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By Charles Lawson
You can walk 3 or four miles from the supermarket with 100 lbs of food and not be tired, by dividing up the load. (Automobiles seem overvalued. They cause debt, they break up families and communities, they reduce exercise, they pollute, and make noise. Because engines make noise and this raises blood pressure even for hours afterwards even if you're asleep, it's estimated that they cause 200,000 deaths a year, the stress they may cause to the emotional health of the world may be much higher due to the unnaturalness of noise, ask a neighbor. Though some people are naturally more at ease with noise most people aren't.) To divide up the load makes it so you get a good workout once a week but you don't want it to be too strenuous. Research shows that even though it seems doubtful that exercise can harm the healthy, other studies prove that wrong exercise is harmful. Luckily if you want to save on cabs and the store is just a mile or so, it turns out there are methods of carrying even 80 or 90 pounds of food this distance with just mild discomfort, good for fitness if in moderation. (Of course your level of fitness may be different than mine, but I'm certainly no athelete. Even so ask your doctor or health care provider before you try any change in your diet or exercise plan. This is not medical advice.) The trick to carrying 90 pounds for a mile even if uphill half the time in the mode and medium is to divide up the load. This is the way to at least 1 good workout a week so your health won't deteriorate after the usual 4 weeks of no activity they say may cause this. In the first part of my evolution of this method the store near where I lived closed so I first opted in for walking about a mile to the store and back rather than paying for the expensive cabs. The problem was it seemed that carrying a weeks worth of food was a real strain. Eventually I decided to opt in for a more moderate plan of walking to the store and then calling a cab at the store and using the cab for a lift of the food on the return trip. This cost 150 a year even so and it wasn't good exercise. And it was as if I were to endorse the problems automobiles are causing civilization. It's not so great to pay 6000 in 20 years when it's good to be fit if there is a way. If I was unfit at the end of the 20 years the cost may be another 20,000 for doctor fees. Later on I found that instead of carrying the food or other boxes under my arms it was much easier to carry them in a backpack on my shoulders. To see that this is so, think of carrying 40 pounds of food in a box at arms length in front of you for a mile, then think of carrying it under your arms, much easier. So too carrying it on your shoulders is much easier yet, you're balanced even more vertically with a strong column all the way from tip to top. So in this third phase of my evolution of this idea, I bought backpacks and put plastic trashcans inside them of the right fit so they're easy to load and hold their shape. I even thought of buying a backpack that folds out to a bench when upside down, why not one that folds out to a starry night and the great outdoors, can't afford it! An airfilled cushion from the box is not a RV! This was better but the most I could carry was perhaps 50 or 60 pounds, not enough for a weeks chow. Finally in the fourth phase I bought a hand truck with sturdy wheels and a frame from Kmart for 15 dollars on sale and then bought a Samsonite type box of about 30 by 20 by 10 inches and bungeed the box to the hand truck (the wheels of the box wore out in a few weeks because of rocks jamming it and then a skid, the hand truck has wheels that don't jam). With this I could indeed carry more, the same maximum load of the backpacks with no problem. Even so this was often not enough food to last a week and at a higher maximum load than this yet it was a real strain on my arms and hand. I tried wearing gloves and this was of some worth. Finally in this fifth phase after 20 or so years of web box evolution I tried bringing along both the hand truck and the backpacks too. This is the solution, it makes it so I can carry a comfortable weeks dish with only moderate discomfort. The same load in the box would be much more a strain so I could only carry a third less without discomfort because even if at lower weight it was more comfortable, at the higher weights I'd sometimes buy at the store it was putting all the weight on my arms and wrists. The hybrid plan of the box to lift about 2/3 of the load and the rest on my shoulders in the backpack makes it finally viable to carry a comfortable weeks food a mile even if uphill on part two of the trek. As in the third phase of the evolution with the backpacks I realized it wasn't impossible to improve the weight I could lift at low cost if I found a way to. To carry smaller loads like a plastic bag from Wal Mart at first I would carry them under one arm, this was tiring. I saw this business for a loop that loops down into the bag and has a handle you hold to hold it well. Never got around to trying this because I then realized it was easier to just loop the loops over my wrist and then reach around the outside of the bag and grip around it with my hand, it's easy and comfortable to hold and won't fall off. Alternate this with loop over the wrist and hand in pockets forming a continuous band with your arm so the bag is held, this works quite well for small loads, say a five to ten pound load, and at no cost, and with much higher comfort if you have to carry a WalMart share, try it sometime! To climb a hill if carrying a load, rest as often as needed, slow down, walk with your feet splayed, trade one hand for the other with the same load as often as needed to be comfortable, and flex the opposite muscles that you grip with to cleanse your joints and circulation while you rest. Flex your gripping muscles too to cleanse while you grip, this is more cleansing than just a continuous unchanging grip. In exercise they say "Do unto the left as you do unto the right" and "Do a unto back as you do unto the front" because for each flexor there is an extensor. It's best for circulation and to build up your muscles without harm to flex the opposite grip, in as well as out. This will make you feel better and your journey will stretch you to more roads to travel.
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WEATHER CONTROL
If you're in the heat, always wear light clothes and bring a spray bottle of water, it's super AHHH! Even on the hottest days, and can be used for emergency drinking water. For winter you can buy super wicking underwear. Wikers work the best I've found by far like a giant super toasty sock. And even better because of new chemicals science, the Wikers not only absorb lots of moisture, and take a major bite out of the cold winter legs, they don't overheeat when you go in the store! I got mine from Sierra Trading Post, rich cheap about 25 they last 10,000 glacial ages, other types I tried didn't work. ..
