Gear: Nube & Hammock Set-Up

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We found that the Nubé and Hambunk set-up created and sold by Sierra Madre Search was the system that was easiest to manage with the most protection wrapped into a nice well thought out package.   Here are some of the things we did to make it even easier.

•  A: Hang both the Nubé tie and the hammock's e-z Slings from the same point, as high up the tree as you can reach
• This way there is enough room to hang both hammocks and the bottom luggage compartment, if you don't hang them both at the highest point, the luggage will be to low to the ground to use or the Pares sleeper will be sitting on top of the luggage...neither of those options is convenient 
• Sometimes this is not possible due to smaller trees or too many limbs and then we worked around the luggage being stored below by clipping the backpack onto the carabiner  at the foot end and then tightened the waist and chest straps tightly on the hammock and all was dry.

• B: Nubé Ridge-line Adjustment:
• The main line that we used to attach the Nubé to the tree was Zing-It Line
• To attach to the tree, the end of the Zing-it Line had a Titanium Dutch hook so that it could easily be hooked back to it's self after being wrapped around the tree. The other end had a dutch fly to allow for tightening easily... then the Nubé was adjusted to center with the Prusik Knots.
• Val made a couple loops that contained Prusik Knots (see link for Animated Knots illustration of how to tie these knots) using more of the Zing-it line. The Prusik knot was made around the long length of line that we used to attach the Nubé to the trees.  The loop of the remaining knot was then attached to the Nubé.
• If you look at the photos of it hanging you will see that we started with this continuous line from tree to tree.. but soon found that loosening one end to move the Nubé to the other could be totally avoided by cutting it in the center.

• C: Nubé guyline adjustment:
• The main guy-line rope was Zing-It line that is very durable and offered in a bright yellow that makes it easy to see at night, decreasing your chances of tripping over it.
• Once again we used the very nice Prusik Knot to allow adjustments of how tight the guy lines were. These adjustments allowed for quick changes in how much ventilation, possible protection we would need during a rain storm, and how low the Nubé was going to sit. Zing-It line is light weight, doesn't absorb water or dirt, doesn't stretch and super strong.
• Initially we attached tubing to the guy-line that would allow for the line to stretch and contract due to humidity and rain, but due to extensive use of the Nubé the tubing began to wear out (we are unsure of how much they helped as we have used them throughout our trip). Moving forward we would probably remove the tubing and create a system similar to the Nubé ridgeline where the extra line would be-able to be stored under the Velcro-tabs. Could reverse the cording so the extra cording could store in the Velcro, and one could adjust the tension from under the Nubé no need to go out in the rain to tighten things down.

• D: Hammock attachment hints (How to sleep in ham-bunks comfortably):
• To hang the hammocks just-so took some trial and error on our parts, but as we had 40+ days to figure it out and we were properly incentivized with quality of sleep hanging in the balance we found the perfect set-up for us (mind you, this hang was perfect for US, it may not be the perfect hang for you).
• Once you have each hung an e-z sling, take one for the  Xplor carabiners and attach it to a loop that appears to be a high enough point that you can then hang the hammock level with the other e-z sling point.
• Now, this is the toughest part (especially when you are exhausted, it may take two of you and in many cases it did for us) STRETCH the Xplor as tight as you can possible get is so that when it hangs it is perfectly flat. HINT: Have a couple extra loops of rope that can act as adjusters to create more options for hanging distances; our loops of Amsteel Blue 7/64 were about 6" in diameter when flattened and can be folded in half to allow for more versatility. Or if you're willing you could put more knots in the easy sling for a tight hang. 

• How to make more room in the Xplor:
• I (Ash) was the one that slept in the Xplor, my backpack was the REI Lookout 40L, which I would place up in my hammock. Once in my hammock and inside my sleeping bag I would place the backpack under my knees, this way my knees were bent up (more comfortable for me) and the Xplor was widened out so that I would have more adjustment room.
• Since coming back, both Val and I have exchanged our normal beds for hammocks, I have placed two pillows and a queen-sized down blanket in exchange for the REI backpack to facilitate the same effect.  I found without this the hammock tends to squeeze the shoulders.
• Another tip would be to sleep opposite of each other so that the Xplor sleeper's head will be at the toes of the Pares sleeper and vice-versa. This helps when handing items back and forth and when the Pares sleeper starts packing things up... she only knocks about my legs and such while stuffing her sleeping bag into a stuff sack. And is very helpful when zipping up the netting for a bug free sleep!

Examples of the adjustments we made and what it actually looks like:

...

