Backpacking kitchen

It has always been a struggle for me to take the right amount of gear for cooking and eating when I go camping or backpacking. I haven't made the step into ultralight backpacking so most of the gear I do bring will make those cringe at the sight of pile of gear that I have at my disposal. I have down sized a lot of my gear and have went to lighter options with other pieces. My current setup includes:

• A Trangia alcohol stove clone made by Esbit, the stove came from the 985ml cook set.
• Evernew titanium alcohol stove pot stand.
• Toaks 750ml titanium pot.
• Sea to Summit titanium long handle spoon.
• Sea to Summit delta mug.
• Sea to Summit x bowl.
• GSI ultralight salt and pepper shaker.
• GSI compact scraper.
• Vargo 8oz fuel bottle.
• Fire steel.
• Pot grabber.

And even though they are just part of my hydration system, two 32oz Nalgene wide mouth bottles, one with a Humangear cap cap. I also have two 16oz narrow mouth bottles and one 14oz wide mouth bottle that has a neoprene bottle cozy but will be only taking the two 32oz and one 14oz to keep the weight down and because of the expected cold temperatures. The 32oz will ride in a condor insulated bottle pouch mounted either side of the bag and the 14oz bottle will be in smaller pouch on my hip belt.

I also have a GSI stainless steel glacier cup and an Kupilka 21 cup but have decided to rotate them out for the other gear, no need in redundancy and extra weight.

For the upcoming trip I have decided to try freezer bag cooking even though I may end up just dumping everything into the Sea to Summit x bowl instead of trying to eat out of the bag. I just recently picked up Freezer Bag Cooking by Sarah Svien Kirkconnell, already found several ideas that I want to try. Never tried making my own meals just relied on mountain house freeze dried food and MRE's. This decision is a result of trying to save weight, cost and trying to eat healthier.

New season Doctor Who

Little excited to see the new season of Doctor Who starting this Saturday. Although I probably will end up having to work, will be making sure the DVR is set and ready to record the show for my watching pleasure at a later date and time. Been recently having problems with the BBC channel to come in on my cable, had to end up calling them to and fix whatever is preventing me from to watch that channel plus a few others. Hopefully everything will be fixed in time.

Future backpacking trip

Been absent for awhile now, I knew I would lose interest in this blogging idea before too long. Have been pretty busy with work, barely even to get simple chores done around the house. This translates to I'm lazy and don't have enough interest in recording my daily doings for strangers to read and analyze.

So yeah we been busy at work and I recently been eligible to take a vacation. Unlike most people I don't want to waste my vacation time sweltering in the heat being miserable with whatever I decide to do. Instead I decided once it cools off this fall I will dust off my backpacking gear and head up to one of the many state parks that Arkansas had to offer. Several years ago while sitting in a office somewhere in a desert in a far away land, I made plans to explore Devils Den state park once I returned home. That trip never happened. It has been over six years since I made those plans and really it's time to just go.

I'm planning to hike the Butterfield Hiking Trail sometime this fall as the weather begins to cool. I'm also planning to do some geocaching while there. Now it has been a long time since I done that much hiking so the next couple months leading up to my trip I'm going to have to get back into shape or at least attempt to. Mainly reconditioning my legs and back to handle the load of a backpack and rough terrain of the trail.

I have been taking inventory over all the gear I own and have made several changes to my load out for the trip. Trying to reduce my pack weight without reducing my bank account has been difficult. Most of my gear has been current military surplus, which make great gear that is bomb proof but sucks in the heavy and bulky department. There is also a lot of gear I have been missing like a pair of decent hiking shoes and proper socks.

Fiddlers Green

The military has always been filled with traditions and stories. Being from an Army National Guard unit that transitioned from infantry to cavalry I have seen my fair share of traditions. One tradition is the poem of the Fiddlers Green, a place meant only for cavalry troopers. With Memorial day weekend coming up I thought I would share this poem.

