Time to Panic

Friday, June 10 was my father-in-law's 90th birthday. Since he lives here in Springfield, preparation duties fell to my husband Mike and me. I started cleaning my house the Sunday after school got out on Friday, June 3 and cleaned until the guests started arriving on Friday, June 10. I also had to shop and prepare for the birthday party on June 10: order the cake, buy the candy and mints, make the punch, decorate and so on. It is now Sunday, June 12, the last guests have left and I have about 48 hours to get ready to catch my plane to go out to Colorado. I am washing sheets and towels now, and I also have to clip my two dogs before I go.

Fortunately I have all my equipment more-or-less together, since I brought it all to school with me one day to show the kids while I gave them a talk and slide show on the Colorado Trail. The biggest job I have at this point is to prepare my drop boxes. I will mail myself a box addressed "Debbie Good, General Delivery, Town, Zip Code" to each of the towns I will go in to as I hike. These boxes will contain food, maybe fresh socks, and any other items I am particular about and may not be able to buy in the towns. I don't need to have them all mailed (my husband can mail them after I leave) but I need to have them ready.

To know how many drop boxes to ship and what to put in them, I had to come up with a projected rough-guess itinerary. Based on how fast I moved in 2008 and 2009, I am planning to average between 13 and 15 miles per day, slower early in the hike and faster as I gain fitness. I studied the map, calculated distances and decided which towns to go in to and how may days apart they will be, and that tells me how much of what food to put in my box. My experience from the previous hikes is that I am usually wrong and put in too much food, but that's better than not enough.

Here is my rough-guess itinerary:

Denver - Breckenridge         105.1 miles              8 days
To Twin Lakes                       71.3                      6 days
To Salida                               76.7 miles              6 days
To Creede                             105 miles               7 days
To Silverton                           53.3 miles              4 days
To Durango                           74 miles                 5 days

This itinerary is on the conservative side and I will probably move faster than this, but I need to be prepared for these distances. On the previous hikes I spent two nights and one full day in the towns, but if I want to speed up I can just spend one night in town and head out the next morning.

So far the fundraising is going well. I have checks totalling $180 and verbal or written pledges for another $100 or so.  I have passed out a lot of flyers, so I hope things will trickle in throughout the summer. Tomorrow I will post some pictures of my equipment and supplies and explain what I use it for. I am not sure how to post pictures once I get out on the trail, since I will be using hotel or coffeehouse computers, but I'm going to try.