Prep
Throughout the past few months we have been purchasing items we need for our trip and looking in different places to items on clearance or on sale: hiking backpacks and hydration bladders (so each person has water), hiking shoes (no slipping), trekking poles (cause the NARROWS, baby!), picnic blanket (their cute), sleeping bags (Yosemite canvas tent village required), new cooler (no Yeti but a good one), battery powered or solar fan (again, Yosemite-no electricity), first aid kit (cause people fall especially my people), compass (cause Chris is weird), hats (for the sun), fire Starter (Chris is weird), emergency blanket (in case we get lost because Chris is weird), solar charger (Yosemite), bear spray (for Yellowstone and Glacier), water shoes (for water), chairs (for relaxing), booster pack (found on Amazon), and a few other things. Our list is rather long but most of it we had from other trips.
Thanks to Academy Sports for the $20 Merrill hiking shoes (way in the back corner hiding with the clearance shoes) and $15 Under Armor sliders (on sale).
Thanks to Alabama Outdoors for the lightweight hats and stickers for our new not-yet-bought cooler (for whenever we find it.) We went to Hoover, AL back in November ’17 and found a great haul of things from Field & Stream, too.
We still are in search of a few more things. My hiking shoes were the most expensive. I just couldn’t find the ones I wanted so I ended up spending $130 on mine at Field & Stream. Eek!
Back in the summer of ’17 and throughout the next few months we found some great deals! The picnic blanket was $5, the Frog Togg ponchos were less than $5 each at Wal-Mart. The trekking poles were found at Bargain Hunt locations for $20.
We tried to buy at least one backpack/hydration pack a month for each person. Most were on sale and we ended up spending the most on Chris’s because he is very particular about his and will be hauling the most stuff.
Find great deals,
cb + jb
