I have been called a "Gadget Girl" by more that one person in my life but frankly I can think of worse things to be called.  One of my newer gadgets is my dehydrator which I purchased under the guidance of my friend and expert hiker/tripper Dan.  When I purchased this gadget, hiking the West Coast Trail (WCT) wasn't even close to being on my radar, I just bought it for fun and healthy food experimentation.  ( I am a Holistic Nutritionist so store bought fruit roll up is only an option for decorating the birthday cake) When Dan found out I was going on this big hike and that I was just going to buy those foil food pouches he told me I "just had to" dehydrate my own food.  I knew he was right, but really, when was I going to prepare and dehydrate food for four people for 8 days??  Well there is never any "extra" time to add another thing to the list, so without a grand food plan for the 8 days but knowing fruit would awesome; plus Helen (a hiker) and my niece were over, we just zipped through two bags of apples in no time and plugged in the dehydrator.  Twelve hours later and several pictures emailed to Dan and our apples were declared dry and delicious!

I confess, I went back to the store and bought another pair of boots to try for a couple of weeks, I just kept having second thoughts.  One guy says "oh, you can wear running shoes", then another guy says "oh, you need a full shank."  Who's a girl supposed to believe?  Well this girl did a lot of research and tried on way too many pairs of boots and then finally decided to believe her own feet and judgement and went back to her first pick!  Oh, I also went to my cousin who's a pedorthist in town at BioPed and she helped me decide, it never hurts to go to a trusted source for more information.  She also made me an amazing pair or orthotics so if you need new ones, check out what Danielle can do for your aching feet.  So to all you people out there, trust your gut and your own feet but don't hesitate to drive the sales people crazy with your indecision.  Then go ahead and wear the boots outside!  I did it, I married my boots!

Today's picture is of the three books I'm using for research, along with the good ol' internet and my friend Dan who knows everything about camping.