation lost: 5,231 feet. 

Day 7: Friday 09/09/22. Rest day in Bled.

Day 8: Saturday 09/10/22. From Bled to Aljažev Dom. Time Elapsed: 05:58. Moving time: 05:17. Miles Hiked: 17.89. Elevation gained: 2,379 feet. Elevation lost: 895 feet. 

Day 9: Sunday 09/11/22. From Aljažev Dom to Triglavski dom na Kredarici. Time Elapsed: 06:42. Moving time: 06:39. Miles Hiked: 08.12. Elevation gained: 6,345 feet. Elevation lost: 1,468 feet. 

Day 10: Monday 09/12/22. From Triglavski dom na Kredarici to Stara Fužina. Time Elapsed: 08:20. Moving time: 04:07. Miles Hiked: 13.82. Elevation gained: 1,493 feet. Elevation lost: 7,863 feet. 

Day 11: Tuesday 09/13/22. From Stara Fužina to Black Lake. Time Elapsed: 06:28. Moving time: 04:49. Miles Hiked: 14.05. Elevation gained: 3,081 feet. Elevation lost: 2,931 feet.

The Big Three: Since I would be staying in huts, where I would not need a tent, and was not allowed to camp, I left my tent behind. However, I did still carry my Western Mountaineering Ultralite 20 degree sleeping bag (29 oz.) and the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xlite regular size (12 oz.), since I thought that maybe if I got stuck between huts, as an emergency I may need to cowboy camp. I also used my trusty Hyperlite 2400 Southwest Backpack (28.6 oz.) and carried my Cocoon silk liner, since you are required to bring “linen” to the huts. My big "three" weighed about 4.9 pounds. 

Base Pack Weight: Since I did not have my tent, my base weight was only about 15 lbs. I still carried pretty much the same basic things that I always carry, even though I would be in civilization more than I normally am. 

Clothing: September is always iffy weatherwise, so I carried my normal fall gear, which consists of a puffy and rain jacket, rain pants, gloves and a beanie for warmth. However, I did not carry my winter gear, any heavy-duty weather gear or traction. This ended up being perfect, as it did rain quite a bit but was never below freezing. 

Food: Ah, this was a controversial topic. As I would be staying in huts, I could have eaten all my meals at their restaurants. However, I did not want to spend all my money on food, plus I like having the option to eat when I want and not have to wait until I get to the next hut. Therefore I carried enough food for all meals for 10 days and planned on supplementing with hut food for a few of my meals. I brought my normal lineup of bars, nuts and meat sticks for snacks, coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, and rice and beans and soups for dinner. I discovered my new favorite store-bought combo: Bear River potato soup with Knorr Mexican rice sides. Delicious! 

Water: I used my new BeFree 1 liter filter bottle and carried an extra Platypus 1 liter bottle with a 2-liter Platypus for extreme emergencies/backup. There were plenty of options to get water on the trail or at the huts, so this worked out perfectly. I never had to carry more than two liters at a time and most of the time I probably could have made do with only one.  

Total Pack Weight: Including two liters of water, ten days of food and one fuel cannister, my pack weighed a pretty heavy 37 lbs. My pack list for this trip can be found here. 

The Verdict: I did not use my sleeping bag and pad at all; I could have left them at home. I also did not eat all of my food; I ended up being in towns more than expected and had the opportunity to buy fresh groceries (fruit, cheese and bread etc.) and could have probably brought about half or two thirds of what I brought and would have still been fine. As I mentioned above, I could have brought no food at all and still made do, but I do think that a combo of hut food, store-bought food and food brought from home is the best option. 

I could have done more miles on several of the days, but I had a few things going against me; one, I was not sure how the terrain would be so was hesitant to commit to a high mileage day if it was going to be especially difficult. Two, some of the huts were spaced just the wrong distance apart, causing me to choose a too short day or a too long day. Most of the time, I chose option one but this meant that some days were only 10 miles. Lastly, some of the more popular huts were sold out on many of the days so I had to reserve them in advance and then commit to actually staying there even though I could have gone further. I am not really a fan of not being able to camp where and when you want as I often find that you have to either cut your day short or go further than you would like in order to make it work. 

