You know you're a backpacker when...

“when you tell your friend you have no money to send him for the shore house, yet you order more gear from Campmor.”

“Thats a good one.....:)”

“Out of morbid curiousity you pick up a copy of backpacker magazine to see if you're 'doing it' right.

:P”

“A backpacking catalog arrives at work in the mail, and nothing gets done all morning until you've read it 3 times and highlighted new gizmos which you’re sure you don’t have.”

“You sort the mail, throw away the ads and the J.C. Penny catalog because you already have enough sheets and towels, but keep the SierraOutpost catalog just in case you might need some new boots.”

“Water weighs 8.3 pounds per gallon.”

“You eat your cereal at home with powdered milk.”

“when you have a tough time eating instant oatmeal at home.”

“and a puncho”

“Once wetted by rain in a non-hiking environment, your first impulse is to reach for a comforting handful of gorp.”

“Your son comes home on leave and all his stuff is packed up in boxes and your camping gear is spread all over 'his' room.”

“You've ever been stuck inside on a nasty day and watched golf just for the scenery.









I mean, what else is there to watch?”

“You practice squatting over the bowl with your feet on the rim to prepare yourself for the next trip.”

“You consider a hot shower to be a quasi-religious activity.”

“MadRiver, you're ready for China if you can do that. I've always said any experienced backpacker has many of the skills and much of the basic equipment for survival in the People's Republic beyond the tourist enclaves.”

“I used to have a great picture of the sign inside the bathroom stall of the Naval Hospital, Subic Bay, P.I. It was in Tagalog and English

"Please do not stand on the toilet seat." I've got to dig that out.”

“That's so cool. I totally remember that sign. I was stationed at AIMD NAS Cubi Point from Feb. 91 to Sep 92. I've got lots of pictures, but none of that sign. Most of my pictures are of the eruption(s) and the aftermath.”

“Hey Pathman, I remember that sign!
"That's so cool. I totally remember that sign. I was stationed at AIMD NAS Cubi Point from Feb. 91 to Sep 92. I've got lots of pictures, but none of that sign. Most of my pictures are of the eruption(s) and the aftermath."
WhiskeyLake
05:36:36 PM
02/06/02


I hope I can find it. I was at Jungle General on TAD Jan-Mar 1990. I got there 8 days after the big Coup attempt. Things were shut down tight. I was gone before the eruptions. A friend of mine was there though.

Have you been to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola? The moved the entire contents of the Cubi Point O'Club bar intact and opened it as a cafe. It felt really spooky.”

“You show off you backpacking gear room to all your friends...”

“You continuously log onto thebackpacker.com for backpacking ideas!”

“you stare at the snow covered mountains in the distance,on your way to work and hurt inside!”

“Your internet home page is THEBACKPACKER.COM.

You think you have something in common with MATT!

You call some of your friends funny names like

Jerbear
Cow Patty
Pemsit
................
and think nothing of it!”

“What? The gaze or the credit cards?”

“Shoot. The #1 defining factor is that you hang out with freaks on TT on the off chance you might get to go backpacking

:P”

“off chance? YOU GO! (and with strangers!)”

“...you are willing to drive across 2 states to meet up with a group of strangers you met on the internet just to get a chance to go hiking.”

“The walls of your cubicle at work are totally obscured with hiking pictures, articles about hiking, maps of your next trip, etc.”

“You wish it were so. TT is the next best thing, but you can't listen and work at the same time.”

“Pekka, you are correct oh knowledgeable one. When my wife and I visited Southeast Asia several years ago(Burma, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Thailand) other than the hotel bathrooms, all other bathroom were merely footholds around an open pit. My wife had an easier time than I did.”

“when you tell your coworkers that you are going backpacking with strangers from the internet and they say "your nutz, they might be axe murderers" and you say "thank you, you have a nice weekend too".

By the way what is the penalty for murdering an axe...is it a felony even though it is an inanimate object...does the axe mind being killed? hmmmmmmmmmmm...deep thoughts...I need to seek the oracle to ask for wisdom, but my wisdom teeth are gone and I've never been quite the same since...what?...who said that??!!?!?! Stop speaking in my head, that isn;t very polite you know. agggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh gurgle gurgle”

“LOL @ Stikmon”

“MadRiver,

Our experience when trading 3rd World travel stories with other wanderers (such as our friends who spent a year in Ghana and surrounding parts of West Africa) is that it takes only moments to segue from almost any topic to that of bathroom practices/encounters -- where it will then stay for hours if you let it.”

“you call up your best friend who live across the country and the first thing out of your mouth is "So I went to REI today..."”

“You start to get very excited about Friday becuase you know that Sat you will be backpacking....:)”

“You hang around creeps.”

“Duly noted.”

“...you no longer contribute to TT.”

“your roommate won't talk to you because he's sick of hearing about it”

“LOL! thats sooooooooooo true!”

“they just roll there eyes and try to iggnore it....”

“Someone talks about a Trek you've done and you get goosebumps.”

“you put on your polypro long johns when you are not feeling too good just to cheer yourself up”

“the smell of your old leather boots gets you all giddy and excited”

“i really like this thread. keep em comin”

“When coworkers mistake the map of Yosemite on your office wall for Afganistan...

...then they read it and say yo-see-might? Where's that?”

“Ha Ha! Coop do you know MY coworkers?”

“When you look forward to power outages, so you can finally prove that all the money you've spent on equipment is really for the sake of your family.”

“Do you suppose some of those Y2K nuts have taken up backpacking to try to justify all the survivalist gear they bought?”

“When you buy a book titled 101 Best Hikes in Washington, so that you know where not to go.”

“when you use sleves and bandannas instead of napkins or tissues for wiping face or blowing nose”