I'm back and feeling creative

I spent 9 days hiking the Sisquoc in the Los Padres forest last week. It was wonderful. I feel so energized for hiking again.

I spent some effort on food, testing some recipes from the One Pan Wonders web site. As is typical of me, I barely followed the recipes. Part of the reason was that I had to split up my food at the last minute because Tony was going to carry some of my food in to me around day 5. I ended up changing the ingredients around a little bit to do that. In any case, the food came out delicious. I felt well-nourished. Let's hear it for the power of pork products!

Today I made some gear for myself. I made a pot lid and a windscreen from aluminum cookie sheets. They came out well. I hope the lid is sturdy enough to survive mistreatment inside my pack. I'm hoping to save a little weight with it.

I also went shopping at the thrift store looking for new hiking clothes. I've torn up my hiking pants hiking in the Los Padres. I found a pair of almost white Royal Robbins ladies convertible pants. They are ok, but the zipper is on the side. I bought them anyway because I figured the price was good. I also found a pair of Gramici nylon pants. They are very large, but they are blue and it's nice to have a little color to wear now and then. They lack zippered pockets, but I think I can manage with them in our backcountry.

I found a really nice hiking shirt there, but it was a men's XXL. People are so fat now you can't find any clothes to fit. Yesterday I shopped at three different stores and could only find one pair of mens size small pants. I would have bought them but I would not be able to hem them because there were zippers at the bottom of the pant legs. For pants that cost $70 I would like to be able to hem them.

One other thing I bought was a boys jacket with a hood. I only wanted the hood. I'll have to give away the jacket. The hood feels really warm. I can wear it while I sleep in my quilt when it is cold like it was this past week on the Sisquoc.

Finally, I bought a cheap backpack and cut the back pad out to slip in to my G4 backpack in the back pad pocket. I don't like putting my sleeping pad in there. This back pad will serve as my sit pad and hopefully help keep my back a little cooler. The G4 is a little hot because the area of my back that it presses against is very large.

When it comes to gear and backpacking, my natural creativity is so much more amplified. In regular life, people think I'm somewhat creative, but I don't think I am.