3 Weeks from today I will be starting my new job. How exciting! I managed to accumulate the last of the items I needed, plus a few other items. I bought a Kodak EasyShare camera with 8.1 mp and a 5x zoom. It's even better then the one I liked from a few week ago. I will still bring along my Canon 35mm camera but I will use that sparingly since film and developing can be rather spendy. I'll save that for those incredible shots. And I even managed to score a digital video camera off the clearance rack. I also got binoculars with enough money extra to buy a spotting scope. I found those hiking poles I needed, they even have a built-in light and compass.
In the past few weeks it also occurred to me that I should have one more item on my What I Need list: bear spray. On my latest trip to Fargo I stopped in at an sporting goods store and purchased 1 can of bear spray ($45) which kind of reminds me of a small fire extinguisher. I think it is a wise purchase because without it a charging grizzly bear will leave me 5 seconds to have my entire life to flash before my eyes with plenty of time left for me to contemplate how stupid it is to hike without bear spray.
