For years I have told people I was packaging challenged, I can’t see how things are supposed to fit together, or come apart.  So as part of my athletic challenge, I picked up a hydration pack – not a Camelbak, because they aren’t four-wheel drive friendly, but a local brand carried by Academy Sports.  It took me twenty minutes to snip all the little zip ties they had holding it together, then I filled it with water.  No problem, I got this.

I decided it was too warm for a sweatshirt, so I took that off, put my hydration pack on, then realized I didn’t have any pockets for my phone.  So I took the hydration pack off, put my phone in the zippered pocket and put it back on.  By this time, I was tangled in my head phones and I’d forgotten to turn on my MapmyWalk app.

So I did it all again, took it off, put it on, with more success this time in getting my headphones on without being tangled.  I started my walk.  The first obstacle is a set of buried tires, on it I found a screw driver that looked suspiciously like ours, so I picked it up.  As I’m walking I realize that I’m just enough of a klutz that I probably shouldn’t walk with sharp objects in my hand, time to take the pack off one more time and stash the screw driver.

Back together now, I am trucking pretty well, at mm1, I figure it’s time for a drink from the cool purple hydration pack.  I pick up the little tube, unlock it and suck.  Nothing.  It doesn’t matter how hard I suck, I’ve got no water coming through.  I give up and move on.  Another 20 minutes and I’m starting to get thirsty, I try the tube again, still nothing.  I unload the hydration pack from my back and open the valve that I put the water in through and drink from there.

I manage to finish my walk, just over 3 miles according to MapMyWalk and get back to the trailer, I grab a bottle of water and take my shower.  When Rich gets back I admit to him I can’t figure out my hydration pack.  He takes it from me, unlocks the end and sucks on it.  Water comes out.  “How’d you do that?”  He does it again.  Turns out the end plastic needed to be bitten before you suck on it.  I couldn’t figure that out on my own.  Tomorrow when I walk the course again, hopefully I can manage not to look like a complete dork wrapped in my headphones and sucking on a tube with nothing in it.  Thankfully, there are no cameras here.