CA Box Planning and Packing

The past few days have been grocery shopping overload! I am seriously, sick of grocery shopping for packaged food right now. Bless my dad for calorie counting, driving, and brainstorming with me every step of the way since I've been in CA. Thank you Lindsey (sister) for being my online guru and finding quick deals on last minute goods. I wish the best to my mom who might be going slightly crazy as she watches us prepare, desperately hoping I'll decide to not hike this trail. My entire family has shown so much support. My friends too. Jeez, the amount of emails and messages I've received the past week with encouraging words have warmed my heart and kept my spirits high. I love you all so much!

This morning, Night Rider (Alina) came over and generously dropped off a bear barrel and go-lite umbrella and gave my parents a glimps of hope of being a solo, female thru-hiker. She road with her horse TWICE through the entire 2,660 miles, and today shared stories of mosquitoes, snow, and the brilliant others whom I will meet on trail. She stayed way after breakfast and walked through my rough box-schedule, and guided me in ways that will assist me incredibly. What a gift to know someone so awesome who is able and willing to guide me, with personal experience, through this difficult planning process.

This evening, with the loving help of my dad, sister Lindsey, Tom (friend since '05), and Nick (BIL since '01), we were able to pack up the 23 California boxes with TONS OF FOOD! I wish I had exact numbers to express how much food we divided... But I'm going to guess like 60+ oatmeal packets, 90+ packages meals, 100+ granola bars, 90+ emergen-c packets, tons of jolly ranchers and candy, dehydrated potatoes, snickers bars, tea...roughly $700+ of food.. so freakin' much! For the record, I took off my shoes for this process (inside joke). So excited, so much help, so thankful.