Getting organized. Not my strong suit. Over the last month or so I’ve collected my gear, but put off the dread. That being food. Love to eat it, don’t love to make it. Nor do I enjoy figuring out how calories per ounce and thus how many ounces of this or that per day I must ingest. The PCT kindly requests that you consume between 4000 and 6000 calories per day. If you ignore this request you’ll be ready for a fashion shoot by the Canadian border. So I’m in a bind. Can’t cook, need to eat and wondering how many jars of peanut butter one can consume in a given day before the jaw joints are pulverized. Impasse.

My dilemma was solved by an impulse. As i drove down the road with my sisters and nieces one day I saw this sign. “Rancho 99 Asian Food Market” Enlightenment through advertising. “Right I thought, my answer is to shake things up.” So I pulled in, went in, and filled a cart. My young nieces assisted by gathering random products and saying “here uncle steven, eat this!” Why not, it takes a village. Money spent brings commitment. The first few weeks on the trail will be an Asian buffet. I’ve seen Asian meals prepared before, so my learning curve shouldn’t be too steep. Hands on, I’ve made ramen in school. I’m optimistic. Though some of the package instructions for cooking I’ve looked at are simplistic to the point of doubt. Twenty lines of Japanese characters followed by the word “boil.” And my metric measurement skills are shaky. I will persevere. And when persevering fails I will invent. And I will eat my Asian creations because there are no alternative food trees is the desert. Hunger will trump palet in every hiking situation (or fuckuation as my Aunt Pat loves to say.)

Steve Halteman
San Diego, California
Hiking the PCT for the Kids of Escuela Verde

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