Gear

Should have a shipment from Amazon, hopefully arriving today, which will complete the penultimate gathering of gear for my hike.  The only thing(s) left to pick up following the arrival of this package is another permethrin bottle, a fuel canister, and my food.  We're about done.  How did we do?

• I got a free pack.  A friend of mine was having a garage sale, and had stumbled across one that he called me and asked me if I wanted before he sold it.  It's not the perfect pack, and probably not what I'd have bought if I were to buy one.  It's a big bigger and heavier both than I'd prefer.  But it'll do, and it's free.  And I'll mostly only use it when I have someone with me who's using the other pack, which I like better.  I can't even remember what brand it is so I can look it up and try and figure out its capacity, but it looks like probably some local off-brand pack, and it looks bigger than my 50L.  I'm guessing it's probably about a 65L or so.
• I have another sleeping bag.  It's bigger and heavier than the one I already was using, but then again, I wasn't very warm last year either.  Since my wife is very worried about my very skinny 13 year old son being cold at night, I'm willing to put up with an extra pound or two to carry a sleeping bag that makes her more comfortable... even if it doesn't do much for me.  And may or may not do much for him; don't know yet.  He actually doesn't appear to sleep very cold, honestly, in spite of his very wiry frame.  He does get cold when swimming easily, though, so who knows.
• I wasn't going to do anything with any kind of stove or cooking and go with cold, no-prep food.  However, since I'm hoping to piggy-back off of this trip to get my son the Backpacking and Hiking merit badges, I had to look up the requirements for both, and... you guess it, you have to actually do the following, so I bought one: 
• Explain the advantages and disadvantages of different types of backpacking stoves using at least three different types of fuel.  
• Demonstrate that you know how to operate a backpacking stove safely and to handle liquid fuel safely.  
• Prepare at least three meals using a stove and fuel you can carry in a backpack.
• Once everything is fully packed and ready to go, I'll post a picture of my gear, like I did last year.  I'll probably weigh in again too, although I expect bad news in this regard; I'm bringing a few more things and bringing a few heavier things.  The only saving grace is that I'll be able to share some of the load; we only have one tent between us, for example, and only one stove.