Miles: 252 to 262
Animal: Yes yes yes, but how do you knowwwww you have shin splints?
Spearhead: cuz my shins f#%$ing hurt!
Sheboygan! We’re back on the trail after a wonderful few days of relaxing with our parents and great uncle. After being swept away from Ziggy and the Bear, a long period of hibernation occurred and it was spectacular. Our stay at the Casita de Uncle Ben was full of sleeping, lying around, eating lots of food, a boat ride, hot tubbing and resupplying food and goods at actual grocery stores. Luckily, the jet lag was affecting my parents strongly enough so that we were all on the same energy wavelength. Despite our ambitions to drive up to Joshua Tree and take a tour of the wind energy fields, we enjoyed catching up on many months of adventure and eating fantastic homemade food.
[Fey in a real bed, chilling on Uncle Ben's electric boat, "Conspicuous Consumption"]
UPS arrived at 6 PM the day before we left and delivered new shoes and insoles which magically fit quite perfectly and will hopefully alleviate the foot pain I've been having. A 6:30 AM wake up call the next morning was quite abrupt as our typical wake up time ranged from 9 to 2 the previous couple of days.
Our mission was to grab the other members of the "slow magic" tribe and shuttle to the trail head early enough to get a decent days' hike in. We were force-fed hard-boiled eggs, peppers, and chocolate pretzels on our way up the mountain. It took two trips to drop off everyone at the cold, snowy and foggy trail head. It was hard to say goodbye after such a wonderful visit, but the chilly air drove us to start moving and wave goodbye through the eerie mountain fog.
We only made it 10 miles before we set up camp a little ways off trail on a cool ridge with an amazing view of contrasting features. A dark sky above, alpine all around, sunny desert below with black shadows behind every ridge. I tried to capture it with the phone, but there was really no chance. We fell asleep one by one between 6 and 8 (hey, only an hour or two before hiker midnight!) and slept soundly as we rejoined wonderful people and a wonderful trail.
A special thanks to our parents and Uncle Ben for a few restful and heart filling zeros!
[Our view driving up the mountain, The crew heading off to the trail, kind notes left for us, campsite for the evening]