Halfway down the trail to Hell,

In a shady meadow green

Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,

Near a good old-time canteen.

And this eternal resting place

Is known as Fiddlers' Green.

Marching past, straight through to Hell

The Infantry are seen.

Accompanied by the Engineers,

Artillery and Marines,

For none but the shades of Cavalrymen

Dismount at Fiddlers' Green.

Though some go curving down the trail

To seek a warmer scene.

No trooper ever gets to Hell

Ere he's emptied his canteen.

And so rides back to drink again

With friends at Fiddlers' Green.

And so when man and horse go down

Beneath a saber keen,

Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee

You stop a bullet clean,

And the hostiles come to get your scalp,

Just empty your canteen,

And put your pistol to your head

And go to Fiddlers' Green.

Tonight's Thoughts

I can never get anything done around my house. I will be picking up the living room and boom I am rearranging the dishes in the cabinets in the kitchen. I was taking out a couple of coke cans outside to the bucket I keep them in when I noticed the ice coolers I had out in the carport was covered in the recent pollen attack. Had to clean the coolers off and put them away in the store room.

Tonight has been a juggling act between washing dishes, doing laundry, picking up the living room and kitchen, restoring two more Stanley woodworking planes, and reorganizing the store room / workshop. Everything is finally done, don't know how but I managed to circle back on everything to have everything completed.

Only thing left undone is the two Stanley planes, the bodies are restored but still have to finish cleaning up the blades and chip breakers, sharpen the blades and apply three more coats of finish to the handles.

I am heading to bed, good night.

Lego obsession in full swing

Well within a two weeks time I have bought eleven Lego sets, all are single vehicle sets. Four sets from a seller from Brick Link, five sets from eBay, and two from a local Wal-Mart. I still have one more set on the way from eBay so I don't have pictures of it yet. but here is a picture of my current purchases.

I just realized that most of my sets are yellow, I really love the construction sets and will have to get some more. but which ones?

Brick Link

With my interests returning to Lego's, I quickly learned that eBay was not where I want to purchase most of my sets, most of the sellers are being way to greedy with their prices and most did the free shipping which only means that the shipping costs were included into the bid price, resulting in over pricing if you purchased more than one item from a seller. I have purchased a few sets off of eBay and have gotten them for reasonable prices but knowing most sets that I wanted were over priced I would have to find another source for acquiring these sets.

A couple of YouTube channels mentioned a place called Brick Link, not knowing what this was I looked it up and quickly became overwhelmed with the amount of things I could find there. Brick link has members that have set up stores and within each store they list their inventory. You select your items and checkout. Checking out doest mean you're paying for the items just yet, checkout means you agree to pay for the selected items by agreeing to a contract. The seller will be notified and will send an invoice with the final cost that includes shipping and insurance if you select it.

I have a first experience with Brick Link with the transaction finishing up tonight. I purchased four older construction sets from the 90's. The 6658 Bulldozer, the 6667 Pothole Patcher, the 6649 Street Sweeper, and the 6512 Landscape Loader. All four sets came from a seller that is located in Germany. The seller had reasonable prices with the most being S10 for one set, shipping was also reasonable with it being close to S6.50, not bad when you consider this coming from half way around the world.

All four sets have been assembled and been played with. The Pothole Patcher was the only set I remembered having as a kid, the other three came out about the same time but I never got a chance to have them. I wanted the Street Sweeper and the Bulldozer most of all and after building them I haven't been able to leave the Bulldozer alone. The condition of the kits were listed as used but most of the kits pieces were looking brand new, with only small amounts of dust collected on the tops of the sets once they were assembled. these were put together and sat on a shelf to look at. Two of the sets were however missing a couple pieces, the Pothole Patcher was missing two 1x2 black tiles that were needed under the truck frame and the Landscape Loader was missing the minifigure's head. Neither set was missing anything of great value and they were both fixed with parts I had.

I had an overall great experience with brick link and the seller from Germany and hope to do more business soon. Go over and have a look for yourself.