Solo Trip Countdown Continues...JUST 5 DAYS!

Last night Tanyia and I took the kids to see the new kids movie Ratatouille. As we sat in the theater Tanyia leans over to me and whispers in my ear "...a week from now you'll be in Algonquin", then smiles. She knows how much I have been looking forward to this and she has been so supportive. I reached over and gave her hand a little squeeze in appreciation. Even before she said it, I knew it was just a week away, but at that moment it really struck me...in a week I will be in Algonquin...alone. In fact, this will be the first time I have ever been alone for more then a couple of hours. Earlier I wrote about how I was feeling anxious/excited about the trip, but over the weekend any anxiety was devoured by my excitement as I did the bulk of my trip preparations.

Gerry was kind enough to lend me his dehydrator, so I could try me hand at making beef jerky again. This was the 3rd time I had made jerky and by far the best. I used the same soy sauce based recipe that we enjoyed last year, but kept a real eye one the beef this year to avoid over drying. Gerry also suggested that I rotate the rings of the dehydrator every couple of hours, moving the one closest to the heat to the top. I also used a bit of the hot sauce that I had left out last year. All of this, combined with a 48 hour marinate in the fridge produced my best jerky yet! It is almost the perfect texture... not to wet or dry and the flavour is awesome. After a couple of bites you stat to feel a bit of heat coming, but just as you think it might get hot, the heat pulls back. PERFECT! Here is the Recipe if anyone is interested:

INGREDIENTS:
2 pound eye of round
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoon brown sugar
2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

I also spent the weekend packing all of my gear and most of the food. The pack is already so much lighter then last year, but I will weight it and post the final total a little later in the week. I have decided to bring a few luxury items, like my hard cover of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, three 250 ml tetra packs of a very nice Pino Grigio from Three Thieves and the Therm-a-rest chair..thanks Gerry.

The weather for my trip is looking great! No sign of rain and sunny every day. The only down side is at night is will drop to just 9 Celsius, which seems pretty cold for July, but who cares I will be asleep. With the temps dipping that low I imagine the night sky will be clear for stargazing.

At this point I have done everything I can do. I've realized that I need this level of preparedness to feel confident I can handle a trip like this. The last thing I need is to get out there and realize I forgot to bring *BLANK* and that *BLANK* would have made the trip so much better. So...my obsessive compulsive personality compels me to make lists, then triple check the lists to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. Once this is done, all I can do is worry I left something off of one of the lists in the first place...but that would never happen right? ....RIGHT?