The point was to see if 1) I have everything I need; 2) It's in a weight range I'll be able to handle, and 3) There is anything I can leave behind. The answers were ultimately Yes, Yes, Yes.
I got almost everything together (forgot my trekking poles, and don't yet have the flight cover/rain cover for the backpack. Some of my stuff has changed, since I'll be doing rather more camping than originally expected (I plan to camp on the Jesus trail and likely elsewhere on the trip, depending on where I can find appropriate campgrounds). So I added a single man backpacking tent and ultralight sleeping bag, and ground cloth.) I changed out some clothes (heavy blue travel skirt for a lighter black one, new t-shirt and a bathing suit (tankini) that can double as a tank top.
I did drop some things. The scarves I was going to take; I mostly need them at the end to enter a mosque, and buying one when I get to Israel will be a great souvenir, and I don't have to carry it all the way through Europe. I dropped a sweater: I have a windbreaker, a long sleeved shirt and a 3/4 length shirt to put over it that I can use in Scotland, which is the only place it might be truly cold. I dropped, then added back, a camping mattress. Yeah, I'm 65 years old, and the ground can be hard.
I weighed the pack, and the whole thing weighs in at about 25 pounds. With another 5 for the daypack, even adding the trekking poles to that, we will be good. Now I need to do some hiking wearing all this, and seeing how it goes.
I need to unpack some of this stuff, but I'm going to leave most of it in place.
27 days.
Tomorow you can see what all I'm carrying to last me close to four months.
No comments:
Post a Comment