From March 29th
EMS is moving to a larger store, outta the mall! So they were have a glorious sale: I snagged: a long sleeve shirt, a vest, a belt, new straps for the poles, and a down jacket. For Jon I bought: a poofy jacket (not down), a vest and pole straps. All came to under $200, and I put it on my REI card (which the cashier joked about, I love EMS employees)
The down jacket...that gave me a crisis of conscience. I am a vegetarian (was vegan for a brief bit) and I did feel guilty for buying down. So I though about it, soul-searched about why was a veg? I concluded it is more health and environmental reasons rather than "save the critters," and if I can use 1 down jacket for many years as opposed to having to buy a few synthetics in the same amount of time, that is far better over all (the same with leather boots...the synthetics do not last as long, and alas, my boots need replacing very soon)
So, yeah, I may pissed off some vegans, I may be a huge hypocrite, but I do want to become a more serious hiker, and hit more mountains. Mountains are cold, and down is warm. I will have this jacket for many years to come, I will still buy leather hiking boots (non-leather for non-hiking) and I will still buy wool. Sorry, vegans. It's easy to be vegan in the City, but for a hiker, it is not. Hell, I may even lose the vegetarian diet if I ever do a long term hike (such as the AT).
Looking at it this way, one of my dreams is to trek to Everest Base Camp. There is no way I can maintain a veggie diet and do so (no matter what group I go with, I cannot ask then to go out of their way to cater to me....we wouldn't be in a place where tofu flows like water.)
But there are no plans for a long term hike in the future, so I continue to eat a vegetarian diet. I will continue to eat a vegetarian diet until I do go on one of these hikes.
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