The other thing that I did not take as seriously as I should have was how long the downhills would take me. Normally, if the trail goes downhill, I would assume I could do maybe three miles per hour instead of two, but some of the descents were very steep and/or they were on the side of a mountain and the climb down was treacherous. Therefore, I was a lot slower on the downhills than I expected. For example, one 13-mile day had 1,500 feet of ascent and almost 8,000 feet of descent, and it ended up taking about 8 hours! 

More Information: Flixbus long distance bus. Slovenian Alpine Club. Download the entire trail (with huts) GPX Track. Gaia mapping app. Rome2Rio travel planning and booking. Booking.com for well priced guest houses. 

Stay tuned for the Trip Report!

Have you been backpacking in a foreign country? Or just traveling in general? If so, what was your favorite part of your journey? 

What I Learned

The older I get, the more things I realize that I do not know. Here are a few things that you probably have known about for ages, but I have just recently learned. Why I did not know this earlier, I don't know, but it is kind of fun and surprising to learn such simple things. 

How to Eat a Banana My coworker used to peel his banana upside down. Then I realized that actually, his way of doing it was better. If you squeeze the bottom of the banana like a zit (ew), it easily opens. Sometimes when you open it from the top (the stem side) it is difficult and you get banana pulp under your fingernails. If you do it from the bottom, it comes open easily. Not only that, but if you peel it down about two thirds of the way, you now have a handle (the stem) to hold it by and to easily throw it away from when you are done. Voila. 

How to Have Spreadable Peanut Butter: I always used to wonder why in the world some people stored their peanut butter in the fridge. Like butter, it is so much better when it can be smoothed easily on a piece of bread. Peanut butter from the fridge was thick and tore up the bread. The other thing I thought was gross was that natural peanut butter that my parents used to buy in the 80s. It has that oil slick on top and you would get peanut butter all over your hands trying to stir it so that you could get down to the actual peanuts. Then I started being more health conscious and I now buy the natural peanut butter...and was stirring it each time. Then Broski told me he had discovered a magic trick: stir the peanut butter once really good and put it in the fridge and the oil doesn't separate. What!?? I did that, and have never looked back. It is amazing. Perfectly stirred peanut butter every time. I recommend this peanut butter from Costco. 

How to Pour Milk: You know how it is when you pour milk from the carton and it goes glug, glug, glug? I always thought that was just because the milk was full and it was a fact of life and there was nothing that can be done about it. I was wrong. If you just turn the bottle around so that the little hole is closer to your face than the counter, it does not do the glugging thing! 

Not this way! 

This is better.

Last, I will leave you with an oldie but goodie: the egg trick. When I was a kid I was afraid that I would accidentally crack open a raw egg rather than a hard boiled one and my Dad showed me how to spin the egg to see if it spun evenly or not. If it spins evenly, it is hard boiled, as the weight is evenly distributed. If it spins wonky, it is because the liquid is sloshing around. 

Teach me more! What tricks do you use that maybe I don't know about? 

Emigrant Wilderness: Logistics, Gear & Planning

At the end of last month, my friend Dr. G (trail name Bugsy) and I decided to try to get one more trip to the Sierra before the snow flurries started to fly. And boy did we get lucky, as it started snowing the Tuesday after we got back and there have been several storms since.

The Emigrant Wilderness is a pretty small wilderness and is only about 25 miles long and 15 miles wide. However, don't let the size fool you! It is full of granite outcroppings and glacier scoured landscapes. It is also a great place to cut your teeth on cross country travel, as it is not too brushy in most places, so your "bushwhacking" is more like rock climbing than anything else.

The Plan/Logistics: When it had not snowed yet and Bugsy and I realized that we both had the weekend free, we kind of made a last minute decision to take a couple of days and get out one last time. Therefore, this was not the most well thought out or the most complicated plan; Emigrant Wilderness is about 2.5 hours away from the Bay Area if there is no traffic, so we decide that instead of sitting in the horror that is Friday traffic, we would start bright and early on Saturday. We left around 5 am and after two coffee/bathroom stops and a stop to get the (self issued) permit, we were on the trail by 7:50 am. Please note that if the ranger station is open (8:30 am - 4 pm on Saturday, 9 am - 4 pm all other days), you will have to get a permit from the ranger. They do not issue permits online. Permit info here.

