A Year Ago May 27: Off to Santa Fe

We bought a 10 pound bag of pinto beans, then parboiled and dehydrated as many as possible.
My father decreed, "well, with just the two of you, a tent, and that many beans,
this trip will definitely be a relationship test." Thanks, Dad.

One year ago today Jeff and I had prepped as much as we could for a timely departure. Around 10 in the morning, we left his parents' house with the trunk of the car stuffed in an orderly fashion with food and equipment to survive and enjoy the next 7 weeks.

For food, we had brainstormed the following potential on-trail dinners to meet several requirements--lightweight, healthy, and highly caloric:

• vegetarian chili
• pesto pasta
• polenta with tomato sauce

The requirement "highly caloric" seems to counteract the preceding stipulation that the meal be healthy, but there isn't necessarily a contradiction. Too often in our sedate city lives we lose touch with our bodies' needs and then underestimate how much energy we expend when hauling 30 pound packs 10 miles a day. Even in our substantially less active city-lives, Jeff and I have hyperactive metabolisms and we knew we needed to eat a lot while we were out so that we didn't wither away.

Moreover, many healthy foods like cheese, nuts and other natural fats are deemed so only when amended by the phrase "in moderation." We used a heavier hand with these in our food for the trip precisely because they contain too many calories for life in the cubicle, making them perfect for our needs.

Jeff had suggested having just 2 backcountry meals and I promptly protested that I would be too miserable to keep hiking if that was the case. While this seems trivial and childish, keeping morale up is crucial and adding variety to the food is a surefire way to do that for me. Included for other meals were oatmeal, granola bars, peanut butter, nutella, tortillas, blocks of cheddar & parmesan.

We also had the oppotunity to pilfer Jeff's parents' pantry. The canned goods we got from them would either be put sparingly into our packs or eaten when car-camping, thus helping to mix in variety and saving lightweight meals for the trail.

We drove out on I-40 through the feed-lots of Northwest Texas, into New Mexico and into Santa Fe. The drive proved less than fascinating and I fell asleep. This made driving more unpleasant for Jeff and we decided to think up ways to keep the passenger awake and engaging with the driver. Downloading podcasts in towns--This American Life, The Economist's week in news, Scientific American Science Talk and Selected Shorts from symphony space were our favorites--to listen to together and then discuss. We also made up geography games with the road atlas. That's a winner.

We arrived in Santa Fe, checked into a motel (one of the only places we either didn't have a relative's home or a decent campground), downloaded podcasts with my laptop, went to Whole Foods for GORP ingredients and uppity service, and then to dinner at The Shed.

Santa Fe seemed like a pretentious oriental rug and turquoise necklace pushing, faux-rustic town with few people and fewer things to do--until we walked into The Shed. The bar was packed, as were all of the elaborately interconnected dining rooms. Having only encountered New Mexican cuisine through the pages of Gourmet, I ordered blindly and came out with a serious win with Shed Pollo Adobo (Tender pieces of chicken roasted in Shed red adobo marinade, garlic and oregano. Served with a blue corn cheese enchilada & pinto beans. It blew my mind). Jeff ordered enchiladas verdes, a classic New Mexican dish typified by the use of green chilies.

We went to sleep happy, very very full, and excited for the next leg.