A flower for Sunday

Hello, everyone.

The neighbor has gone into wildflowers in his yard, and some of them have begun to spread the beauty around. The cornflower was in the field behind my fence.

This plane was flying on the date of our last visit to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. (Taken by DH with his little pocket Canon.) The plane was barely over the levee we were walking on! We also saw, but weren't able to photograph, a coyote who exited the field the plane was tending, swam the irrigation ditch, and climbed over the levee into the park. All right in front of us.

Training report

Hello, everyone.

Yesterday we did our first long walk of the year: all of the Mission Hike and Bike, over to Bentsen State Park, around the road loop inside the park, and back along the Hike and Bike to the truck. We estimate it was 14 miles. The converter told us that works out to 22 or 23 kilometers, a reasonable day's walk, in just under 5 hours. Of course that was over flat territory and mostly pavement.

The feet are fine. The boots and sox worked well together.

For me, that was a pair of Injinji liner socks in the new Merrell boots that have the Megagrip soles. Tee shirt and shorts, of course.

We are refining wardrobe decisions in preparation for departure.

I think I will take my pair of zip-off pants and a pair of shorts, and the Icebreaker merino tank dress for evenings. (It's light weight and dries fast.) A total of 3 pairs of the light weight Injinji socks, two light weight low cut ones and a liner pair to wear as a regular sock pair. 3 pairs of undies. Probably 2 tank tops that can be under layers, 2 bras, 2 tees, 2 ripstop long sleeved shirts that can have their sleeves rolled up. The pink fleece, the windbreaker, the Buff or the Infinity Buff (not both) and the hat and rain poncho.

Further items haven't been settled on yet. Certainly the new sleeping bag will go, and the fabulous bag that covers the backpack on the plane, and of course the poles. The new dopp box.

Lizards!

Hello, everyone.

Today, instead of another bird or butterfly photo, I have a lizard pair from the entrance area at Bentsen State Park.

In the right light, those spots on their neck bands look like jewels.

Another dopp box

Hello, everyone.

As mentioned, the first dopp box made me want one of my own:

As before, ripstop for the face and flag fabric for the underlining/interfacing. Hanging loop is a piece of self-filled tubing that was lying around in the scrap bag. Zipper was sitting in the box of unused zippers--I used a 22" zipper and just tucked in the extra inch or so at the bottom end.

With this, the razor and the shampoo and etc. will all be together when I go to the shower cubicle. Possibly the toothbrush will live in here, too, with the tiny toothpaste tube.



 

New gear for the Camino del Norte

Hello, everyone.

Yes, as the title says, we're attempting the CdN again. And as part of our preparations, we've been looking at gear--especially gear weight.

DH, being a typical fellow, has a dopp kit: a zipper bag that holds his grooming items. It's about 6"x 9"x 3", and it's heavy. Even when empty it's heavy. So we looked it over, and I concluded that, first, he only needs 2/3 of that space for what he carries. And, second, that changing out the materials to something more hiking friendly should help it out a lot.

The new dopp bag:

 Posing on the scale, including its convenient hanger loop, the bag comes in at 1.25 ounces. Materials used: ripstop, a nylon coil zipper, and for interfacing, some nylon flag fabric.

As a comparison, this is the weight of 2 quart-sized freezer bags: 0.5 ounce. But the freezer bags don't have hanger loops. How can they be hung from the cord of the clean-clothes bag during the shower?

This was so encouraging that I discovered a previously unknown need for a dopp bag of my own!

A bird at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge

Hello, everyone.

It's a rainy day here (very welcome rain!) so here is a picture we took last week on a walk:

At this time of year, the hawks are migrating north through the area. There was a small posse of bird watchers on the levee hoping to see this fellow and all his friends.

He was more interested in sitting in the shade of the very dry trees.