There are 10 essentials that one should carry while hiking or backpacking: sunglasses/sunscreen, and headlamp with extra batteries. map and compass. extra food/water and extra clothes. first aid kit and pocket knife. fire starter and waterproof matches.

Then there are other necessities: water purification system and emergency shelter. repair kits and insect repellant. signaling devices and sleeping bags.

Of course, there are your hiking boots and tent. And rain gear and even toilet paper.

During my recent backpacking trip of “the other two-thirds” of the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier, I had all of the above items…and then some…

In the pockets of my zip-type-convertible-pants-into-shorts, I carried three of my own “essentials.” The right pocket contained my all-important camera. It lived there the entire trip. An awesome new compact digital camera with 14.1 mega pixels and 14x optical zoom. With this camera, I took well over 1,000 photos of the fabulous scenery!

My left pocket contained my SPF 30 chapstick. Definitely well used because we were truly blessed with sunny and quite warm weather most of the days we were out there.

And then for the first four days, my left pocket also carried a bug net to pull over my head. In addition to insect repellant, I wore the bug net at times for extra protection.

Fortunately, the bugs eventually went away, so I was left with my two essentials in my pockets, which then sometimes also contained other various items as the days went on.

We had an awesome backpacking trip this year. Very, very little rain, warm sunny days, and even mostly warm nights. We met some interesting people, saw some wildlife, the wildflowers in many places were still in bloom, and Mt. Rainier itself was visible every day.

The pictures in this blog were while sitting in a flower-filled area called Spray Park. The first picture is as it was – a “normal’ picture. For the second and third pictures, I was playing with a settings on my camera. First, there was a “color swap” button, where the camera chooses particular colors to change. And second, “color accent,” where the camera selects one color (green, in this case), and then makes everything else black and white. And the last picture, another “normal” picture, was one of the very few times on the entire trip where a light cloud cover blew in and completely blocked out Mt. Rainier (but only momentarily).

The 10 essentials are certainly very important while out in the wilderness, but so are some personal items that one finds necessary and quite useful to take along.

Stay tuned for more blogs on my Wonderland Trail backpacking trip.

Sweet Travels!

Just about this time last year, my friend Melissa and I hiked one-third, about 30 miles, of the glorious Wonderland Trail around the beautiful Mt. Rainier. The rain we encountered (yes, in August) did not dampen our spirits one bit. The spectacular scenery, the people we met along the way, and the sense of accomplishment all added up to a simply awesome experience.

In fact, Melissa and I enjoyed the trip so much, that even before we were done hiking last year, we started thinking about hiking the entire 93-mile circuit this year. The planning begun very shortly after we got home: reading books, devising itineraries, buying new equipment, exercising nearly everyday.

The only way to hike the Wonderland Trail is to obtain a permit. And one way to obtain this permit is to submit itineraries via fax on a specific day at a specific time. And once the “permit season” is open, it is first-come first-serve. Melissa and I had our itineraries all ready to go, and faxed them in, or at least tried to, the minute that we could.

Alas, the fax machine was busy…busy….busy. Twenty minutes later, whew, our fax finally went through. Then we waited. A few months. To see whether we got “accepted.” We figured we would. I mean, 20 minutes within the first second of open permit season should be fine, right?

Not. We got rejected. We couldn’t believe it. Disappointment set in. Now what? All the excitement, planning, reading, buying, exercising – wasted?

But wait! Let’s just try again, we thought. So we tried. And faxed some more. Other itineraries, different starting locations, different days, opposite direction, something, anything.

Still, rejection.

Then I had a brilliant idea! If we can’t do the whole trail this year, what about the part that we didn’t do last year? What about the other two-thirds?

So we devised some more itineraries, and faxed away. Rejection number one came in.

But, then an acceptance! Yippee! No, wait, a second acceptance! Wow, double yippee! One itinerary within the month of July, and the other within the month of August. We were ecstatic. One way or another, now we were going to hike the Wonderland Trail again; or at least the other two-thirds.

Which itinerary to choose now? Both months had their advantages and disadvantages. We weighed the options carefully, and came to a decision…

August it is!!

And, now that August is here, Melissa and are about to embark on an adventure. To be with nature for days on end. To see wildflowers and trees and mountains and rocks and rivers and lakes and waterfalls and meadows and glaciers and wildlife; and fellow hikers. To experience the glory and the beauty of two-thirds of the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier.

For some stories of our trip last year please read the four-part series “the Mt. Rainier WT Indian Bar shelter group“

Sweet (and glorious) Travels!

In finishing up my series of blogs on “quirky” museums, I happened upon two more collections that caught my attention during my travels, both contained within the open-air Norwegian Folk Museum in Oslo.

The first collection contained an assortment of wine bottles – shelf after shelf of neatly-organized, color-coordinated, nicely-labeled bottles of wine. A history of The Wine Monopoly of 1922 was presented, which was a government-owned company, and the only Norwegian alcoholic beverage retailer allowed to sell drinks with an alcohol content of higher than 4.7%.

The second collection was in the Norwegian Pharmacy Museum, which displayed shelf after shelf of apothecary-related items, and covered the history of pharmacies in Norway from 1595 to the 20th century.

I actually also saw a similar museum, the German Pharmacy Museum, located in the Castle of Heidelberg, which had over 20,000 objects celebrating the 2,000 year-old history of the pharmacy and medicinal sciences. All quite, quite fascinating!

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I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed discovering quirky museums during my travels. I mean, after all, where else would I have…

...learned that Baltic Amber, the “Gold of the North,” is petrified resin and sap from deciduous trees, that grew in Northern Europe over 30 to 90 million years ago…

...experienced “the souls of church bells,” where some believe that church bells have souls that are transmitted through their materials…and I believe through their sounds…

...realized that shoes are more than just footwear to protect our feet – they are social indicators, telling of taste, style, prestige, personality, and that “shoes have the power, the vanity, and the magic“...

...researched that coats of arms were used for visual identification, could signify heraldic achievement, or were designed to convey feelings of power and strength…and discovered that the dragon is a symbol for “a valiant defender of treasure“...

...found out about the “facts and history of porcelain in Riga, Latvia,” including that porcelain is made by heating raw materials in a kiln with extremely hot temperatures between 2,192 and 2,552 F…

...been brought back to my childhood while looking at all kinds of games and dolls and stuffed animals and toys, including the art form of paper dolls, as “I remembered playing with those toys“...

...seen three decades-old Latvian fire engines, and thought about fire safety, including the “stop, drop and roll” technique…

...calculated approximately 704 gallons of liquid contained in thousands upon thousands of mini bottles, and had the attitude of “a half-full bottle“...

And where else would I have seen on display over 250 color varieties of amber; a few dozen of the 500 church bells in all of Estonia; 330 pairs of shoes and boots; coats of arms that were 100’s of years old; 6,000 pieces of porcelain; paper dolls dating back to the 1880’s up till the 1970’s; a Latvian fire station build around 1911; and 12,500 mini bottles, but all in quirky museums?

In defining the word “quirky” some synonyms are “original, individual, unusual, eccentric, peculiar, and idiosyncratic.” I really thought that each and every one of these museums was also fascinating, educational, interesting, unique, and truly a lot of fun!

I recommend all these, and any other quirky museums you might encounter in your travels! In fact, if you have any you have visited that you would like to share, feel free to write a comment about them.

Sweet (and Quirky) Travels!

All photos by Debby (except German Pharmacy Museum postcard photo)