Toughening Up

Unfortunately, I worked over the weekend. Fortunately, I was paid for the work and it involved math and working with teachers from around the state, so it was okay. On Sunday evening I came home and found my husband testing out the hammock in the front yard. It was about 0 degrees and he was in the sleeping bag inside the hammock. Not sleeping.
Yes, he was cold. Note the buckets holding the stakes instead of trying to hammer them into the cement-like ground. We're still deciding on what to put under the hammock to keep it warm underneath. We've tried open and closed cell pads, a space blanket and emergency blanket and garage door insulation. We could also choose to spend $200 and add 20 more ounces to our pack, but we haven't figured it out yet. Our AT adventure will be starting in the mountains of Georgia, so it might be quite cold. I can suffer through lots of misery if I can sleep warm.

We've also been trying out campfire delicacies. We're borrowing Bev's (thanks, Bev!) dehydrator to work on prepacking our own meals so we don't have to rely on 7-11 convenience food to sustain us for 6 months on the Appalachian Trail. Even though this looks like puppy chow, it's actually couscous and mango chipotle salmon. It's a keeper.

Today is Veteran's Day. Some friends and I went out to Eielson to give a 5oth birthday surprise lunch a good friend. She is a teacher at Crawford Elementary School and the secretary (thanks, Cindy!) gave us the conference room for her lunch and flowers. We had a great time eating and chatting even though someone I won't mention baked cotton balls into the cupcakes as a joke. Talk about roughage.

Anyway, on Eielson, we were not able to get a map because we are civilians. So, we checked the map on the wall. What's with that? Am I safer because I don't have a map of the Air Force Base? Is the Base safer? Whoops! I forgot about the school district website with the map, Google Earth, old maps, the wall map, the hand drawn map, etc..... Anyway, I took a huge gulp of shut up juice so that I wouldn't be held at the gate. There are no rights on a military installation, even if we are all paying for it. So much for me celebrating Veteran's Day. I had fun with the girls anyway, but it gripes me to see our little everyday freedoms and privacy whittled away.

I've been walking about 4 miles every day. No, I haven't lost weight, but I do feel more energetic. I've been invited to ski tomorrow (on level ground of course) but I'll need to see if the grand jury needs me. Busy, busy, busy. Oh, gotta go- I've got a new library book calling me.