Day 3: Let This be a Lesson

One of my buddies likes to tell the story of going camping with his brother. It goes like this, "So, I said to him, 'don't forget to pick up batteries for the steripen' (water purifier). And, guess what he forgot? The batteries! And, there we were, stuck with no purifier (since the batteries had died) and were boiling water for the day. We poured the boiling water into the first guy's knock-off nalgene, and it just crumpled! Then we ran out of fuel for our stove, so that was all of the water we were going to have for the day!"

The lesson here: always have two methods of purifying your water, and make sure you take extra batteries.

While I was packing for my trip I remembered this story and grabbed an extra battery for my steripen.

Day 3 of my trip was the moment I discovered: steripens take TWO batteries. I pulled out one of the dead ones, put in my one good battery, and crossed my fingers. If that failed, well, I'd just boil water.