Nomadic life and its limits

 Supposedly, nomadic people could only have 2 children, one on mom's back and one walking. Now that we are nomads these kind of limitations come into play. Not that we are having more children, it's all about food.

The dynamic problem is that carrying food is convenient in that it saves both time and money and allows us to stop and eat anywhere and anytime. Particularly now that we are in the very hilly Salzburg region you can start to lose energy exponentially. However, food adds weight and to a lesser degree volume. My bike does not have the greatest gearing for very steep hills considering the 30/35 lbs that I am carrying and the fact that I am kinda old and was never the greatest cyclist to begin with. So, adding weight on a 10% grade hill may well be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. I can barely make it up these hills zigzagging as I go.

The food items we generally carry are salami, cheese, a tube of mustard a couple of buns and sometimes a can of tuna and packet of mayo. Obviously the game is to carry just enough until you can replenish but not so much that you can't climb the hill. Generally it works. The diet is not varied but it is satisfying.
Today is Sunday in Austria. All stores close at noon on Saturday and reopen Monday. This raises the level of the game. On Saturday morning when we loaded in 4 buns, salami, cheese and a can of tuna and mayo along with various dried fruit, apples and bananas (see how it adds up) I figured we were good until monday. Of course, we are restauranting for dinner.

 
Saturday lunch it was cold and raining so we restauranted a big late lunch at the end of our ride and ate our salami sammys for dinner. Today we breakfasted the last two packs of oatmeal and planned on hauling our last two buns and tuna for lunch.

 
Staring down the barrel of a cold, rainy 50K today I realized we don't have enough food. On our way out of our "guest house" I asked our hostess if she might have a couple of buns we could buy from her. She did and we barely secured our 10am snack with some jam.

 
We are fully depleted of food as we head out for dinner. Tomorrow we will restock as the stores open but we will stop after the nasty 11% grade hill in the morning.