Packin' for da Catskills, bi-atch!

Yeah you read it right. I'm packing for a trip to the Catskill Mountains of New York (bi-atches). Not only did I come home from work today to a beautiful boquet of flowers and a surprise dinner (which Kyle is about to start cooking now), but I also came home to that precious cardboard box marked "Cabelas" - which bestowed upon me

my new backpack I ordered last weekend.

Kyle helped me pack it all up with the essentials - sleeping bag, mess kit, extra socks and clothing, emergency kit, toilet paper (yeah, i don't want to think about having to use the bathroom in the woods but apparantly I'm gonna have to) and more. Of course he is carrying our tent and most of the other heavy stuff, but I think my pack will still weigh in at about 35 pounds or so.

So while I'm enjoying filet mingon, bacon-wrapped scallops and baked potatoes for dinner tonight, courtesy of my chef husband, I'm also getting super excited about our hiking trip tomorrow. In celebration of our one-year wedding anniversary, which is this Sunday the 19th, I'll be going on my very first overnight backpacking trip. (But it will be one of many for Kyle, who obviously has been into this kind of thing longer than I have.)

But what about the bears, Tracy? one might ask. I have to say, no worries, we went to Dick's (that's what she said) and bought a bear horn/air horn especially for those rare encounters we may have with mother nature's finest.