Monday, January 20, 2014

Pennsylvania, Here We Come!


I’m not sure when my next blog post will be, because right now I’m scrambling like crazy to get ready for Zach’s and my trip to Pennsylvania on Wednesday. His brother Dustin is getting married, welcoming Tessa into the family, and on top of that, Zach’s mom, stepdad, and eight out of nine siblings will be there to join in the festivities! 

Wish us safe travels! I’ll post again when I can.

~~~

Saturday, January 18, 2014

One Small Step for Lisa and Zach...


Today Zachary and I bought our ticket to San Diego, where our great Pacific Crest Trail journey will begin. Since we got a Southwest rewards credit card and spent the amount of money necessary for a special deal, the two tickets cost us a grand total of $10. 

Unless our itinerary changes, we will be leaving St. Louis at 3:05 on Saturday, April 19th, just in time to spend Easter Sunday with my sister Mary. We’ll chill a few days in San Diego, then catch a ride to the Mexican border and let the adventure begin.

This feels so surreal…

~~~

Friday, January 17, 2014

100-Word Memoir: Why Children of Similar Age are not Instant Friends


Although Katie and I were both 11 and both loved reading, I didn't get her.

“Have you ever read Lord of the Rings?” I asked.

“Yeah. It was really boring.”

I stared at her. That was my favorite book in the universe. Dad had read the whole trilogy aloud every few years since I was four. “What?”

Katie shrugged. “We were just too young when my dad read it to us.”

“Oh.” I could, at least, comprehend a child with a short attention span. “How old were you when he read it?”

“Ten.”

I despaired of us ever becoming friends.

~~~

Thursday, January 16, 2014

PCT: When You Can't Earn, Save (Part Three)


When you want to hike a 2,600-mile backcountry trail, you need a lot of special gear. This includes clothing (you can’t hike for five months in jeans and a cotton shirt without getting hypothermia), footwear (one pair for every 500 miles or so), shelter (Walmart tents just won’t cut it), a sleeping system (a hiker allegedly tried to use bubble wrap instead of a sleeping pad, and he nearly went insane before buying himself a nice sleeping pad a couple hundred miles down the trail), food (five months of food ain’t cheap), and miscellaneous gear (maps, cooking gear, crampons, etc.).

Zach and I have been amassing our supplies for over a year now, buying things one at a time as we figure out what we want. Some of the things we’ve managed to buy on sale, sometimes at a considerable discount. With everything else (such as our tent, double sleeping bag, my backpack, dehydrator, and other miscellaneous gear), we try to buy the nicest products we can afford.

The biggest money-saver so far has been our membership with Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI). Zach paid a one-time fee a long time ago, and now we get 10% of our money spent back at the end of the year. They often run good sales: Zach and I got our sleeping pads for $40 cheaper than normal, for instance. That’s not the biggest payoff, though: the main thing we like to raid are the REI “garage sales,” where members can root through all the returned and damaged gear for the year and get it at a bargain price. We’ve bought several pairs of shoes, a hat, my hiking shirt and rain jacket, a stuff sack, and miscellaneous gear this way.

Food is another thing we’ve saved a lot of money on. We’re assembling and dehydrating our own meals, and we bought a huge amount when Zach was allowed a one-time 25%-off shopping trip at Walmart as a thank-you for working on Thanksgiving. We were able to buy nearly all the food we needed for the trail and saved hundreds of dollars.

Zach is also working on building our own stove system out of soda cans, tent pegs, and a tomato sauce can. He’s still fine-tuning it, but the prototype works great!

In the end, we’re still spending a lot of money. But we’re doing it a little at a time, looking for sales when we can, and spending money on basically nothing else (see yesterday’s blog). With any luck, we’ll be able to hit the trail with all the gear we need. Fourteen weeks and counting!


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

PCT: When You Can't Earn, Save (Part Two)


Yesterday, I wrote about why Zach and I are choosing to live without income for six months. In addition to the bills we’ll still be paying while we travel (phone, health insurance, postage for resupply boxes), we have bought a lot of gear, and still have a lot of gear to buy. (More on this in the scintillating conclusion of the series, coming tomorrow!) Suffice it to say that we are spending a lot of money on this trip, just getting ready for it.

So how do a Walmart employee and a part-time writing tutor fund a six-month trip?

By saving, saving, and saving some more.

Honestly, we don’t save as much money as we could, conceivably. But we still save a lot. Here are 15 miscellaneous ways we are able to squirrel back money for those trips to REI.

1. We live in a low-income neighborhood of our city, so our rent is cheap.

2. Utilities aren’t included in our rent, so we have more control over the water, electricity and gas we use.

3. We keep the house heat at 60 in the winter, 55 when we leave the house for a few hours, and 55 at night when we have the space heater on in our room.

4. We only have one car.

5. I have an Internet-connected home phone ($30 a year) rather than a cell phone.

6. We have almost completely stopped going out to eat.

7. We don’t spend money on entertainment. Basically, we walk and shop at REI. Fortunately, we both love walking and shopping at REI!

8. We buy mostly cheap whole foods and I cook most things from scratch.

9. I (almost) always pack Zachary a lunch for work rather than having him buy one there.

10. We subscribe to Netflix rather than having a TV.

11. Neither of us smokes.

12. We have our drinks at home rather than going out.

13. We don’t have any pets.

14. We almost never buy new clothes.

15. Neither of us has any current hobbies that cost money, except backpacking.

Some of these savings are small and some are large, but they all add up over time. I’m excited to see the way we’ve been able to buy stuff for the trail, even with low income and unexpected expenses over the summer (I get only a couple students in the summer, and we had some pricey car repairs and a huge bill for the removal of Zach’s wisdom teeth). 

The last way we’ve been able to save money is in the buying of the gear itself. We are certainly not going low-budget on this, but we’re not blowing the bank, either. Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about how we’ve acquired our gear for the price we want.

