O'Governor Sanford, Where Art Thou

Thought I might as well throw out a 'typical day' of food, routine & miles for the folks at home in case you're actually interested:

* 6am, up with the sun. Before getting out of the ooold sleeping bag I briefly ponder what I may have to look forward to that day - a town? a swimming hole? an overlook? my last pack of pop tarts? just miles and miles in the green tunnel?

* Onto breakfast. As of late it's cereal of some sort of granola persuasion (with water instead of milk, oy) while I boil water with the alcohol stove for my instant coffee/hot chocolate caffeination concoction. Definitely worth a pause to enjoy the hot beverage. If I'm within a few days of leaving a town, I may be lucky enough to still have a banana or apple lying around. Fresh fruit is a novelty (and is heavy to carry). In case you're curious, here's a nutrition chart on whiteblaze that pretty much lists common backpacking foods - as far as what folks eat out here I've found it to be pretty dead-on. Greenlite does this interesting shake in a gatorade bottle of protein powder, powdered milk, cappuccino mix and carnation instant breakfast - chock full of 'get up and go' apparently.

* Pack up camp. Deflate the sleeping pad (always a process), get life together, go fill up on and treat the water from the spring, get my pack packed properly to distribute the weight, test the safety whistle, pop a quick sign of the cross, and away we go.

* It's ideal to knock out 10mi or so before taking a break but that depends on when you come upon the first shelter or what the terrain is like. Often we'll stop and camp right before a climb to save such good times for the morning legs. It's also nice to stop at shelters because there's a picnic table - something bout sitting down at a picnic table to spread your food out that makes you feel downright civilized. First snacks? Generally a cliff bar or the aforementioned poptarts - something to really give you that jolt. If it's a rough day I'll get another round of coffee going, just for good measure. Maybe knock out 3-4 more miles before lunch.

* Lunch!!! Lunch implies some sort of bread product (be it bagels, tortillas, english muffins, hamburger rolls) with cheese and/or peanut butter. Trail mix, dried fruit, something involving chocolate and or extremely processed sweets (really do eat a lot of crap out here...lots o'habits to kick before Maine). Maybe send off a signal with the old SPOT GPS messenger, write in the trail register, what have you. I'm not really big on napping in the middle of the day so I'm never apt to stop for too long.

* Moving right along. Maybe another 10mi to go which averages out to 3hrs and change of further hiking. Ponder where the stopping point will be for the eve, what I'm going to make for dinner, maybe put on some tunes for the final push. The afternoons have been getting a little hot and humid but as long as there aren't any long stretches in the sun it's not so bad - always a stream to stop and sit by for a few minutes or a cool breeze kicking up just when you need it.

* Dinnaaa!!! and stopping for the day. Always set up the sleeping situation first, whether it's tenting or sleeping in the shelter for the night with the mice. The 'main course', if you will, is usually a lipton rice side or a risotto or a trader joes precooked sorta thinger or a dehydrated pasta meal - anything that just requires boiling water (I'm a one-trick pony with cooking out there). Greenlite's into corn pasta which supposedly metabolizes really quick for high energy - I had never heard of it before but there are some hikers who swear by it. Sometimes there's a fire but often you're just too tired to want to put in the effort. Sometimes you hang a bear bag. Sometimes you couldn't care less about bears. (Though I'm pretty sure they're always watching...really). 'Hiker midnight' is 9pm and I'm usually not in bed too much later than that. Dreams are usually strange because I feel like I'm waking up here and there in the middle of the night when I sleep in the woods - that's just the way of it for me.

* Rinse and repeat.