Resupply

My last dinner has been cooked, dehydrated, and bagged in quart size ziplock heavy duty freezer bags.  Mac n Cheese, yummy.  I've never dehydrated food before so this has been quite a project to start out with - 5 months worth of dinners!  If you don't dehydrate the food long enough it will spoil.  If you dehydrate it too long it will lose taste and nutrional value.  But how to tell when its perfect?  Well, I'll take a loss of taste over rotten, however my first taste test of some lasagne was pretty darn good. 
There are 3 basic strategies for resupplying on the trail.  1. Buy all of your food on trail and ship ahead to those places where you can't get enough food; 2.  Resupply entirely from packages sent from home; or 3. A combination of both.  There are pros and cons for each of those and most people do strategy #3, a combination.  I am resupplying almost entirely from home.  I chose to do this because I have time to do it now since I'm not working, I think I'll eat better with home cooked meals, but primarily because I wanted to be able to relax when I got into town.  After hiking 20 +/- miles, I didn't think I'd want to run around town shopping.  I like the idea of just going to the post office, getting my package, and then finding a place to rest my feet and unwind.  Plus, I like to open packages!  It helps that my awesome cousin Darlene is able to be my at home Trail Angel.
Now that the cooking and dehydrating is done, I have shopping to do.  I want to get a variety of snacks, granola bars, tuna etc...  I read that Chia seeds are really good for energy as is a corn dish called Pinole.  So I think I'm going to check that out at the local health food store.  I won't foget chocolate chip cookies either!