First Trip

68 Days
Until Departure
Bike Ride from Amarillo to the Mississippi River along Route 66

Trip to Academy




The first trip getting ready for my trip down 66 would be to Academy Sports and Outdoors. So, off we go 50 miles to the nearest Academy. The family didn't mind because we like to go on road trips.




Especially when Acapulco's Mexican Restaurant. is involved.




I have been looking online for all my supplies. I think it is very convenient to shop online, but I wanted to hold the products in my hand. I wanted to look, feel, touch, weigh. I don't think that online shopping can compare.

Some things that I looked at and tested.

Sleeping Pads:

I tested sleeping pads. I knelt down on them, tested the weight, aired some up. I think that any one of them will work fine. All of them roll up small. I did like the accordion style better. Any backpacker pads were fine.

Tents

I looked at tents. I tested the weight of all the tents. It boils down to one simple solution. Unless you want to sleep in a glorified sleeping bag, the weight was still too heavy. So, my Wal Mart tent will be just as good as the other ones.

Sleeping Bags

I checked out the sleeping bags and found that the back packing tents didn't pack away any smaller than the ones I already have.

Stoves

I FOUND ONE AND BOUGHT IT! I was looking at all the multi fuel stoves and seen some backpacker stoves and was amazed by how expensive they were. One I picked up and it was very light, but cost over 100 dollars. I could almost buy a kitchen stove for that. I found this Esbit Pocket Stove. I bought it and brought it home. It boiled a pint of water in less than 8 minutes and still had half of the fuel left. The odor was very very little. The fuel burned clean. The good news is that it is cheap and very very light! I am going with this little baby!


Food

There was plenty of choices of freeze dried food, if I wanted to bring some.



Note


The reason I am concerned with all of this stuff is because there may be times on this trip that will require me to stealth camp. Most cyclists do this when they cant stay in a hotel. One day I will have to blog about it. Hotels do get expensive. Personally I would prefer to stay in a hotel but if there is a safe place to stealth, I don't think I would mind. When I get into Oklahoma, the towns get closer together. I may be able to send a lot of this stuff home. But, if I do stay in a tent, I want my coffee and a hot dinner or breakfast.




See you on the Road!!