Some news on the trip

so I'm feeling somewhat recuperated after a fantastic night's sleep (thanks to new running shoes, new dog leash and the Walk of Walks) and thought I would share some details, mostly about the food since otherwise you need to see the pics.

We did lots of dehydrating for the trip and had some pretty good meals considering we were working with the constraint of water being the only thing we had available once we were out in the woods.

The dehydrated veggies were killer (in the good way) for the most part, although I can tell you not to bother trying to dehydrate celery. It is never the same, it just doesn't come back. It sits there in the bowl like an angry crunchy little demon and tries to choke you. And the taste is not ok.

We had some meals we planned better (we took a bag of dried chili mix from the grocery store, split it into 2, added some TVP, dried tomato sauce and veggies and packed those for 2 meals -DELISH), but we relied a lot on PBJ and Ramen. For the Ramen meals, I made up little combo baggies of veggies -corn, carrots, peas,onions- and we just portioned those out into 1 meal sizes. 2 hours before dinner we would throw the veggies in a nalgene bottle to get them started, then just cook the whole bottle and add the noodles. Fucking awesome, seriously. And then...we met some dude who said if you added red pepper flakes (packets of which I had purloined from the airport pizza joint) and peanut butter it's like "ghetto thai". and it was, and it was also delicious! and filling and hearty and perfect for rainy weather. I would consider this one at home, for reals. I think I fell in love with Ramen all over again, and I was never really that far out.

Also, we hitchhiked a lot, and one of the days we thought there might be competition, so we decided we needed a friendly edge. HN came up with the idea of offering doughnuts to anyone who picked us up, so we each bought our faves (powdered donettes by Ms Fresh for me, chocolate glazed entemanns for him) and got to it. We decided we should make a sign, so HN took matters into his own hand and produced the masterpiece represented below. Unfortunately for you and the box, it was pouring that day and we didn't dare take the camera out so there is no photographic evidence of this and you'll have to settle for my recall. The doughnuts were not harmed however. Chocolate glaze is apparently bulletproof in addition to water repellent.

No thats not how you spell it but he sure is handsome!

I'm baaaaack

So I made it home. it was an awesome time, I'm still all screwed up sleepwise probably at least partially because I'm not "home" home yet. I'm up in Boston, making the circuit of other people's couches and beds, which is fun sometimes but maybe not necessarily at the end of a 3 week whirlwind tour of the northwest and the really NORTHwest.

It will be nice to be in my own bed and shower. With my own backyard.

HN still has the camera, so I don't have any pictures from that to share for a while yet, but I did manage to grab a couple on my cameraphone that aren't too bad.

This is me being awesome. I found a BARREL of lucha libre masks at an army navy store in Portland. Sweet!

Landing at Anchorage airport. 11 PMPretty scenery out the side of the train to Denali

More prettiness. Le Sigh.

Since I'm going to be in the woods anyway...

Background:
I've been sort of experimenting with making my own skin/wash products. I haven't yet reached the point of giving up on store bought soap, but I might be working in that direction. I really only use it on small areas, because I use scrub for most of my shizzz.

I've given up buying shower scrubs and using lotion from stores, opting instead to keep a pre-mixed jar of white sugar and olive oil in the shower and using that as a body scrub/moisturizer combo. Even on my face. Yes it makes a slippery mess, I keep a bottle of cheap shampoo for oily hair on hand in the shower and I drop some on the floor and kick it around a little to clean up the floor when I'm done oiling.
It works great and my notoriously dry itchy skin is just chilling these days. Oddly enough too, my face loves it. It's a bit much on the face when I get out of the shower, so I just take a little towel I keep for this purpose and give me face a firm wipe down the get the extra oil off. It will still feel different than you're used to, but give it 20 min and everything will be absorbed. Throughout the day, I end up not looking like a total greaseball the way I do when I use moisturizer from the store. I actually had my first breakout in a while this week, after using store lotion for the first time in ages. Coincidence? I think not.

I've also been using baking soda to wash my hair now and again. Just some baking soda dissolved in water, also kept handy in the shower, and I use it when I feel like my hair is getting greasy. I haven't totally joined the no-poo movement yet.

But.

I'm thinking that while I'm in Alaska, since I'm mos def NOT going to add the extra weight of carrying shampoo, nor would I wash with that crud in natural settings, since it is completely and wholly unnatural, and since I will have some baking soda for brushing my teefs anyway that I might go full out no-poo for the trip and see how it goes. My rational is thusly:

I'm going to be greasy and nasty one way or the other. When switching to no-poo, there can be an adjustment period while your hair freaks out and starts re-producing the oils shampoo kills out of it, so some people seem to notice they get greasy before things normalize. I do not wish to make this transition in polite society. I do not however mind the idea of forcing it on HN. He is used to this stuff by now, and plus with a sister who's a homeopath I will never be the most extreme case he's seen.

In addition to baking soda, there is stuff floating around out there about using ACV diluted as a rinse agent. I may give this one a trial go before heading out, and decide if it's going to be worth the trouble. With my new short hair, I might be able to get away with carrying around just a little bit to dilute when we find water to wash in. If I try it before I go and it works out, Ima get all up in it for the walk. (Note: I do not have my new short hair yet. I am getting it in Portland, with the help of Dr J)

I'll let you all know how it goes, I for one am on the edge of my seat!