Our plans are finalized for the upcoming road walk. Not that you really care, but I’m sharing the plan anyway.  

Day 1: We’ll walk ~15 miles from Cuba to the small town of Regina, where there is a convenient store (from which we’ll obtain water).  Then it’s ~10 miles to the Starrynight Ranch, where the amazing owners are letting us camp and fill up on water.  

Day 2: This was our toughest day to figure out as it would have been a ~25 mile walk to El Vado Reservoir (which apparently is being drained).  While it is possible to carry enough water to cover that distance, luckily we won’t have to because Sith/Rocks and her boyfriend, Donny, will be bringing us water.  !!!!! I don’t even know how to begin explaining how grateful I am for them - they are truly amazing Trail Angels - nor do I know how to repay them.  Yet.

Day 3: We shouldn’t have too much of a water issue this day - Rocks said it looks pretty green and it seems like there is water out there, somewhere.  We’ll find it.  ;)

It feels good to have a plan worked out.  It also feels good to have taken an extra day off to make sure our current blisters are good and healed before we add more.  My ankle … well, it’s not worse, but that’s all I can say.  Nick’s toe and Achilles aren’t great, either.  But we can walk, so that’s what we’ll do.  

We spent quite a few hours at the Cuban Café this morning.  We had breakfast with Blink, Tall Son, and eventually Master Chef and Fuego showed up, too.  I really enjoyed their company and was particularly excited to talk books with Blink, who seems to have the same taste in books as I.  

(Speaking of books, if anyone has any audiobook recommendations for me, pass them on!  I still prefer reading books over listening to them, but audiobooks are a great distraction during the difficult miles.)

Cody and Bodhi are the only other hikers we know who are also going to do the road walk to Chama, so we met up in McDonalds to review the plan and to download material to listen to.  I’m elated that they are also doing the road walk, it makes me feel less insane.

Back at the room, we went through our resupply box and I was excited to see a few letters from Theresa inside!  I thoroughly enjoyed reading them.  In addition, there were more clay figures (made by Theresa) for trail angels. She’s so incredibly talented - I mean, look at these!!

Note:  There are SO MANY HIKERS HERE.  It’s only going to get worse because basically everyone on the trail from Grants onward will be in Chama and likely entering the San Juans at the same time.  These fire closures have essentially forced everyone to be in the same place at the same time.  It’s a little annoying, yes, but then again who knows who we are going to bump into out there.  

:)