Japan Day 1 & 2: Flight & First Glimpse of Tokyo

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Set up our SMr Nube and Hammocks to make sure
that we both knew how they worked and what all
the components were.

The flight over the Pacific was an emotional one. Not bad emotions per say, but they did make the flight a lot longer  then the quoted nine hours. It was like being on a roller coaster. First me were super excited, then anxious - what if Japan didn't live up to our expectations? what if it was horrible? what if...? - then we were tired, it is a nine hour flight after all, then we would get happy - we are really flying to Japan, other people do things like this...not us, right?. Well I think you get the idea, every emotions was coursing through our veins, minus anger.

Man! have flights changed since the first time I flew back in the 1990's as a child....

• Head phones actually look like headphones, not stethoscopes that doctors use to listen to your breathing, minus the metal piece at the end.
• You actually get your own TV that has a bunch of recently released movies, instead of multiple monitors that are attached to the ceiling that play the same movie on all of them. Oh, and the you have right in front of you provides information about the flight, music, games, and shopping too.
• They feed your really good food and unlimited drinks. It also appeared that they gave an allowance of alcohol to those of age.
• There's no longer a pull down shade, you press a little button down below to set what kind of darkness you would like and then before landing it gradually brightens back up to mimic a sun-rise.

We arrived into Narita Airport at a little before 4pm Japan time. We were through customs with no hiccups and on the Narita Express into Tokyo Station. The Express was a little expensive...but we really wanted to get into the city quickly and we were new to the train system.

Or at least that's my excuse, since I was the money manager and the navigator and the translator during the trip - not that I knew very much Japanese, but since I was the one carrying the money and knew where we were going, it was kind of a default . By the time we were into Tokyo station it was a little after 6 and we were headed to Kimi Ryokan in Ikebukuro. After taking a couple moments to get our bearing and figuring out the rail system we were off.

In our Yukatas in our room at Kimi.

Once settled out our Ryokan we were back out on the town to find food. We were hungry. After wandering around for about an hour we went back to the Ryokan and asked for any recommendations for food. They recommended going back to the train station as there are food malls with plenty of options, but after a long flight and being up super early to go through TSA we did not feel like walking all the way back, so we settled for the closest decent looking restaurant.

Our first restaurant in Japan was Chinese... 

That restaurant happened to be a Chinese place named Ma La Gong Fang...alrighty, so we looked at the menu which thankfully was a picture book. And made two selections a celery, peanut stir fry and one that looked like sweet and sour. The server told us "no" and then started talking in Japanese..."uhhh, why not?" was our response. After trying to figure out some English to stick a sentence together that would make some more sense to us, which didn't work out very well, one of the other customers blurted out "chicken heads" to try and help the server and us out a little. "Well alright, we don't really want to eat chicken heads on our first night in Japan" is what was running through our heads.

We then asked for recommendations and ended up with a stir fry rice dish and some other things. Once the third plate arrived we were a little bit more confused by our food and how to eat it as they also provided a bowl of water with it. After tasting it was a sweet potato that had been caramelized in ginger which was still piping hot, so to make it cool enough to eat you had to dunk it into water and then eat, but first you had to pry it off the plate with your chopsticks. It was a decent meal and we even made friends with a couple of the other customers. Our fellow neighbors ordered us a traditional Chinese tea...oh, goodness, it was better then the sweetened chilled tea that you can buy in the US. Sharing the experience with the fellow restaurateurs was nice and even fun. It was a fabulous welcome to the country, even if it was on the basement floor of a Chinese restaurant.

Idaho

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Idaho in the Fall

Getting Around: There is no major public transportation system in Eastern Idaho or any other part of Idaho except maybe Boise and Coeur d'alene, so if you want to get around you have to drive.

In this part of Idaho I would recommend coming during the Summer or Fall. The summer can be quite warm, sitting around high 90's for a week or two, but these are the best times to go to the pools are mountain hikes. During Fall you can see the Aspens turn brilliant colors of orange, yellow, and red, with the green of evergreens poking out every once in a while. You may want to venture to this area during the Winter if you are an avid skier, snowboarder, snow shoe-r, or just some one that loves snow; you can really enjoy cozening up into hot springs, so there is that plus.

Attractions: 
Idaho Falls:

• Greenbelt: In downtown Idaho Falls, the Greenbelt is a city park the makes a loop around a section of the Snake River, there are many monuments that have erected and even some farmer's and craft's market that spring up during the summer months. 
• Downtown: this part of town is the old, historic portion of town, so it is densely populated with local stores and family owned restaurants. One of the best Chinese/Mandarin food is at Happy Chinese, you should eat here if you have the chance.

