Saying goodbye to everyone I know

Chaa chaa chaa..... Well, It's not like I'm leaving forever or nothin' but there's still a lot of people to say goodbye to. After all, 50 days is a long time. Last night My buddies Kate and James had M and I over. They always do the dinner thing up right and this time was no exception. They cooked up an awesome seafood paella which M and I stuffed our faces with before stuffing our faces again with mangoes and ice cream! Mmmm... Just getting my energy up for the trail... Yeeehaaa! I also have to give them a warm Thank You for the solar panels from the previous post. It was a group gift. So, THANKS!

And speaking of the solar panels, there's a little update on them. I've been testing the setup on and off this past week, and here's the scoop. It looks like charging batteries with it will work great. I've had no problems getting a full charge in to my AA and AAA NiMh batt's with half a day's worth of sunlight. I've also tried hooking my cell phone up directly to the solar panel with less success. It appears that the connectors I have don't do the trickle charge thing too well, and it actually DRAINS power if there is little or no sunlight! So, I'll probably go the AA battery route and pick up one of these things to fuel the phone. It shouldn't be a problem to work it out this way, and I'll also be able to charge my phone with disposable batteries in a pinch. Naaaaice.

Tomorrow I'll be going to Campmor or EMS to pick up some delicious dehydrated dinners. Yummm. They're pricey, I know, but they're also really easy to eat on the trail. I figured in about 20 of em' for my trip. The rest will be home made concoctions of noodles, rice, lentils, and the like.