Boxing daze

Less than two weeks from our start date and we've completed our last major logistical challenge--buying, preparing and packaging food for three months. Little Pony handled most of this one--she figured out a repertoire of meals neither of us would easily tire of, then ordered some bulk dry foods, purchased a dehydrator, and ran it day and night. Then we travelled to Wisconsin (the day after I returned from my last London Nature trip). My sister (The World's Best Bargain Shopper) drove us to a bulk food store in Appleton (props to the good folks at The Granary) where we purchased a ton of stuff, then we hit a super supermarket and filled two carts; the total haul came in well below our budget. When we returned to Smaglik Manor, the farm house where I grew up, two old friends helped us sort, mix and package breakfasts and snacks. It was appropriate that one helper was a frequent hiking companion of mine. For our first major backcountry trip--Bryce Canyon's Below the Rim trail--we kept food simple: oatmeal for breakfast, trail mix and jerky for lunch and various permutations of soup and rice for dinner. After three days, Mark said that menu "got old". So when we hiked the Grand Tetons a few years later, he took over meal planning and opted for dehydrated pre-made meals from an outdoor store. He and another guy had the spaghetti the first night and I tried the chili. Mark talked about how much better this stuff was than the soup-and-rice standby. But that was before the gastro-intestinal revenge. After dinner and some whiskey, I retired to my tent and Mark and Will to theirs. It started raining and I started to hear some rumbling. I thought it was thunder or other storm-related audio effect, but the audio effects turned out to be a mighty wind of another kind. They were trapped in the tent, due to the pounding, and eventually resorted to lighting matches to ameloriate the odor. Fortunately they succeeded in not lighting the tent on fire. I was fine--that night. I tried the spaghetti the following evening and thought it tasted even better than the chili. Then my own rumblings commenced. Never mind my own GI thunder and lightning; I flet like someone had removed my colon, used it as a punching bag, then replaced it. After that, Nature called--and kept calling, for the next 12 hours. I nearly wore out the latrine trowel, never mind my bruised and battered intestines. Even though buying, mixing, sorting and packing 90 or so days of food took up the bulk of our Wisconsin visit, I'm pleased with the results--a variety of tasty food that won't be as mundane as my orignal bachelor backpacker diet, or as colon-pounding as the pricey, pre-packaged stuff.