The Route: we had a few options, but one of the things I wanted to try was a cross country route between Buck Creek and Huckleberry Lake, so we decided to give it a shot. I mapped it out on Gaia, but of course if there is no trail, you have to just estimate where you will go and it ended up being about 4 more miles than we had expected. That made what was planned to be about a 35 mile loop into about a 39 mile loop. Oops! We started from the Crabtree Trailhead, which is about 8 miles outside of Pinecrest Lake, and did a counter clockwise "loop" towards Huckleberry Lake. We ended up camping at Cherry Creek instead.

The Big Three: I have been using the same big three for a while and am loving them (Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL2 (46 oz. with footprint), Western Mountaineering Ultralite 20 degree sleeping bag (29 oz.), Hyperlite 2400 Southwest Backpack (28.6 oz.), and the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xlite regular size (12 oz.). However, on this trip, Bugsy brought his tent because it has a bigger floor plan than mine (Big Agnes Copper Spur 2), so my big three was only two! I also carried a silk liner, since we had gotten reports that it could get down into the mid twenties at night and my sleeping bag is not warm under about 30 degrees, despite the 20 degree rating. My big "two" weighed about 4.5 pounds.

Base Pack Weight: I did not weigh my base pack for the trip, but based on my LighterPack list and experience from other trips, I would say it was about 17 lbs.

Clothing: I brought everything from my normal list and did not bring any of the heavier winter gear or traction. My normal kit includes a beanie, gloves, extra socks & underwear, rain jacket and pants and a puffy, and the forecast was clear skies, so I did not feel that I would need the extra heavy gear for this trip. However, I did bring an older REI rain jacket rather than my ultralight Montbell, so I probably added a pound of extra weight by carrying that.

Food: This was a huge difference from our normal trips. Firstly, we usually share dinner duties; if we are going for 6 days, we will each make and carry three meals for two people. However, this time we each did our own thing since we didn't have to skimp to save weight. We brought lots of heavy stuff! For dinner, I brought noodles, salmon packets, fresh mushrooms, hard boiled eggs and miso paste. For snacks I brought a whole salami, cheese, cucumbers, nuts and blueberries! For breakfast I had hard boiled eggs and coffee. Not only could we afford to carry heavier food, but I didn't mind if I didn't use it, and we had built in refrigeration so we could carry whatever we wanted. It was divine.

Water: I used my new BeFree 1 liter filter bottle and carried an extra Platypus 1 liter bottle with a 2 liter Platypus for extreme emergencies/backup. I am glad I had the backup bottles as we went through some really dry stretches and crossed dry creeks that I had never seen dry before. However, we did camp near a lake so we really did not need to carry more than 1 - 2 liters at a time in the end.

Total Pack Weight: Including two liters of water, the bear can, one day of food and one fuel cannister (and the heavy rain jacket!), my pack weighed 25 lbs.

The Verdict: I really liked just going for one overnight as it really provides a lot of flexibility with food, which tends to be one of my most heavy items. It also is a great chance to test out items that you would not normally want to lug around for a week.  I could have lived without my rain pants and I am very glad that I added the silk liner, as I slept warm but not so warm that I would have been happy without it.

More Information: You can find information about the wilderness at the Stanislaus National Forest website. Stay tuned for the Trip Report!

For fun...here is what the same area looks like now! 

Highway 108 (source)

Have you been to the Emigrant Wilderness? What is your one backpacking item you cannot live without?

Kungsleden (The King's Trail): Logistics, Gear and Planning

Kungsleden Trail, Sweden -- September 4 - 14, 2017
12 day hike -- 275 miles
Trip Report can be found here. 
Some of my favorite gear can be found here.

The Plan: How did I pick this trip? I did some research based on shorter long distance hikes. I wanted to go internationally, and needed it to be warm enough in the month of September for a two week trip. Obviously there are a ton of different websites and opinions, but many of the ones I found had the Kungsleden as one of the good ones. I wanted to be able to "wild camp," aka not have to stay in a designated camping area or hut. Surprisingly to me, since we can do this pretty much everywhere in California (and Canada and many of the other US states), Europe generally does not allow this. 

I also needed something that I could do in about 14 days. Most reports of the Kungsleden said it would take about a month. However, since the trail was about 450 km or 275 miles, I figured I could do it in less than that. I am comfortable hiking 20 - 30 miles per day and figured that if I hiked 20 miles for 14 days, or 23 miles for 12 days, I could get it done in time. The cherry on top was this woman's trip report, which showed that she had easily done it in 13 days. If she can do it, I can do it, I thought. What I did not factor in was that my original flight from the US to Sweden got canceled which pushed everything back one day. I also did not fully grasp the time that would be needed for the many lake crossings. 

