When can you put chocolate chunks in your oatmeal?

Day 28 Day 28-DSC_2871-smallHours traveled: 9
Miles traveled: 14
Total miles traveled: 334.9
Miles to pole: 242
Elevation: 6088 ft.

Translation from voicemail: All right, Team 3belowzero guest host Marty here and it is Day 28. Chris and I have been doing this for four weeks now. So in honor of that I’m gonna walk you through what the day looks like for us and I want to try to do it quickly and get through the whole day

0600, which is 6 a.m., we wake up, person in charge of cooking, Chris today, is supposed to get up right away and pop out of bed and start cooking. Today both of us overslept by like nine minutes, but we still got it going. The person in charge of cooking gets up, starts getting some hot water going and we have hot chocolate with some coffee in it, oatmeal, which we put a couple of chunks of Theo chocolate and a hunk of butter in it. We eat that.

While one person is cooking the other person is packing up their stuff. We’re trying to be quick and efficient. We also try to get our, you know, business done during that time. This morning it was eighteen Fahrenheit in our tent and about zero outside, so it was a little bit chilly.

So I go out, as soon as I get done eating I throw my stuff, throw my stuff out the door. I start packing the sled and I start digging out the tent. Chris finishes up, and she gets packed up, and gets her stuff out and throws it in the sled, and together we both get the tent down. After that we get our skis on, our compass holder on, our sledding harness on and we try to be on the move by 07:45, earlier if we could. We have a, we did 07:30 once.

The lead person takes off, navigates for about an hour, and then we switch. We don’t get to talk much. We’re just single file all day long. On today we had a mix of soft snow, winds, up hill, bumpy. And for the last two hours we couldn’t hardly see anything. We had such low contrast. And right now it’s really cold in our tent. Okay, we went for nine hours today and as soon as we get to camp we have to do sort of all of that in reverse.

Chris is still in charge of cooking because that’s her day today and right now she’s melting lots of snow into water of course. She just made some ramen noodles. And now we’re gonna have macaroni and cheese, very shortly and every two days we gave our son Keenan a call. We’re gonna do that. Today, since it was low contrast, we couldn’t tell how flat our tent site was and it is not flat. Both our beds are leaning sideways. That’s how we have to sleep for tonight. So, okay, we’ve done that twenty eight days in a row. So I hope I wrapped that up quick enough because I am about out of time. Thank you to the Karrs for taking care of Keenan this week. See yah!

Showing 12 comments
  • Jerry Chambliss
    Reply

    I cannot imaging pulling a 200 pound sled across that terrain the equivalent distance of Little Rock, Arkansas to Galveston, Texas. You two must possess the strength of ten; mentaly and physicaly.

  • James Falk
    Reply

    We are friends of Jim and Helen K from the E J Brachl days.
    I have enjoyed following your trek . Safe journey
    Jim and Annette Falk

    • Chris Fagan
      Reply

      Jim and Annette – Thank you for letting us know you are following us!

    • Chris Fagan
      Reply

      Thank you, James & Annette!

  • Brigitte Schanz-Hering
    Reply

    Hi, the two of you,
    it is amazing what you are doing. We’d often been talking about you and your project.
    All the best wishes for the coming year
    Brigitte and Wolfgang
    (the German couple, children song writer, you met in the glasshouse of hotel Ilaya in Punta Arenas while waiting for your flight)

    • Chris Fagan
      Reply

      Brigitte & Wolfgang – Thank you so much for reaching out to us. It was great to meet you and we hope you are doing well too. Happy New Year!

  • Lou Wintermyer
    Reply

    As a long time Snoqualmie Valley family – Congrats 2 You both ~ and to your Son Keenan too! – this takes dedication and support beyond his yers, for you to be sucessful. my daughter who teaches middle school here in the valley is also showing her students that your goals CAN be achieved, if you strive and are dedicated. I admire your sharing this life journey with us – thank you

    • Chris Fagan
      Reply

      Lou – Thank you for your comments. We love to hear that your daughter is sharing this with her students! Our hope is to inspire others, especially kids, exactly as you stated. Well put!

  • Suzy Berger
    Reply

    A big hello to you both! Marty, thanks for the fantastic recap of your daily activities. I cannot believe it has been 28 days! We saw Keenan at the movie theater in NB last week and he looks great. A very Happy New Year to you both and the girls and I continue to keep you in our prayers.

    • Chris Fagan
      Reply

      Great that you got to see Keenan! He was excited to see the new Hobbit movie. Happy New Year to you too! Thanks for following us!

  • Jerry Chambliss
    Reply

    I wish the two of you the best. I realize now that the adventure you two are on is a family affair.
    Fairwell.

    • Chris Fagan
      Reply

      Yes, this is definitely a team effort. One of the hardest parts about this expedition is being away from our son, Keenan. We miss him, but we know he is well taken care of between all the family and friends we have at home. Thanks for your well-wishes.

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