Maildrop Madness

I have been slowly stashing food away for the last few months. Whenever I saw a good sale a few more things would get thrown into my cart, and slowly my house started filling with junk. It seemed easier for me to stockpile snacks than anything else. See with snacks everything always seems to look so tasty, and I can rationalize that no I still haven’t picked a lunch, but you can never have to much jerky, right?  Meals on the other hand require actual planning. Will I want some type of bread/tortilla with my lunch, will I have enough water for that dinner, wait how many meals do I have to fit into a bear can? All kinds of questions run through my head as I stare at grocery store shelves and once again threw pretzels or smoked almonds into my cart instead of pasta or potatoes. So see, I thought it would be the meals that would be my downfall. Only now that I finally sat down and started boxing things up, it’s the stupid snacks that are out to get me.

Calling it close you say? Well yes, in fact I leave in exactly one week. I finally sketched out a rough itinerary, including spots where I would really like things mailed to me, as last time I checked post offices don’t serve snacks (Warner Springs why did you close!) and while it is possible to resupply from a gas station I am trying to avoid it. Plus I have a ton of food squirreled away around my house, so rather than become a hoarder I have to make at least a few resupply packages for myself. Besides I really like the idea of strolling into town and being able to relax, not running all around to grocery stores and staring blankly at shelves, and then having to repackage days worth of food in a crowded motel room, at least not every town stop.  

I’ve learned I’m not a big fan of labor intensive breakfasts while backpacking so I will mostly stick with bars and occasionally cold cereal (with Nido, yup that’s powdered whole milk!). Lunches are a bit tricky as I don’t really like cooking and a big meal doesn’t exactly motivate you to keep moving. Plus I have often heard that it’s better to steadily snack throughout the day to keep your energy up rather than eat a few big meals, it makes sense, only now I need even more snacks plus a lot of variety so I don’t get sick of anything. Dinners weren’t to awful once I figured out a few recipes that were fairly tasty and filling; olive oil has become one of my favorite foods for fleshing out a dinner. Check out Pack Light, Eat Right by Brenda Braatan if you are interested in some interesting thru hiking nutrition info. Which leaves me with the space between breakfast and dinners, that’s a lot of hours of snacking…. Plus what happens when you leave bags of snacks lying around the house for months on end? Well at least some of them get eaten, darn you delicious looking crackers.

So after packing 4 whole boxes with what is probably way too much food I had a hissy fit because I still don’t know how I want to resupply through the sierras, which means I can’t successfully make those boxes yet and when I turned to my big pile of food to fill up the boxes for Northern California (I decided screw you sierras I will figure you out later) I was met with a sorry looking stack of leftovers. So back to the grocery store I go. Clocks ticking better get my butt into gear.