Making of An Outdoor Geek, Part 3

But then, why would we need any more money?? We'd got everything covered after all. Subtracting $39 ($13/person/night x 3) from the money we had, we still had 63 cents.!! It ought to be fine. Why wouldn't it??

Next, we needed to make a packing list.

• Duffel bags (Substitute them with the "sports bags" that were popular among the grade schoolers for carrying school supplies back and forth. They were fairly water resistant too.)
• Wool blankets (I snatched mine from the linen closet.)
• A Tent (we didn't have one. Improvise it with ponchos if it rains.)
• Ponchos (Funny that was fairly common back then.)
• Change of cloths (Whatever we each had had to do it. No, no high tech $400 The North Face stuff back then.)
• 4 days worth of food (We'd see what we could find in our respective mothers' pantries.)
• A map (I had already "borrowed" it from the dining room in my house.)
• Matches (There were plenty of them in my house. My dad smoked practically anything he could light.)
• Pots and pans (I'd have to see what I could find in my mom's kitchen.)
• The comic book (Couldn't forget that. In case we needed to refer to it for what to do.)
• A point-n-shoot camera (I knew where my mom put hers.)
• A rope (Not sure why we'd need it but since the kid in the comic book carried it, we'd take one.)
• A can opener (Good idea!)
• Flashlights & spare batteries (Self explanatory)

I think that was about it. We'd cram all this stuff in our bicycle saddle bags (Oddly, kids' bicycles in Japan back then typically came with some sorts of saddle bags that straddled the rack in the rear.) and the sports bags strapped on the back our bicycles with bungee cords.

To be continued...