The Logistics: Getting to/from the Stockholm airport to my hotel was fairly easy; I took a bus from the airport to downtown and then walked from the bus stop to my hotel, which took about five minutes. 

The logistics surrounding the hike were a little tough, as I had to fly to Stockholm and then take a puddle jumper flight from there to Kiruna, which only left once per day around noon. From there, I had to take a bus from the airport to downtown Kiruna, where I picked up a longer distance bus to Abisko, where the trail started. Alternatively, I believe there was a train that went from downtown Kiruna to Abisko, but that was a little later or longer than the bus; I cannot remember exactly. 

Since I was flying, I could not bring fuel on the plane. There have been other reports that you cannot bring trekking poles or tent poles and you definitely cannot carry a knife, so I checked my bag and carried on a small duffel with a few toiletries and my book which I planned to leave at my hotel in Stockholm. I wore an outfit on the plane that I did not plan on taking hiking with me and I also left in my hotel. That meant that I had to stay in the same hotel on the way in and out and also decreased my hiking time a little bit, but I did not want to carry all of my stuff with me while hiking; I thought it was worth having a dry, comfortable, non hiking outfit (and book etc.) for afterward. 

Once in Abisko, it was required that everyone obtain a permit. There were not quotas for the permit, but you do have to pay for it and there is a little store that you have to go to near the trailhead to get it. I also bought fuel at this store and weighed my full bag before setting off. 

After I was done, from the southern terminus of Hemavan, I could fly, or I would have to take a local bus to Umea, which is on the Eastern coast and has overnight busses back to Stockholm, which took about 12 hours. Not knowing exactly how long the total hike would take, I did not want to book this leg in advance,. I knew the logistics of the bus travel at the end could add a couple of days, so my plan was to try to hike a little bit faster than 20 miles per day just in case. Also knowing that the flight at the end was also only once per day and that there was a chance I would miss it, I wanted to give myself extra time for that as well. 

Since I ended getting off trail a little early, I ended up having to take a bus from Ammarnäs to Sorsele and then another to Lycksele and then yet another to Umea. Once in Umea, I had to wait for the overnight bus, which left around 11 pm. I did not realize that most people reserve their seat and so when I got on the bus the conductor said it was full and I almost cried. Luckily he found one spot for me, but I may have had to wait until the next day if there was not a seat. Alternatively there were flights and trains, but I was at the bus station so it would have been a little extra travel to do that instead. This bus dropped me in the same downtown bus station that I had gone into from the airport originally, so I could just walk to my hotel. 

As I mentioned in my trip report, the trail did have huts that you could stay in for part of the time. The trail was split into thirds with the north third being more developed with huts and the middle third being very rugged and the southern third being a little more developed again, but more rustic than the north, which is the most popular area. However, I brought my tent and sleeping bag and planned to use them the entire time. I also brought all of my own food, although there were reports that you could buy some things at the huts. However, since I was also going a little late in the season, I had read that some of the huts could already be closed down for the winter. I did not notice this for the northern third, but it could have been the case on the southern third. 

The Route: I knew that this trail was very well marked and also there were not really any "mountain passes" like I was used to, so you can see for miles where you are going at times. I used a mixture of Gaia GPS app and Offline Maps app for maps. Usually I plan my route with Gaia when I am in service and then export it to Offline Maps. As long as you save the map area that you are going to be in, you can use this any time, anywhere. It has topography, roads and trails on it and it has been very handy over the years. 

The Big Three: I brought the following: Big Agnes Fishhook UL1 Tent (47 oz.) (no longer available; I now use the Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL2), Western Mountaineering Ultralite 20 degree sleeping bag (29 oz.), Hyperlite 2400 Southwest Backpack (28.6 oz.), and the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xlite Small size (8 oz.). Total weight of my big three: 112 oz. or about 7 lbs. 

The Clothing: I used my basic late fall/winter hiking kit, which consists of the following clothing: Capri pants, rain pants, short sleeved running shirt, long sleeved running shirt, rain jacket, puffy jacket, Saucony running shoes, two pairs of socks, hat, sports bra, two pairs of underwear, buff and flip flops for camp. I also carried the following dry outfit, which I planned on not wearing until the hike was over: Northface tights, socks, underwear, long sleeve shirt. 

