Are we there yet?
Iwent backpacking with a friend one time. I borrowed a hard-core backpack from a coworker, shopped for weeks for water filtering devices, bought small lightweight cookware, chose freezedried food, did the whole thing like I was climbing Everest. We actually did climb a mountain; we went way up steep inclines like we were goats. It was hard. This trip is probably on my shortlist of the hardest physical things I’ve ever done, and it was also the worst three or four days of my life. I’d never gone backpacking, and I was sensitive to the weight of that cookware I purchased and the weight of my sleeping bag, but I packed some magazines and books because there was nothing to do once we got to the top except look down at where we had been. Ha, but after reaching the top I burned those books and magazines (I really did). There was no way I was going to carry that extra weight down the mountain. Gravity is good but it does not always make things easier. My point is I enjoyed the journey of thinking about backpacking. I enjoyed shopping, thinking about the great outdoors, acting like a real man and picking out my freeze-dried food. I enjoyed imagining what it was going to be like drinking water out of a mountain stream, hanging out with my friend who was and is one of the best Christians I’ve ever known. Going in and out of REI and spending my small budget with as much frugalness as possible was fun.