~~~

Monday, January 13, 2014

PCT: When You Can't Earn, Save (Part One)

"This looks like a good place to set up
my laptop and edit a few papers."
(Multnomah Falls Recreation Area, OR)

One of the most common questions I get about the Pacific Crest Trail is, “Will you still be working?” I think most people who ask this question can’t visualize what the trail is like. My laptop weighs more than our tent and sleeping bag combined, is fragile, could get damaged by water, and doesn’t have enough battery life to keep it alive for two days, much less a week— and even if it did, we’ll be hiking about ten hours a day, so I wouldn’t have much time for work anyway. And obviously, Zach will be taking a break from Walmart for our trip.

So where does that leave us financially? In the backwoods, hiking away, but still paying bills, for about six months with no income.

Yikes.

It’s no secret that Zachary and I aren’t exactly raking in huge amounts of dough. I’m a part-time writing tutor; he’s a Walmart employee. However, we’re going to try really hard not to go into debt for this trip. There are two main ways we will (God willing!) be able to manage this:

1. We will be living pretty cheaply when we’re on the trail. We may get a hotel here and there for sanity’s sake, but we’ll be carrying shelter with us, and primitive camping all along the trail is free. We’ve already bought most of our food, which we’ll be mailing to ourselves, so we’ll just be filling in the corners at the stops along the trail.

2. We will be eliminating many of our bills before we leave, including:
Rent (we’re moving out of our lovely townhouse— this makes me sad, but we can’t possibly afford to pay a couple thousand dollars while we’re away)
Electric/Gas/Water/Trash
Car insurance/gas/car repairs 
Wi-Fi

Even with eliminating almost all our bills, there are still ones we will have to pay while we’re on the trail:
Phone (possibly— still deciding)
Health insurance
Postage for mailing ourselves boxes of food (with about 30 boxes to ship, this adds up quickly!)

So, this is all to say that we will still need a good chunk of moolah in order to hike the trail. And since neither of us earns a ton of money, we are pulling out the secret weapon… saving! Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about that.

~~~

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Everyone's a Hipster in Their Own Way


(You can ignore the singular/plural disagreement, perceived or otherwise, in the title. It’s a reference to a song. I will also give kudos to anyone who knows what song it is.)
I must admit, my hiking outfit thus far is a tad hipster…

A friend of mine asked if I had heard about the book “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” by Cheryl Strayed. I had heard about it, though I haven’t read it yet— last time I tried to check it out of the library, it was on reserve for a solid year, so I gave up.

Zachary learned a couple weeks ago one of the reasons the book is floating around in the general consciousness: not only has it been featured on Oprah, but a movie based on the book, starring Reese Witherspoon, is coming out later this year.

When we learned this, Zach looked at me and said, “Man, I’m glad we’re hiking the trail this year instead of next.”

I could only nod and agree. Images flashed through my head or hordes of backpacker wannabes flooding the trail in hopes of “finding themselves.” I could imagine people saying, “Oh, you hiked the trail because of that movie, right?” Suddenly, hiking the PCT will be something people have heard about, something fashionable or trendy. 

In short, I’m afraid that the movie will make the trail— gasp!— popular.

I roll my eyes at people who say they loved Ben Folds or pomegranates or Hunger Games until it became cool. And yet, I think everyone has that little exclusive thing that they want to stay exclusive. The PCT is that for me.

A lot of the PCT’s impending popularity will depend on whether or not the movie is well-done, but one way or the other, I’m reminding myself that popularity can be good. Maybe more people will support the Pacific Crest Trail Association, and help them keep the trail wild for generations to come. Maybe more people will try out backpacking. Maybe we can finish blazing the Continental Divide Trail and make the American Discovery Trail something feasible for more long-distance hikers.

In the meantime, I will be squelching my inner hipster and remembering that, despite how many people like something, it can still be cool.

