I went to REI today, spent a lot of money, and bought a lot of stuff. Despite my Dave Ramsey-indoctrinated hatred of spending money, I was okay with my purchases. All of it is stuff we need - no backcountry ice cream maker, or camp kitchen espresso machine - and it's stuff that now I own and won't have to buy the next time I go camping (which hopefully is sooner than next summer). When I got home, I watched some youtube videos about how to hang a bear bag. Then I read up on lightning safety. Then I pulled out my maps and freaked out...but just a little.
Things I am afraid of: 1) tornadoes/lightning storms/flying branches/hail, 2) bears, 3) dehydration and heat stroke, 4) ticks carrying Lyme disease.
Things I am excited about: 1) being outside with trees and birds and such, 2) the most gorgeous mountains ever, 3) watching the sun rise and set on a landscape that isn't my driveway, 4) not looking at a computer for a week, 5) knowing that I can live just fine without all the civilizedness I'm used to.
I bought a little bottle of iodine tablets, and a little bottle of 'neutralizer' tablets that you put in after the iodine is done working. The neutralizer tablets are just ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) and they really do magically make the water not taste like iodine (something about molecules bonding, I think). So that's nice, because I was not trying to buy the $90 UV light water purifier device, but I didn't much want to have to gag down my water.
Dinners are going to be instant mashed potatoes (of which I have fond memories from my wisdom tooth extraction recovery...and they have cheesy ones!) and those foil packets of tuna and salmon. Got some quinoa too. I made a big bag of trail mix, and I'm going to make another bag or two of granola. Peanut butter was buy-one-get-one-free at Harris Teeter, so I've got two jars. I'm going to miss fresh vegetables for a week, but I'm pretty sure I won't starve.
I'm really excited, but I think I'll be more excited once we make it through the first night and haven't died, starved, fallen gravely ill, been mauled by anything, zapped by anything, or had our tent blown away by gale force winds. I just have to keep reminding myself that people lived in the woods for thousands and thousands of years just fine before the white people showed up. And they weren't, as far as I know, routinely zapped by lightning or eaten by bears. Granted, they had some serious skills, but the fact is nature isn't some hostile, alien place. We're just oddly isolated from it, and so it just seems a little scary. But. I'm really excited to go get acquainted with nature a little better.
Summer is actually here, though, which is pretty surreal given how long I've been looking forward to it (since sometime around the first day of school this past August). Speaking of, I still don't know where I'm going to be next year. My friends at West Meck who were in the same situation have both found out their placements, and my email to our principal has thus far gone unanswered, so I'm getting kind of antsy. There are now social studies jobs posted internally, but I feel like if I signed a contract then someone, somewhere must have a job for me, right?
wheres your pepper spray and survival machete?
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