An Adventure in and of Itself

I'm fidgety. I've gotten or have ordered everything I need for my trip and I still have about two months to go. So I have nothing to do except my normal day hikes to get in shape. The only thing I'm waiting for is food. I ordered a few things from packit gourmet (bangers and mash and pasta putanesca) and I'm waiting to get them so I can repackage and stuff stuff into the Bare Boxer. After that, I'm loading up the pack and hitting the trails around home to get used to the weight. While, I'm waiting I've been messing around with my maps. I took a tip from Rylan and Golden over at Southeastern Backpackers (who got it in an email from someone) and took my maps to CopyMax to get the sections I needed copied; so I don't have to carry the whole map. A note of caution: Your CopyMax people may be different but mine wouldn't copy copyrighted material. Instead, they turned me loose on a copier to figure it out myself. At one point I found myself making 875 copies.... After the CopyFiasco I headed home and grabbed the MapSeal. For those who don't know, MapSeal is a magical elixir that will make your maps waterproof and tear resistant. It also stings if you get it in your eyes. I have one of the Trails Illustrated maps and after I applied the MapSeal my copier paper map felt similar. It added a little weight to the paper and feels as if a wax coating was applied; like a grocery store apple feels. It also made the paper transparent in spots where I applied too much and slightly smeared the ink. I'm not displeased with the MapSeal, but only taking a portion of my map means I have to leave UTM grids, and other good info that is printed on the map, at home. So, I just decided to take the whole map and MapSeal it. It works better. The paper is a heavy enough weight that it didn't become transparent and the ink stayed stable. I bought the smaller bottle that comes with the small round applicator brush from REI so I just used an old paintbrush for the initial application. After brushing on the MapSeal I removed the excess with a sponge and let it dry. I also picked up something I absolutely don't need (but it looks cool) so my map will be safe and secure; and dry. I'm much happier now that my map is ready. But I'm still fidgety.