~~~

Friday, January 10, 2014

In Which Lisa Creates Her First Meme


I’ve been thinking a lot about backpacking lately, and along with these thoughts has been an overwhelming urge to make one of those “What I Actually Do” memes. So I made one:



I’ll post some blogs of substance on this topic in upcoming weeks. To tide you over for today, check out these FAQ about the Pacific Crest Trail.

~~~

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Travel Tip Tuesdays: How to Find Yourself


Many people, when they hear stories about someone taking a cross-country road trip or a journey around the world, think, “That’s so amazing… if only I could do something like that, I could find out who I truly am.” Long-term or spontaneous travel and “finding yourself” are closely linked in fiction and nonfiction alike. 

And that means that a lot of people who travel to “find themselves” turn out very disappointed. 

I watched an excellent documentary (the title of which I can’t for the life of me remember— I saw it at movie night at the Hawthorne Hostel in Portland) about a guy who quit his job, packed up his things and took a year-long journey around the world, hitting up every continent except Antarctica. The trip changed him, certainly, but at about the halfway mark, he began to wonder why he was doing this. What was the point of hanging out and hooking up and packing and unpacking and going to see yet another waterfall that looked exactly like the waterfall before it? He never did answer his own question.

I’ve seen this kind of apathy in many long-term or frequent travelers: they tend to dislike cities, tourist attractions and museums (“They all look alike after a while”), and often look a bit worn down, jaded to the sunny beaches and green forests. If you ask them about their favorite place they’ve traveled, they may light up for a while, but many of them can’t remember which cathedral was in which town. 

Many part-time nomads have told me that they soon learned that, while places are fine, the most important part of long-term travel are the people. The interaction you have with people will shape you and change you and stay with you more than anything else that happens on a trip. I agree with this. While it’s true that I have wonderful, vivid memories of hiking the Angels Landing trail in Zion Canyon, I cherish more the memory of the conversation with homeless people in Tucson.

You can see where I’m going with this. There are people right here, right in front of us. There are opportunities to learn and grow and serve and change and find out who we are. We don’t need to wait for a trip to catalyze this inward journey. In fact, traveling might distract us from the most important issues that we need to face at home.

I’m the first person to say that a trip, particularly a long one, is inspiring, incredible, and, yes, life-changing. But if you are planning a trip with the intention of trying to “find yourself,” you had best take your cue from Dorothy Gale and learn to start in your own backyard.

~~~

Monday, January 6, 2014

Happy New Year, a Little Late


I didn’t intend to take a blogging hiatus. It just happened. I could blame this on many things: a desire for family time when my sister was in town, large chunks of my day spent away from home over the past couple weeks, the busyness of the holidays, etc., etc. But the real reason, I think, that I haven’t picked up my metaphorical pen in the past three weeks is that I haven’t found anything to say that didn’t sound like a self-absorbed Facebook status update.

Of course, there’s been a lot on my mind. Thoughts, ideas, plans and fears roll around in my head like marbles: translucent, self-contained, difficult for me to grasp or articulate. A lot has happened, from celebrating Christmas to seeing my sister to the airport at 5:30 this morning. It can be difficult to process everything.

Here are a sampling of my immediate thoughts:

This foot of snow on the ground is very, very pretty, with the clear pastel sunset sky above it. It’s kind of exciting to have a day when the actual temperature is 5 degrees below zero. (That said, thank God for good central heating.)

It wasn’t weird to have my sister here in town, but it’s not weird to have her gone, either. I’ve gotten used to life without her immediate presence. This upsets me.

I hope Zach’s car will start tonight when he gets off work at 11pm.

I want to declutter my desk but I can’t seem to get motivated. Maybe if I played the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack it would help.

And a sampling of my thoughts over the past few weeks:

Holy cow, the PCT is less than four months away. How the heck are we going to afford it/get all the logistics done?

I have a lot of stuff to do but it’s hard to do it.

I need to learn to focus more.

My body does not like it when I eat a lot of white flour.

What is simplicity? How do you find a place where you can maintain simplicity in life, in outlook, in desire, in practice?

I’ve reached a comfortable plane of selflessness, where I do nice and kind things for other people but don’t truly sacrifice myself in the service of others. This year I’m asking God to draw me deeper into what it truly means to be a servant.

These thoughts are random. Some of them will become blog posts later. But in the meantime, I’m putting oil on the rusty gears of my writing and shifting into gear. Happy New Year and a Blessed Epiphany, everyone!

~~~