The Other Stuff: For electronics, I carried my phone, a waterproof Panasonic camera, Ankur 20 milliamp charger, charging cords, Garmin watch, kindle and headlamp. I also had to bring toiletries, kitchen items (pot, pan, spoon, bowl, fuel, matches etc.), first aid, dry bags and other utility items (knife, rope, compass, trash bag, whistle etc.). 

Base Pack Weight: 18 pounds. 

The Food: I packed 12 days worth of food in total. I had all of my food already packed before I left home, as I did not want to worry about trying to resupply. I could always buy something extra if I wanted but I did not want to rely on that. I did not put my food in a bear canister and I did not plan to hang it. From what I read, there are bears in Sweden but encounters with them are very rare.  

My meals were fairly basic: I brought muesli with dried fruit and powdered milk for breakfast, which I planned to eat cold as I did not plan on resupplying my fuel and did not want to waste it. I was going to have coffee in the morning as well and was debating between hot and cold coffee. For lunch/snacks, I had a variety of things: yogurt covered pretzels, cheeze-its, peanuts, wasabi rice snacks, gummy snacks, peanut butter, trail mix, chocolate and protein bars. For dinner, I had Knorr pasta sides and beans and rice (this was and still is one of my standby meals). I did find a few days into the hike that I preferred my hot meal in the morning, so I started eating my dinner for breakfast and then having my muesli in the evening instead. 

I planned all of my calories before leaving and tried to plan for about 3500 per day. 

The H2O: I decided not to filter water and so only brought a one liter soft flask. I know this may be controversial, but from what I read it was not necessary. On one hand, it felt a little bit like going braless in public, but damn, it is so nice not to have to rely on filtering water all the time. It was freeing and meant that I only carried about a liter of water at a time, if that. 

Total Pack Weight: 37 pounds; the fuel and 12 days of food added basically 20 pounds to my load, which comes out to about a pound and a half of food per day. Luckily I didn't have to carry too much water! 

The Verdict: I am still loving my new gear, which I bought in early 2017 and used for the Wind River High Route. I carried about 10 more pounds than I did for the Wind River trip due to carrying the tent and a lot more food, but the pack still felt good. My sleeping bag kept me warm the whole time; obviously having a hole in my sleeping pad was not ideal. I definitely need a new system for all day rain as being wet and cold all day and sometimes through the night was not fun at all. 

A couple of things I would probably leave behind: My rain pants have seen their last days. These were ones I think I bought in the Philippines or Malaysia before hiking Mt. Kinabalu and they are a prime example of getting what you pay for. I need to invest in some that will actually keep me dry. I also brought a variety of snacks so that I would not get bored with my food, but I think I will just pick one or two of my favorites and/or the highest calorie ones and bring only a couple of choices next time. I definitely will not be including the melted blog of yogurt covered pretzel or the cheeze-it dust on this list. I also need to consider the shape of the items as some of them take up a lot room, so even if they are calorie dense, it is not as compact. 

A couple of things I might bring more of: I do like having hot coffee in the morning, if only as something to wrap my hands around before getting out of the tent into the cold, but I am not sure that I really need a hot meal. I think I could just bring more cold meals and save the time and effort of cooking. However, I think it is weather dependent, as I really do like a hot meal when it's really cold. I also do bring duct tape and a patch kit with me, but may need to invest in a few more repair items for the next trip. 

A couple of things I could not live without: See above! If I had not had duct tape with me, I would have had to sleep pretty much right on the ground after my sleeping pad got a hole. This was a lifesaver. It is easy enough to wrap around a trekking pole or a pencil and not even notice that you are carrying it and it sure comes in handy in a pinch! I also wore my rain pants 90% of the time on this hike. Although they are definitely not water proof, they did really help to keep the wind off of my legs and were priceless as an extra lightweight layer. Lastly, it was worth carrying the one dry change of clothes, despite the weight. After I got off trail, I had to take a series of buses to Stockholm (roughly a 24 hour trip from the end of the trail) and I would have been miserable in my wet hiking clothes. 

Are you a planner or do you just like to get up and go? What is one thing you could not live without when you travel?