Today is a down day for us. We’re hanging out at a hotel and relaxing. The past few days were pretty challenging so we decided that we’d take a zero in Banning and resupply.

We were hanging out underneath the I-10 overpass yesterday afternoon and trying to recover from the 90+ degree temps during our morning hike.

Wanting better resupply options than the Circle-K was going to offer, we Ubered to Albertsons, roughly 15 miles away. We were shocked when the Uber driver appeared within three minutes and he was shocked when two very smelly hikers emerged from beneath the freeway.

We tried to make good food choices today when we stocked up for the next week. Honestly, we’ve both had diarrhea for most of this trek and we’re getting really tired of it. It’s not uncommon to observe one of us suddenly clawing at their backpack straps and jumping into the bushes.

So, recognizing that the altitude, physical exertion, diet, cleanliness and many other items may be the root cause, we’re trying to attack this systematically. I was tickled to find Israeli couscous so I grabbed two boxes. We can cold soak it in the afternoon while we hike and then eat it for dinner without needing to cook it. We’ll mix it with a seasoning packet and some tuna. Fingers crossed.

I’m filling our Amazon cart with a load of dehydrated legumes and vegetables. I’ll have those shipped to our next trail town and we’ll pick them up in six days. We did our laundry this morning. Our clothes still smell bad after wash and dry, but there’s no need to wash them again, since we’ll only stink them up again tomorrow.

I’m constantly looking for things that can be ejected from my backpack to cut weight when we resupply. Last week we trimmed the first aid kid down to two band-aids, two antiseptic wipes and blister care.

Carrying the Leuko tape bothers me. I know I could cut weight and wrap some of it around my trekking poles or water bottle and get rid of the rest of it….but….since we’ve been using it I’ll hang onto it for now. I think I saw in Warner Springs that they (Community center) were selling it for $2 per foot/12 inches.

Older knees, backs, hips, etc. make pack weight minimizing critical. I’ve decided that I’m now at a zero sum gain pack weight strategy, with the bear canister we’ll need in the Sierras as a noted exception. If I choose to add something to my pack, something will need to leave my pack to make room. We read about folks getting their base weights down to 8 to 10 lbs, but that’s not us. I’m now targeting 18 to 20 pounds as a base weight and I think I was about 23 pounds when we began hiking.

Anyway, our packs are cleaned out and we’re resupplied. Time to grab some dinner and get to bed early.