Today was provisioning day (well, provisioning day #1 since it continues tomorrow too). Completed today were my trips to Fred Meyer and Costco. Tomorrow I hit Trader Joes for all our true favorites. We are expecting food up on Vancouver Island to carry a hefty price tag since it’s 1. an island and 2. the exchange rate is pretty poor right now for us Americans. While I know that we’ll be gathering fresh bits here and there I am trying to fit as much as I can on the boat now since it’s so much cheaper to buy it down here.
I’m not a meal planning type of person, and my strategy is simply to stock up on the things we use normally that are easily stored onboard: diced tomatoes, onions, beans, ground turkey, tofu, oatmeal, soy milk, cornmeal, Cholula hot sauce, white and wheat flour, white and brown sugar, rice, dried fruit, nuts, pasta sauces, ramen noodles, coffee, Good Earth tea, and of course, Annie’s Mac & Cheese. And on and on.
Earlier today, I was on hour three, or maybe four, and pushing a 500 lb. cart past the pasta sauces in Costco when fatigue really started to set in. I thought: I don’t think I’m going to make it to the checkout counter. But then I remembered what I was doing: I wasn’t just grocery shopping. I was provisioning. As in, we are leaving with this food (unlikely put away yet) in two days on the trip we’ve been dreaming about for years and years. The cart felt a lot lighter after that illumination.
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