Mile 466 to 478: Woke at 5, hiked 12 miles to the Andersons'.
Morale: This is almost too easy
Climate: dry and hot
“I sure do love sitting around and doing nothing.” - E.T.
I’m now writing to you from Casa de Luna, AKA the Andersons’. The Andersons have been trail angels for 17 years and have earned the reputation of being a party house in part due to Mrs. Anderson spending several years oil wrestling hikers as they came through. But I’ll tell you what; this is a little slice of heaven. Upon arrival, hikers are promptly instructed to change into a Hawaiian shirt of their choice. Once I put that shirt on, my mental state was transported to the islands. The house is a little yellow bungalow where pancakes are prepared to order every morning by Mr. Anderson starting at 6am. Outside of the garage hangs a large banner full of PCT hiker signatures under a sign that says “Hippie Daycare,” and PCT class bandanas going back to 2003. Ours is purple with green writing – woot! It has a map of the trail with all the stops marked and one side says "Hiker to Town" and the other, "Hiker to Trail" (some hikers prepare these signs on their Tyvek ground sheets to assist with hitching).
[Beautiful sunrise (check out the lake/fog in the distance!), Scott Jurek FTW, Butterfly times]
The backyard is a Manzanita forest with little camping spots hidden throughout – it's majestic. We arrived here by midday after waking early to hike 12 miles and catching a hitch with a very awesome family that had four kids in a van who squished into the backseat so that four hikers could squeeze in. As we walked up to the van, the kids all got on their knees and called out to us through the open trunk: “what are your trail names!?” The oldest girl instructed her mom how to get to Casa de Luna. We pulled up to a sprawl of hikers drinking beer and doing mostly nothing. We watched as more hikers rolled in, as the Couch Princess (this is a trail name I came up with and am advocating for) said, "Oh, is more trash coming?" The mail truck pulled up to - we assumed - deliver mail, but no! Six hikers jumped out of the back (is that even legal?)
[Trail shovel, flowers, getting festive at the Andersons', Random people chillin, no joke- I am, camping spot in the Manzanita forest]
Around 6pm, the Andersons served up their signature taco salad to about 40 people. They had strict rules about how to hold your paper plate to avoid spilling nachos into the condiments; if you failed to follow Mrs. Anderson’s rules by holding your plate a bit too far over the buffet table, Mrs. Anderson promptly wacked you with a yardstick. I got wacked because apparently I can’t follow directions.
I recently enjoyed a delicious shower in a makeshift shower shack with a hose, and I re-remembered my passion for outdoor showers. This is the second one I’ve taken on the PCT. The first one was at a campsite using someone’s water bottle and a cap with a few holes that I hung upside down from a tree. Ah – freedom!
