Under where?

Ahh undies...you would think this would be a pretty easy topic, you've worn them all your life, you have bunches of them, right? WRONG! For the PCT you have to have "moisture wicking" everything (eww, I know) and underwear are not to be excluded. One of the best reviewed "high performance" underwear are Patagonia's "Active Hipster" only problem? 

They're TWENTY DOLLARS...FOR ONE PAIR!!! So, where should you look? Well, no further than your local Walmart of course! While Alex and I were cruising for cheap powdered milk a few weeks ago I came across "Danskin Now Seamless Hipster" active underwear. They are almost IDENTICAL to the Patagonia one's the only difference? Patagonia: 96 % nylon, 4% spandex. Danskin Now: 91% nylon, %9 spandex. Oh and they're less than HALF THE PRICE! You're welcome.

Money saving tip: USED GEAR SALES!!

If you are planning a PCT trip, or other big trip, or you just love saving, REI used gear sales are for you! It is SO worth the $20 to become an REI member for the hundreds and hundreds of dollars you'll save at the sales. Many of the items are brand new that people have just returned for various reasons. If you're lucky enough to live somewhere like the Bay Area there are dozens of REI's all less than an hour away (at most). With so many locations you can go to a sale every weekend of the month! Not that we do that...

 The lines can get a little crazy, so you'll want to get there early.

 In the Bay Area you can get there around 6-6:30am and you'll most likely be one 

of the first people there, anything past that and you're not a true addict (or as Alex and I like to say, in the Daniel Day Lewis voice from "There Will Be Blood," "I'm a used gear girl!"). 

People come with their iPods and camping chairs and/or

sleeping bags to wait until they pass out tickets (some do tickets with appointment times so you can leave and come back later at your time), or the four hours until they open the gates when the sale starts. Then it's a mad rush to cram all of the gear they can hold into their arms or mesh REI bags. Watch out for flying elbows and some interesting "characters." 

Money saving tip of the day! BEANS!

We are doing this trip on a shoestring budget so saving money is incredibly important! We've found lots of ways to save so here are some of our tips. I've got three words for you all..."99 Cent Only" store! We've been able to find a lot there, spices for our food boxes, instant mash potatoes, candy, drink mixes  and best of all...INSTANT BEANS! Now, that may sound unappetizing, it very well could be, but for 33 cents a vacuum sealed bag it was worth it! Instant pinto and black bean mixes can run for $6 or $7 at REI or other camp stores or cheaper ones take too long to cook. So we've mixed in some Taco Bell sauce packets, some mac and cheese-cheese sauce and in some a little taco seasoning...yum!  

"Real Jobs"

Alex and I quickly realized that temp jobs for the next four months weren't going to cut it, although Alex did do the weird EEG shower cap survey thing a few more times, so we had to find some more consistent work. While I was handing out cards at MacWorld I met a few people asking for money to "Save The Children." I said we couldn't afford to donate money right now but what about our time? I was then told they actually have paying volunteer jobs and they're interviewing that night. Alex and I both went, were both hired to "canvass" the Bay Area streets asking for pledges to Save the Children. I had also at the same time made a post for a nanny job. 

    Luckily I was hired by two great families that would make up full time work. Because the trip was so up in the air still at this point I didn't mention the trip because there was such a good possibility that it might not happen. Within two days of getting hired it looked

 like the trip was that much more likely so I told the families. I felt terribly guilty to be leaving after just getting hired, but it was so much better than getting hired and not saying anything until we knew for sure which might have been a month before we left. Anyway, honesty is the best policy!! I was so lucky to work with two really great families that had two girls each that I really adored.         

     Alex might not have been so lucky...although he was

 hired to a great cause and was working, which was his top priority, it had its drawbacks. Here is Alex being "given the sun" by a woman he met on the street. She couldn't give money, so she gave the sun.  She did this by grasping his hand and staring directly into for roughly two minutes while squeezing and releasing her grasp. When she was done she simply shook his hand out and walked away.

                                         

Shearing...

While we're on the trail it is very possible that there will be days and days and days that we will be going without showers and without washing our hair. I realized that my mid-back length hair probably wasn't going to be the most practical for this venture. So...I decided to chop off all (slight exaggeration) of my hair and make it the length it hasn't been since I was twelve! Because I was going to be cutting off so much I decided to cut off even more than I had planned so that I could donate my foot of hair to "Children With Hairloss," a foundation that makes hair pieces for kids who have lost their hair for various reasons. This picture is right after they cut off my ponytail.  

   Alex also got a cut, he asked for a "trim" and the stylist asked him, "So keep it shaggy, like the students wear?" This is before 

and this is what he ended up with...

Fundraising!

The actual PCT doesn't really cost money, you do need a permit for the US portion, $5, and one for Canada, which is free. The main costs for us was all of the gear (money saving tips there will come later!) and the biggest portion was money to pay for our bills while we're gone on the trail. When we had decided we wanted to do the trip for sure we knew that even though it was up in the air, we weren't sure we could even do it, we knew we would have to fundraise as soon as we got back home from Christmas in Oregon. Two days after we got back I got a job handing out business cards at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. I was hired for four days. My interest in "people watching" was quickly overshadowed by the freezing weather, standing on my feet without a break from eight hours a day, a few lewd comments, and the blatant disregard of my very existence by 90% of the people that passed me on the street. It got pretty slow...

   At the same time Alex got a temp job that week as well. He got a job one d

ay to fill out a survey for how people are affected by watching programs on different sized screens...or that's what he thought. He got there and they proceeded to put electrodes on his hands, face, and head. A leave in conditioner was put into his hair through a swim

 cap to act as a conductor. He then watched Planet Earth on different sized screens and ended the survey by clicking a button every time a blue frog popped on the screen....seriously. I am SO sorry to say that there is no actual picture of this! But hey, he made $75 in one hour!

Why the PCT?

Have you ever had that light go on, lightning strike (not sure why all of the light references, illumination I guess...?) moment where you just knew you had to do something? Well that's what happened to Alex and I when we were driving back from a romantic visit to Sunriver (OR) and passed the Santiam entrance to the Pacific Crest Trail (which will now only be referred to as the PCT, because I'm lazy). Alex and his family had hiked portions of it when he was a kid and they had seen the haggard thru-hikers (someone who does the entire trail at one time, what we'll be doing) and always looked at them with awe and like they were a little crazy. Never did Alex and I think that we would actually be able to be at a point in our lives where we could just leave our lives for five months and not worry about rent, bills, reality...it just so happened though that we had just left our glamorous lives in Los Angeles and pursuing ventures in the "industry" for the Bay Area and a little break. We're currently living with family (we love you Grandma!) and don't have rent (I swear we offered!), careers (we'll get to how we're paying for this later) or kids or other ties that we can't leave. So it's off to find ourselves in the woods, without showers, toilets, much food, or white noise (I haven't slept without the whirr of a fan since I was a baby)...

Blog shlog?

We're preparing to make our pilgrimage or sorts, walking from the Mexican/CA border to Canada (on the Pacific Crest Trail) and wanted to share what we're learning, how we're preparing and our progress once we're on the trial. So, we've become "bloggers"...