And so it begins...almost.

Four days left until departure from Saskatoon to Calgary, then Los Angeles for a few days, then finally off to Sydney, Australia. YXE to YYC to LAX to SYD. Although I have about 107 hours until I zip up into the chilly Saskatoon September sky, I feel like I'm ready to go right meow. I laid out everything that I'm taking then crammed it all into my backpack only to realize that it doesn't take much to fill a backpack. It will be interesting to see how well I can manage with only a backpack worth of stuff for a year. Time will tell. Here's a picture of what I started with:



From this seemingly wonderful selection of inventory, I had to drop one pair of swim trunks, a 2nd towel (smaller sized one), one pair of pants (beige), couple pairs of socks/underwear, water bottle, sweater, 2 hats.

This left a pretty slim list of things to last 365, but i suppose that's part of the fun of it.

So here's what made the cut:
-1 hat
-5 t-shirts
-1 zip-up track jacket
-1 pair of Adidas Vespa shoes
-1 pair Teva sandals
-1 pair waterproof flip-flops
-1 bandana
-3 pairs of sunglasses
-2 rope-cinch athletic day bags
-1 3.5 x 5 ft. quick drying towel
-1 pair swim trunks
-1 pair cargo shorts
-1 pair casual shorts
-1 pair of dark jeans
-1 pair of black khakis
-1 Patagonia rain jacket
-1 casual belt-1 formal belt (brown/black reversible)
-1 black collared dress shirt
-1 red silk tie
-1 silk bed liner
-5 pairs socks/underwear
-netbook
-iPod
-camera
-waterproof digital watch
-combination lock
-zipper locks
-mini business cards
-misc first aid items
-misc toiletries

Welcome to everything I will use for a whole year. Giddy-up.