Got leftovers? We did, and we had some big plans for them. We decided to go backpacking after Thanksgiving to burn off the feast and just to ditch the Black Friday madness and get some much-needed time to ourselves. Just the week prior, we were hiking in the Big Santa Anita Canyon (Chantry Flat) area and came upon the Spruce Grove Campground. It was so perfect-looking, with a leafy orange carpet and a canopy of evergreen spruce branches, a creek running to the left and hiking trail to the right. Apparently, you don't need a permit to camp here at all. Since we had everything that we needed for backpacking already (thanks to Wes's research and deal-hunting skills), we immediately planned to head over here ASAP. It was very exciting for us because not only was this going to be our first extended backpacking trip, but also a good opportunity to enter in this Outdoor Research contest that I found out about...
For the contest, all you had to do was take a picture of your leftovers in an outdoorsy situation and post it on Instagram with the hashtags: #leftovers, and #optoutside. They pick twenty winners to receive a free Outdoor Research active hoodie. I really didn't need another hoodie, but the contest sounded easy enough - we always take photos of our food during our hikes anyway, so I made Wes get on board with this (it took a little convincing). Yeah, I felt like a bit of a sellout entering a contest, but why not give it a try if it's something that is up my alley already? So the night before, we had vacuum sealed and frozen our Thanksgiving leftovers and even some pumpkin pie (which didn't collapse because it was already frozen). Wes stuck a water bottle into the freezer to use as a small ice pack, which was smart because it also served as yet another water resource after it melted.
The best part of this trip into the Big Santa Anita Canyon was stumbling upon a group of people who not only shared their leftovers with us, but also their perspectives on our many common interests. Quickly after we all sat down together and introduced ourselves, there was much name-calling, finger-pointing, and table-slapping good humor. We talked about lots of things, but they told us so much about their adventures as experienced backpackers who have been doing it long "before it was cool," and it was great to have some stories from our own encounters around the world to share too. It was great to meet likeminded people who are from the generation before our own - truly serendipitous and not taken for granted.