Itchy Feet : Scratch Walks Across page

[Ljphalen]

When Mark posted my story, including my plans to walk across the USA, some people suggested I blog about it. Good call, I'm going to blog about it!

Today is T: - 46 days until I leave Vancouver Island.

My tent arrived today! It's a 2-person, 3-season tent by Sierra Designs: Sierra Designs Clip Flashlight 2-Person 3-Season Ultralight Tent

I am going to practice setting it up so that I am smooth by May.

I met my travelling partner on TravBuddy.com, his name's Ben, and he's from Australia. We are going to meet in San Francisco. I told him a bit about Primal, and his response was, "I tried lamb's brains once. Yum." I think this is an auspicious beginning.

[little vase]

Hi Lindsey,
I absolutely loved your story!
It Will Pass and I Will Be Stronger | Mark's Daily Apple
I look forward to following your journey. What kinds of goodies are you going to be filling your backpack with? Maybe some lamb's brains jerky?

[primalrob]

this is great. i can't wait to follow along your journey.

[Ljphalen]

It's 45 days until I leave, and I am excited and also a bit scared. As I should be.

I have been dehydrating whole bananas to bring with me. Have you tried these? They look so disgusting but they are YUMMO! They taste like banana marshmallows.

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I have also been dehydrating some assorted sliced veggies (carrots, parsnips) that I can use to make camp soup. Any suggestions for this process would be appreciated.

Also, I was looking into dehydrated potato flakes, does anyone know if these are a good idea? I can't find any that don't contain "mono- and diglycerides". What are those? Are they poison? Because I would love to have instant potatoes as an option.

[ecks]

Bet you could do a better job of instant potatoes! Dice them, dry them then blend or powder them... Add some of your fave spices and test throwing them in a pan with some butter and water. I'm sure it would work well!

[Ljphalen]

Ecks: yeah, I'm working on doing it myself, I have a suspicion that if I cook them first and dehydrate the cooked taters I might have better results. Drying them raw didn't work too well, they turned brown and are rehydrating kind of gummy.

43 days to go!

I got my camp stove picked out today, and also made a big decision: yes, this trip is actually going to be an emigration! I am going to stay in the USA once I've completed the walk across. My parents are citizens, and my GREENCARD application has actually been in the works for a while, but I hadn't decided whether or not I was actually going to stay. I'm working on giving away all my stuff, now.

One thing I will miss very much about living on the rock is the abundance of dirt cheap, fresh wild seafood and grass-fed bison. So I've been eating lots and lots: dinner yesterday was mussels in buttery wine sauce and bacon-wrapped scallops. Dinner tonight will be bison short ribs with roasted cauliflower. I'm going to miss this kind of cooking while I'm traveling, too!

[Ljphalen]

It feels like the time is flying by until I leave, but also like it can't come fast enough!

I researched how to dehydrate potatoes: I need to boil them first, leave them in the fridge overnight to cool completely (this keeps them from going brown), and then grate them into hash browns and dry the hash browns. Apparently, once they are rehydrated they taste and feel just like regular cooked potatoes!

I also learned how to properly dehydrate ground beef, so I will be able to pack a decent amount of my beautiful grass-fed bison! I am really pleased about this, it will be great to have a high-quality back-up protein. One half-cup of dried ground meat rehydrates to one pound of burger, and weighs just a few oz. I am going to store it in plastic bottles in my pack.

I purchased a small camp stove, but still need to get a cooking pot and some utensils.

I talked about food with Ben, who seems happy enough to let me take the lead in that area. We will be relying mostly on the following:

Tinned fish (salmon, sardines, tuna, oysters, mussels)
Hard cheese
Dehydrated vegetables and potatoes
Dehydrated meat
Coconut oil (cuz it keeps forever w/o refrigerating, and I want fat!)
Chocolate

I am also planning to bring vitamin c chewables, because I'm concerned about getting enough if we need to go several days at a time without much fresh food.

People are advising me to basically live on nuts, and I have no problem with eating some nuts, but I don't want to rely on nuts and dried fruit as a staple. My skin would hate me. I'm working on figuring out a better option that 's like trail mix.

[ecks]

Why would you be going days without fresh food? I'm assuming you'll pass a few thousand grocery stores along the way.

[Ljphalen]

Yeah, but there are large sections of just camp-and-trail, especially through national parks, where even though they may have food for sale, it won't be fresh stuff, but more "convenience foods".

[ecks]

The irony of calling them convenience foods is how extremely inconvenient they really are to your journey