Outdoor hot pool, Green Canyon

Green Canyon Hot Springs: Is a family run camp ground that also contains an indoor swimming pool, with an outdoor cold pool and hot tub. The pool is heated naturally by a local hot spring. The main building also offers amazing BLT's any time of year as they grow their tomatoes in a green house (becoming one of the larges producers of out-of-season tomatoes in Eastern Idaho). The camp ground is in a gorgeous canyon that has a creek going right by.

Heise Hot Spring's Outdoor pool & Slide

Heise Hot Springs: A little closer to the central city of Idaho Falls, Heise offers water slide, diving board, hot pool, pizza parlor, camping, zip line, and some close by hikes into Kelly Canyon and Tetons National Forest. The pool is open during the winter to allow for people coming down from the ski hill, Kelly Canyon, to soak and relax. During certain times of the year, fall and winter mostly, you can often see moose, bald eagle's, and deer.

Big Jud's: Want to enjoy real American food in Eastern Idaho? Big Jud's the place you want to go, yes, it's a little out in the sticks, but you're in Idaho, what did you expect? Alright, back to FOOD. Their french fries, chicken strips, and any kind of burger is fantastic here, and don't forget the ice cream. They have a contest where if you eat a one pounder by yourself you get a photo on their wall. You can also do a couple other contests to get up on their wall, but man that is a lot of food. Enjoy this local eatery.

People tubing the Portneuf River

Lava Hot Springs: This place has all the water fun you can stand, from tubing down the river, pools, hot springs, and more. The main attraction of this town is the hot springs and tubing, so it may be a little more touristy then the rest of Eastern Idaho, but it's a whole bunch of fun, been there twice for parties. The hotel on the main road (I would list the specific road, but the towns so small there is only one road really) that is pretty cheap for a touristy destination, it comes with a fridge, microwave, and a really big Jacuzzi tub. Having the microwave and fridge allowed us to bring a frozen lasagna, stored it in the fridge to later microwave for dinner.

EBR-1

Idaho National Laboratory (INL)/ EBR-1: EBR-1 was the first nuclear power plant in the world, so they claim (I guess I'm a little skeptical since they say a man born to Rigby, ID was the first to invent the television), this is an interesting piece of history by any means. It did however power an entire city, now name Atomic City (the name's very inventive, isn't it?), now with a population of 29. They have since turned this nuclear reactor into a museum with displays, interactive tasks, and videos about how science was conducted. This museum even has the original knobs and gears for the switch boards and controls.




Arco: Doesn't have all that much going on, but they are close to Crater's of the Moon. An area where astronauts would practice for Moon like conditions before they had fancy anti-gravity chambers. You can see volcanic flows, ash, and cones.

Buffalo, Yellowstone National Park 

Yellowstone National Park:  Best time to go is over Mother's Day, although not advertised they allow you to stay in the Old Faithful Inn for the price of the year (ex. 2015, a night stay is $20.15). If you want a really good price during a time when most of the park is still closed and the animals are roaming around new newborns...go then. They do charge your credit card for the full price until you show up and then they debit back the difference, so make sure you call and confirm that they still do this. There is plenty of do here no matter what time of year, but do remember that in the winter we get a lot of snow, so passes and driving can be tricky and even dangerous at times. There is beautiful camping that is encompassed by tall pines with hot pools (to look at, to hot to do anything else with, maybe you could boil eggs..., just a thought after reading about Japan), day hikes, and nature to breathe in.

Jackson Hole, WY:

• Alpine Slide: Located at Snow King Ski Hill, this summer attractions has always been something I would like to do. Who doesn't want to ride a chairlift to the top of a hill and ride an alpine slide down? 
• This region has two major ski hills that are very popular during the winter months: Jackson Hole and Snow King. They both offer amazing snow, shopping, and a bunch of other attractions. I would probably go to Jackson Hole Ski for the mountain opportunities and Snow King for their amazing tubing.
• Other recreations: Jackson also offers some great pools, indoor water parks, hiking, and a bunch of other events.

Planning hints

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Whenever starting the planning stage of an excursion I go through a few steps. Of course these may not work for everyone, but they have worked for me so far.

1. Set a time period and destination 
• You cannot give justice to Europe in one week, so make them a little more realistic



My beginning part 2 of Asia map. How do you fit all of those
countries into one flowing trail without covering the same area?

