I hate to pay for a hotel and then check out early. I was ecstatic to hear Patches say he needed to go to the post office in the morning but it didn’t open until 10…would that be a problem? I barely know him, but I wanted to kiss him because I know Wolf is an early riser as well as “10 before 10” Patches. I don’t have to be the weak link just yet (but we all know it’s coming).
How did hikers ever hike in the old days before cell phones, Guthook, and Uber? We have a hard enough time dealing with logistics in the modern era. It was a royal pain in the ass working out our hotel stay yesterday driving down the interstate using hotels.com to book 4 separate rooms at a hotel in a city we had never even heard of 10 minutes prior to the call. Do kids today even have an idea what the yellow pages and a pay phone are?
We ordered a couple of Ubers to get us to the KOA in Acton. When our driver finally got us there, he said he had to get out and look around. He only lived 10 miles from here but had no idea such a place even existed. It was the nicest KOA we’ve ever been to. We will definitely stay here when we finish up the section we skipped between Paradise Cafe and Acton.
Patches was MIA. We saw him and Wolf get into the Prius at the same time, yet only Wolf is around when we arrive. I’ve always chose to not carry a gun when backpacking, preferring to hook up with trained killers on the trail in lieu of said guns. Wolf is such a man. Full bird colonel army ranger. I never push him too far. I have a history of wearing on military people such as my old roommate whom I demoted from Lt Colonel to Lt in just a single phone call to his office. Who new just forgetting the Colonel was a 4 step demotion?
We though Patches and Wolf were fine with each other. If any other hikers come up missing, I’ll sound the alarm. For now, I’ll accept Wolf’s explanation that Patches wanted to jump 10 miles up the trail because he had already made plans to get off the trail in time to spend time with his wife on her spring break from teaching. I knew Patches was a short timer when he said he couldn’t possibly hike in July when he normally gets a bad case of the crabs (or was that he like to get his daily quota of crabs when the season opens?).
Wolf did take off before us while Ivy, Bunny, and I all felt obliged to purchase drinks from the KOA general store. This is a very well stocked market compared to the convenience store we frequented last night situated between the auto repair shops. After we finished our drinks, we began the warmest day of hiking we have experienced this month. It was so warm, I decided to soak my feet and boots in the stream running behind the campground. I let Bunny and Ivy believe that I accidentally slipped off a log and fell in up to my knees when everyone knows I’m as sure footed as a mountain goat.
It didn’t take Ivy long to speed off ahead of us while Bunny began her 5 minute serial stop routine. In her defense, Bunny has the tightest calves I have ever seen, and starting off with a thousand foot climb even at a grade of less than 300’ per mile is not the best way to warm them up. The slow uphill momentum of Bunny gave me lots of time to admire the views, notice all the wild flowers in bloom, and to finally catch a painted lady sitting still. We have been experiencing an unauthorized entry from Mexico in the form of thousands of butterflies illegally entering our air space and eating up the resources our own native butterflies don’t even wish to eat. This atrocious invasion must be stopped. When the funding for the wall is appropriated, I sure hope they include enough to extend netting up 3 miles to stem the flow of this illegal border crossing.
Speaking of aliens, we also ran into a young German couple that have been in the US for about 3 weeks. I couldn’t tell exactly what their accent was (the last German I met on the trail I identified as Australian—I have a keen ear for detecting accents, just not the ability to properly identify them). We talked with them for a bit. They had originally planned to hike in the Sierras but decided against that. I played my usual 20 questions with them to discover they were from eastern Germany between Berlin and Dresden.
We may have only had 10 miles to cover today, but we did so in slow fashion (at least the uphill portion). At one point after we had lunch, we managed to clock a section at almost 3 mph. No vehicles involved. Our own legs. Of course, it was ideal weather conditions with a steady downhill grade. We might even have been able to extend that pace into a second hour if we hadn’t encountered a Bunny nemesis in the form of a tunnel under the interstate.
To say Bunny is claustrophobic is like saying I am normal. It’s a gross misnomer at best. I can’t even play Dutch Oven with Bunny, and not because I make myself gag, but because nothing can block her face…ever. But this irrational fear of hers IS rational. Just ask her. She refused to go into the tunnel because she couldn’t see the other end. I calmly moved her so she could see straight into the tunnel. This helped a bit knowing that we weren’t entering a dog-leg tunnel.
Emerging into the light of a new world is not an exaggeration in this case. We came out in a canyon in Vasquez Rocks. I was completely mesmerized. The closest to this I’ve ever seen is heading across the Grand Canyon to the North Rim. There was a sweet little stream running through the canyon (Agua Dulce translates as Sweet Water). I almost felt like I was in an episode of Big Bang Theory when the guys do a Star Trek photo shoot in the rocks and get their car stolen.
We met a couple of women who introduced themselves as Sugar Momma and One Piece. One Piece is finishing up her PCT thru-hike as a sobo and Sugar Momma is working at Hiker Heaven where we planned to stay tonight. They offered us a ride, but I declined not wanting to skip the mile and a half of road walk that we had ahead of us before the turn to Hiker Heaven.
I am an idiot. Road walking sucks. It kills my feet. By the time we made it to the turn I regretted turning the ride down. Once we made the turn, we were no longer on the PCT so I could accept a ride. Out go the thumbs and immediately we got a couple of “psyche” offers. The kind where an Audi acts like their going to pick you up and then when they see the smile in the rear view mirror speed off instead. We gave up and then a nice woman, Trish, pulled over and offered us a ride. We got to the gate of Hiker Heaven just as Ivy did. That’s two days in a row she hiked the entire way and we got a ride to finish the same time she did. I think she needs to start using her wares a bit better. I know how to make use of my Bunny for rides.
Wolf was already here as was One Piece and Sugar Momma. Sugar Momma loaned her vehicle to us so we could all run back to the main strip for supper at the Mexican Restaurant. After supper it was already dark so I had to hurry and get Bunny to bed before she fell asleep in the parking lot of the truck turned into a pumpkin, whichever comes first.
EFG