Weight: 2 g.
Mods: None, but need to figure out how to attach them to my pack
Alternatives: Sadness from not having a mascot
After Turkey Run, we spend an evening with good friends up in West Lafayette, Indiana, where I'd lived for a number of years during grad school. That visit doesn't have much to do with my hiking trip except that I knew I would be able to get myself an ultralight mascot there.
Von's Shops is a book/record/fashion/jewelry/card/bugs trapped in resin/geode shop at the edge of Purdue's campus. They have more beads than I ever thought possible, including many animal ones. For my 2006 trip, I carried a turtle bead from Von's with me across the entire country as a reminder that even though I was slow, I was getting somewhere. Actually, I had two turtles, intending to release one on the east coast and one on the west, but I forgot to release the east coast one and ended up giving it to someone else as a mascot in Damascus, VA.
I know it's silly, but I like having some sort of mascot. Here are the contenders for this year:
The koala is so goofy looking that I think it will have to come along. Perhaps the squirrel can be a talisman protecting my food bag from little critters, and if both the koala and squirrel come along, I can't very well leave the platypus home alone. In total, they weigh barely two grams, and if they make me smile a few times during tough days, they will have proven their weight. None of them have names yet, though...
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