Another frequent update!

I made my pedometer tracker update a png on the World Wide Web!  Now I can view it in a meaningful manner instead of looking at a column of two numbers. 

I need to start getting in shape now if I plan to survive my trip on August 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.  Tomorrow I think I'll do my traditional first-hike-after-being-lazy: mesa trail.  It's a simple plan.  I hike up it, I hammock there, I hike down.  Not too long, not too hard, and it's very nice.

I need rethink how I do trail food.  My views on food have changed a lot since I set my ways.  I used to think packets of soup with icky sauce were good.  Now I make it a rule not to eat dehydrated milk, and that's in lots of them.  The Mountain House company has a lot of meals that look semi edible.  I don't think anything with "modified" or "isolate" is still food, but I haven't decided to ban those things from my diet.

With my bicycle I bought Klean Kanteen stainless steel bottles.  I think I really like them.  I have small bike bottles, normal bike bottles, and a pair of 64oz growler type bottles.  I think I should have bought the more-expensive and harder to find wide mouth bottles though.  They also make an insulated version, which actually seems like an easy way to transport chilled food.  Hot dogs would fit through the opening!  But if I really want to do that, they make food canisters just for that.  A little expensive, but packing a food canisters with sausages and freezing them would likely lead to being able to eat still-refrigerated sausages several days into a trip.  Or ice cream.  That would be awesome.

I plan to hit REI on the 30th, because I'll have a paycheck then.  I'll buy a little bit of camping gear.  I want a table.  Cooking on the ground is traditional, but a table would be a luxury.  The table would be for car camping.  Car camping is fun.  I recently replaced my Coleman green camp stove that disappeared so long ago.  I replaced my camp chair that I broke as well.  I still have my second Therm-A-Rest chair, and three pads from them, but for car camping a real chair seems nice.  It will go with the table. 

I'm going to investigate mosquito netting for my hammock.  There is a hammock that is well reviewed which has netting attached, but you can't lay in it sideways to dangle your feet out.  Another option is a giant net that drapes over the hammock.  I might end up with both.  One seems better for car camping and the other for backpacking.

I think I'll replace my lexan cutlery with some of this modern metal stuff.  There is an aluminum set I like the looks of, or a simple steel set as well.  There is also the want of a new bowl.  My current bowl is a plastic one that someone stole from the 90s.  They make titanium and stainless steel bowls.

I think I need new matches.  I bought my matches, a big box, back in the early 1990s.  They've lived in film cannisters since then.  While still lightable, they don't seem as potent as they once did.  I'll also try a real match holder that is long enough for big matches, instead of a film cannister.  I seem to remember all the matches I have stored I had to manually cut down to film cannister size.

I want a duffle bag.  Another really, I have two.  One giant one and one normal sized one.  A spare would be nice.

I found a giant waterproof jacket at REI in an online-only deal.  It's a 4x.  The reviews tell me it will wear out quickly, but it doesn't rain much, so I doubt I'll wear it much.  So it will work while I try to be smaller.

I want to camp in that meadow past Devil's Elbow someday.  That should be a plan.