A day in the life...
So now that we've been on the trail for a bit over 2 months, you could say that we've got a pretty good routine down. Camel and I both love our sleep so we are in bed around 8:30 or 9 and don't start getting up until about 8 am. I couldn't be more pleased that we both love sleeping so long :) We eat something small right before leaving and plan our 'big breakfast' break about 3-5 miles down the trail near a water source. The mornings are usually quiet as we're still in our half-sleeping state. The afternoons are filled with our hiking adventures, we've been seeing lots of deer and lizards lately. Just a week or so ago we got some music and headphones sent to us, so we occasionally listen to that. Both of us agree that we couldn't listen to music for too long though. The silence is a comfort, or rather the endless sounds of the birds and the click of our poles. In life back home it's so different as I always feel the need for some sort of background noise. We have yet to stay inside a shelter, the weather has been incredibly wonderful so we get to set up our tent in small little campsites we find along the trail. Once we get to camp, I get the tent all set up as Camel makes the fire. We usually cook together, although Camel is the 'head chef' as I made the official worst meal on the trail when I cooked by myself. I started cooking the noodles but the fire was not hot enough so I had noodle mush which I then added a tuna packet that we had received for free from a hiker box. As I watched the ashes and such fly into the water it didn't bother me, but then I took my first bite. It was supremely crunchy... not what I expected. Each bite I took, I got a pop and then a crunch of grossness. It wasn't until about 5 bites later that I realized the tuna fish had bones in it.... sooo icky! So, now that we dubbed Camel 'head chef' after we eat, I usually clean up. Then we write in our journal, brush our teeth, and if there's still some light out Camel will read 'Lord of Flies.' It's a pretty good life out here :)
Some random little stories:
Now normally things go pretty smoothly throughout our day, but the other morning we woke up a bit late, and Camel went outside to get the bear bag down. I heard him mumbling to himself and poked my head out to see what was wrong. The rope had got all tangled and was stuck up in the tree. With no amount of tugging did that rope come down. We attempted to climb the tree... with no success. After spending a bit of time looking for a long stick we decided to just pack up the rest of our items. As Camel reached for my hiking poles I saw the little light bulb come on in his head. He started lining up all the poles and I quickly caught on and grabbed the Duct Tape. We carefully brought our brilliant design to the tree and Camel reached up with a smile but... he was just a couple inches short. I excitedly climbed onto his shoulders, happy to be able to help and with a couple tries poked the tangled rope down.
The other night we were camping in a little spot besides a creek. I was very excited as I love camping right next to water. As we were brushing our teeth, we see a medium sized animal about 100 yards from us. It looked at us then ran behind a tree, and we hurried and threw everything including ourselves into our tent. As we were debating what we just saw we heard the loud howling of the coyote running right across our campsite. I'm going to say we were probably near the local watering hole... scary!
Some random little stories:
Now normally things go pretty smoothly throughout our day, but the other morning we woke up a bit late, and Camel went outside to get the bear bag down. I heard him mumbling to himself and poked my head out to see what was wrong. The rope had got all tangled and was stuck up in the tree. With no amount of tugging did that rope come down. We attempted to climb the tree... with no success. After spending a bit of time looking for a long stick we decided to just pack up the rest of our items. As Camel reached for my hiking poles I saw the little light bulb come on in his head. He started lining up all the poles and I quickly caught on and grabbed the Duct Tape. We carefully brought our brilliant design to the tree and Camel reached up with a smile but... he was just a couple inches short. I excitedly climbed onto his shoulders, happy to be able to help and with a couple tries poked the tangled rope down.
The other night we were camping in a little spot besides a creek. I was very excited as I love camping right next to water. As we were brushing our teeth, we see a medium sized animal about 100 yards from us. It looked at us then ran behind a tree, and we hurried and threw everything including ourselves into our tent. As we were debating what we just saw we heard the loud howling of the coyote running right across our campsite. I'm going to say we were probably near the local watering hole... scary!