T-73: Getting Ready -- Bearing the Load

Last Saturday, I drove Wes crazy with insisting we gather everything we think we might want to take and seeing if we could even begin to bear the load.  Wes wondered, with reason, why I was so hell-fired up to test all this, when we were still more than two months from leaving?

My future kitchen

This is true, of course, but we have been buying clothes and equipment, and I was assembling the kitchen and bathroom from our camping equipment.

The kitchen had the requisite cooker and gas.  The cooker itself is  a miracle of tiny-ness, weighing less than 8 ounces and yet capable of boiling water in a few minutes.  A cooking pot, a frying pan, a grabber, and two small metal plates make up our cook kit.  Add a Swiss Army knife, lexan knives, forks, and spoons, along with little spatula, a pourer, a couple of tiny bottles for olive oil, plastic salt and pepper shakers, a silicon pouring spout, and you have a pretty functional camp kitchen for less than 7 pounds. 

I debate whether to take the water purifier, knowing that we will be in some very remote areas in what will likely be a drought year.  It’s heavy and bulky, however, at more than 1.5 pounds.  For now, it is out, though with trepidation.  I remember only too well getting giardia while backpacking without water purification during a drought year.  The only water available was highly suspect, and sure enough it wasn’t long before I was feverish, with streaming bowels, projectile vomit and stomach cramps that doubled me over.  This was more than a little nightmarish when we were more than 3 days from any possible help.  (Of course, Wes of the cast iron stomach did not get sick, and the night of the fever, more than 40 elk walked through our camp).  Maybe we will carry it on the western half of our trip and mail it back when we get to more reliable water country.  

I gathered the bathroom with pack towels and travel versions of our personal care items.  We debate: swim shoes or flip flops.  It is absolutely necessary to have shower shoes at campgrounds, but we also want to be able to swim in lakes and streams when we can. Wes opts for swim shoes, even though they take forever to dry.  I choose flip-flops.  Along with an emergency kit, necessary candles and lanterns, we now have another 7 pound pannier filled.

We pick out our clothes for hot, cold, and wet weather, for biking, and for town.  This fills two big panniers.  I placed technology, maps, and personal items in the rigged up bags for the handlebars.  Of course, there was the bedroom.  The pile looked gigantic. Would we really be able to carry all that?  Was this whole pile going to fit on two bikes? 

Even more to the point, even if it fit on the bike, could we carry it? 

I rounded up all the bungees and rigging I could.  I was able to put the big panniers on Wes’ big old Schwinn (which he is not taking), along with the bed and his pads.  I put the small panniers, the tent and my pads on my Trek, which I am (probably) taking.  Two handlebar bags and we were set for a trial ride.

We gingerly mounted our bikes and took off.  Hey! This was not bad at all.  We have carried far worse on previous rides.  Granted, we were riding around flat Detroit and we only went about a mile, but this was definitely a success!  We found we could carry everything we needed to survive –without a trailer and with the equipment we had.

I was buoyant.  I still am.  Our total load was 70 pounds, less than the absolute maximum of 80 pounds.  We could add food, a few luxuries like my penny whistle, a book or two, and still make it.  We can make it.  This trip is for real.  And we are truly getting ready.