• Leave enough wiggle room to allow for change of plans or additions to the travel
2. Go on to Google Maps or any other planning engine and draw up a hypothetical map
• Of course you don't have to stick to it, but it helps me solidify that I'm actually going and this is a potential route that could work to accomplish the basics
3. Start somewhere, pick a point: beginning, end, middle, country
• Start doing research, a few good resources I've found:
• nomadicmatt.com
• lonelyplanet.com
• Eyewitness Travel guide book
• Getting friends advice (oddly enough, mother got a tip from an e-bay customer, so you never know where that next idea will come from)
• Of course there are a whole lot more than this, but I've had the most success beginning with the Eyewitness Travel book (actually read the whole book on Japan, minus the Okinawa section because it wasn't in the budget). 
• Once I wrote down in the margins what would be most interesting I went to the country specific sites: JNTO and Japan-guide website for more information on those towns. Picking out more attractions. 
• After I felt I had enough of the obvious things I just started googling "Japan's hidden secrets", "most missed Japan" and other key words like that trying to get lists or ideas of less touristy attractions. Of course posting more of these online will sadly make them touristy, but hopefully not too much. 
4. Leave flexibility



Part of the word document I created so that we could
have our travel details close at hand and ideas brewing.

• Keep the things you are really excited about, water down the information
• I summarized into one sentence and maybe a picture everything I thought would be interesting
• Planned out how many days each city would take 
• Allowed for some down days: soaking up the sun in a park, chilling at the local cafe, doing as the locals do 
• Still have 9 days that have nothing, so in case someone mentions something that is a "can't miss" then we won't be scrounging for time, won't have to cut anything, and ultimately enjoy the time we have; if we get a hankering to take the ferry to China or Korea, we can :)
• Luckily we don't have anything that requires us to nail down dates, so we can spend as much or little time as we see fit. 

Hope these tips can help a little in the planning stages. If you have any additional comments or things you feel I may have left out, I would love to hear them.

Test Run: Grand Canyon

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The Grand Canyon trip was first created as my next excursion out into the world. I have always had the travel bug, as I grow older it appears that I now get to pursue that urge.

During the beginning of my mothers last visit to Washington, we decided that it had been a little too long since the last time we had really traveled anywhere. Yes, we want on little vacations to Vancouver and Victoria, but they never actually satisfied those exploration urges. We wanted big, whopping, ocean hopping explorations, and I was only in college once. THIS is the only time that I won't have to work around work vacations. I could take up to three months off and not worry about losing a job or any other commitments. She agreed that this was quit logical. Mother finally caved in and agreed to help me raise enough money to travel to Japan.

Mother's x-mas present to help
with last minute items for our packs
and also to try out some Japanese food.

It had been a while, since we had seen my grandparents. While we were in the state we may as well go see the long told of Havasupai Reservation. As we neared the end of her two week stay with me in the summer of 2013, I started telling her that the time to travel was now.

Since we have never been minimalist travelers or travelers outside the US, we were going to have to complete some research and do a test run. The Grand Canyon trip seemed to be the perfect goal for having our gear together and test everything out. First off we would be in the same state, we could both give feed back on how things worked, improve them if necessary, or decide to chuck them all together. Second, we could organize who should carry what, who should collect what (food, medical, cleaning, etc). Third, it was already planned, mostly paid for, and would be a bunch of fun!

We are now 14 days away from our plane and drive to the rim. Last minute preparations are in order: getting a lite weight can opener (wouldn't have thought of it, until we had to start planning on what to hike down to our camp ground for 2 nights and 3 days), making sure tents, sleeping bags, clothes, hygiene, and everything else was in order.

LUSH's Godiva 2-in-1 Shampoo
and Conditioner

Just came across a article that mentioned LUSH had solid shampoo and conditioner, for pretty cheap too. That way those two items don't cut into the amount of liquids you can carry onto planes; very necessary when you want to travel lite, but clean. We are now replacing those two go-Toobs with olive oil and dish soap.

Clipped toe nails and finger nails (yeah, it's gross to mention) but when your planning on walking down hill for most of a day, you really don't want your toes jamming into the tip of your boots causing serious pain (mother actually had this happen the last time she hiked down as a child, lost quit a few of those nails). Gross, but necessary preparation.

The only things that we have left to really do before heading off on our first documented gallivant is to pack and head for the airports. Waiting is the problem, two more weeks of school before break and I believe they are going to be torture. If I had anything other than planning money (we are selling things on e-bay to raise funds for these trips) and school it might be a little different. I guess I will just muddle my way through to the light at the end of the tunnel.