Articles

What does the gear look like for an adventure like this? Brienne shows you her gear bin. The family goes shopping for the last major purchases, weighs and packs gear and builds the final pre-hike gear list. We say goodbye to our hair and introduce our trail names. Our beloved cat goes to visit a friend's farm for six months.

In less than two weeks, we hit the trail. Since here at Toe Salad we have the tendency to talk about shoes, you would think that this aspect of our gear planning was the first to get checked off the list. Au contraire, at the eleventh hour, we are still putting the finishing touches on our footwear plan.

Who is the Tougas family? In this episode we introduce ourselves. And as you'll see, we're an ordinary family getting ready for an extraordinary adventure. Everyone wants to know - what do the kids think? They answer that question and a few more, and even discuss trail make-up options. We are counting down the days till our departure. Don't let the list of the things we have left to do make your head spin. Day by day, we are a family team working our way to the trail.

It’s no secret: generally speaking, adults have lost the ability to play. To enjoy romping in puddles... mud oozing up over our shoes, hot lava games... narrowly escaping the singing of our barefoot toes, tag, time travel to distant lands, and stretching our imaginations while giving our bodies a healthy boost of exercise. As we emerge into adulthood, play becomes a thing of the past and exercise becomes a work-out that we check off our to-do list. We trade play in for work. We trade fun in for the latest yoga DVD or a possibly boring treadmill run.

In this launch episode we welcome you to the project and talk a bit about our Kickstarter campaign which made this project possible. Right now, preparation is the name of the game and we show you our bin system for sorting and tracking five sets of gear. The kids share a clothing montage in which you'll see, in an engaging way, the clothing we are packing and anticipate wearing. This is a creative family project, all the way, and is "real life" learning for our kids. Video, audio, photography, artwork, computer work, artwork, and research - we all participate, according to our strengths and interests. Want to see our training regime? It's too much fun to be called training. Finally, we end with a thank you for the support of our Kickstarter backers who made this possible.