"Seriously? Porridge?"

Sunday, July 11, 2010

It was time to get serious about backpacking. I’ve been talking to a bunch of different people who want to go to the Adirondacks this summer, but have failed to pick any concrete dates. I want the dates in the book because it gets me to focus my training for climbing, which means time with a pack on my back and hiking in the park or doing bleacher work. It also helps to put in some more bike time…building endurance in the quads for 8-10 hours a day on the trail with elevation changes of over 5,000 feet. Heidi and Marie were completely committed to going, but we had to nail down the dates. I managed to get them in the kitchen at the same time on Sunday to do just that. We picked the weekend and then got around to what Marie would eat on the trail. Everything we will consume has to fit into a bear canister, which is a hard, plastic cylinder about 12 inches tall, 9 inches in diameter and with a 700 cubic inch capacity. I have two of them and can bring food for three people for a week…if we pack wisely. That means dehydrated foods, repackaged in zip lock bags that can be easily reconstituted with boiling water.

“Will you eat oatmeal for breakfast? Heidi and I like peaches and cream,” I asked Marie.

“Um…could I have porridge?”

“Porridge. Like the stuff Goldilocks stole from ‘THE THREE BEARS’?”

“Yeah. My mom gets it from King Arthur…you know…a catalogue thing,” she said.

Okay. Porridge. From King Arthur and the round table guys. Porridge…the stuff that bears make and leave to cool while they go out for a short hike. I mean…we’re bringing bear canisters to keep food away from the black bears, which are thicker than mosquito’s on a summer night, and she wants to bring their favorite food?

“Sure. Get the porridge. How about lunch?”

“Anything but peanut butter. I’m allergic to peanuts,” she said.

Which is, of course, is what I bring for lunch. That and little jelly packets from my buddies at Smuckers, soft, round bread with a Spanish name that fits perfectly in the canister and I’ve go lunch covered. That and gorp (good old raisins and PEANUTS), a trail mix that has M&M’s too. She was turning out to be a feeding dilemma. Heidi to the rescue. She pulled out hemp seeds she was keeping in some kind of funky zip lock bag and offered them to Marie, who commented on how it looked like a marijuana bag.

“How would you know what that looks like?” I asked…since I didn’t.

“Daaaad…that’s what they keep it in. You don’t have to use it to know,” Heidi said. “What did they keep it in when you were in school?”

“Yeah…did they even have zip lock back then?” Marie asked.

She’s at the top of her class at Mayfield…taking all the honors stuff and a real brainiack, but if common sense was dynamite, she couldn’t blow her nose.

“I’m the guy who knows the trails in…and out. I cook the food, too. Are you sure you want to phrase that ‘zip lock’ question the way you just did? Just how old do you think I am?”

Actually, I’m not sure if we did have zip lock bags then. We for sure had baggies though, and I’m thinking the marijuana was stored in them in my day. I’ll research it later. We finished up on what she would and wouldn’t eat quickly and I kicked her out of the house to contemplate her errors in judgment. I needed to get Heidi back to Kent and then fit in a run on the way home. I was really dragging…probably a result of the runs from the last two days…and returned home after dropping her off to consider my options. I decided that a day off was overdue and the way I was feeling, was more than appropriate. Back at it tomorrow with a good run.