Chores, chores, chores. People think hiking is all fun and games. But there is a large amount of work that goes on in between hiking.

I went to the super Walmart next door after breakfast to get cleaning supplies and an extra t-shirt. I thought I had thrown away my camp towel at the last hotel, but after cleaning my pack I found it stashed away in a pocket where it shouldn’t have been. That’s one less thing to buy at Walmart.

Well in the camping section I discovered that Walmart sells dehydrated backpacking meals. This is a wonderful surprise. So I go ahead and buy one for the next week. I also pick up some food for lunch since there are not many restaurants near the hotel.

The first order of business is cleaning. I completely empty everything out of the pack and begin washing it in the sink with a combination of shampoo and body wash. After I rinse it gets another cleaning with just body wash. Then it gets another rinse and a thorough dousing with an odor block. Then it gets another rinse and another application of odor block. I leave it hanging upside down from the shower head in the shower to drip dry for an hour.

I then snag a towel from the gym and take my tent outside in the grass to clean it as well as I can. After that I clean the inside of the tent and get all the dead mosquitoes out of the roof with a washcloth. It gets a light dusting of the odor block and then hung up in the room to dry.

In the meantime I have two days of blogs to catch up on and post pictures of. I also eat the wonderful frozen items I bought from Walmart for lunch. A can of spaghetti for a buck – you can’t beat that. Roll back those food standards while you roll back the savings. I managed to get all the laundry done at the same time. Multitasking for the win.

The next order of business is the hardest of all. I haven’t really planned out the second half of the trip with regards to food resupply and especially camping for the next week. I managed to break down the longest food carries to 4 days by adding another town stop which will require an Uber ride. 4 days of food weighs far less than 6 days of food.

When it’s finally time for dinner I go ahead to the place next door called the Pizza Ranch. I didn’t realize it was basically a pizza buffet with a hot bar and salad bar. I should have gone before 4:00 because it would have only been $10 at that time. It was actually a lot better than I was expecting. Mid westerners have the deep dish crust down pat, but they still don’t understand the concept of thin crust. It’s supposed to be a crust not a cracker.

Back at the hotel, I’m still writing out plans until after 8:30. I have been doing chores non-stop from 6:30 to 8:30. That’s 14 hours of chores. That’s longer than a full day of hiking.

Emotion of the day, Happiness

It took multiple cleanings and rinsings but I think I have all of the dogs stink out of the pack. I could still get a faint smell from the phone sleeve so I gave that an extra dose of the odor block.

I have the next 5 days planned out in detail and the following week in a rough draft.

Walmart had everything I need plus the bonus dehydrated dinner. As far as objectives and completions, everything is checked off. That makes me very happy.