the real Day 4

Zero day in Vancouver WA.  Everything is on the table from the biggest of items to the smallest.  It's all being taken into consideration.

Yesterday  as my ride and I went though Stevenson, a town in the gorge, I pointed out two starters.  'How do you know?' she asked.  I replied, 'they are lean as sticks and their packs, the size of day hikers.'  These guys have come an easy thousand miles on foot and everything thing in their packs is maximized for going farther.  Luxury items are minimized, paired down to a few grams. It might be an MP3 player and ear buds, many just use their phones for music.  Clothing is only as worn less an extra pair of socks, a rain jacket, or a light puffy.

How can I pair down as such?  I'm still green even with 3,000 miles under foot.  I like my extras. My sit pad is new since the AT, may be that's a burden too.  My journal will stay.  The solar panel is gone for good.  The pillow however stayed since I dint carry enough clothes to make a softball if I dry out my shorts and shirt.  The food bag gives incline to my feet.

I need to send some stuff off today.  I'll comb the pack again and again.  How small of an item needs to go?  The Sawyer back flush adapter at 8 grams? An extra pen? My pot cozy?  Thankfully, I didn't grab an extra spoon.  What of my big 4; sleep system, pack, kitchen, shelter?  The pack, hello REI, take my money.  I'll get there tomorrow, walk in with my remaing gear, and load out in a different ruck.  The pack that is comfortable on my still tender hips, is the one I leave with.  This'll be my 2nd pack swap on a trail, arugh!

Laundry and the spoon are clean.  Out to look for a longer sports shirt and compression shorts.

How do I Casey Neistat this day?  What's the need/set up, the pre-conflict, the crux, and resolution?  Need: sort gear multiple times and send it off, find coffee, resolution return to where I started.  So far so good. I swept a bit of th garage, laid it all out, and weighed everything by hand on importance and perceived weight, the franken boxed what is gone.  I walked to the UPS Store and on to two coffee shops, past a Freddie's where I got a new shirt with a longer tail to prevent riding up under the hip belt and more Nuun tablets aka salvation water mix.  Next stop, a bus stop. That walk is a long road walk under a Northwestern sun.  Mind you it was also in 3 parts of about a mile each. 

I must stay away from social media.  It's depressing me with gorgeous mountain vistas north of Trout Lake.  Where oh where are my trail legs?  Doh! confined to a city for a few more days. 

First things first in Seattle; REI, Pike's Place, and a coffee - non Starbucks.  In '99 I escaped without going to Starbucks.  Crash and run somehow.  Plotting 2 or 3 days from now is a mystical vapor.