April 16th and 17th
"There are two types of people in the world: ones who say 'for sure' and ones who say 'fo sho.'" -Animal Style
What a night! 13 of us had camped out at the raddest beach campsite a person could find in the desert, only to all be slowly drawn out of our dreams by the frantic call of "KEVIN!? KEVIN!?" Some innocent cowboy campers experienced men with bright lights running right over them at one in the morning. Kevin (woodchuck) had accidentally activated his SOS device in his sleep, and the sheriff's department arrived within an hour. Oops!
When we awoke one at a time, we all took our turn asking "Kevin, what the hell happened!?" To which Kevin could only shrug and say he somehow simultaneously pressed the two buttons necessary that sent all his loved ones the message that he was in dire danger when really he was just getting his beauty sleep.
We took off first, walking the five miles into town, which somehow felt like ten. We arrived in town, only to learn we had to walk more than a mile father to the post office. And then we made the mistake of getting off trail, uphill for a good bit. When we arrived at last, our packages were there for us (thanks Mom!)
We joined up with about 15 other hikers at the only place to eat in town: the country club. Where else should a bunch of dirty hikers who hadn't bathed in a week feast!? There was literally a sign on the door asking all PCT hikers to not enter the establishment and instead please let the wait staff come to you on the patio. The food was so so, but the company unbeatable.
We were then able to hitch rides of various sorts to a "resort" that turned out to be a trailer park 12 miles outside of town. There we were joined by the park's full time residents and hunters and fishers passing through. There was a sign in our janky, but quite comfortable, cabin asking that game and fish not be cleaned IN the cabins. The lady at the on-site convenience store was very helpful, offering suggestions like "did you see the fruit cups?"
We're tagging along with a really fantastic group of five: Laura from the UK, Gavin from New Zealand, Leah from Portland, Clint from Reno, and Rod from Israel. This group is always laughing and treats each other like family, so we hope we can stick around for a while. In the evening we set up a bartering market since everyone had just gotten their resupply boxes (and some folks didn't.) Gatorade was being traded for MRE meals for candy for IB Profen. Animal Style (from Israel and loves In and Out Burger) kept reminding us that "I am your hiker box." We gave him some lentils.
In the morning, we all reconvened for an early breakfast, which was fantastic. It's quite strange that this restaurant in the middle of nowhere, attached to a convenience store, that's part of a trailer park, was serving up some farm to table-quality meals with excellent service. Adam and I both had a frittata that was so good we ended up ordering a breakfast burrito to go.
We all got rides from Kevin's fantastic college girlfriend, who had driven 6 hours just to hang out with him (and all of us - surprise!) for less than 24 hours. She took us to the "Resource Center" back in Warner Springs, where we all got some quality wifi time and picked through the hiker box.
We took our time and eventually hiked out, covering five miles in the heat to a nice shady campsite on the stream. Our tents are all super close, since technically there is only room for three tents and we have seven. I'm probably annoying everyone with the pitter patter of the keyboard, so sweet dreams!
