Start: 0800 - Walker Pass
End: 2000 - Ridgecrest (Budget Inn)
Miles (today): 0
Miles (cumulative): 669 (567 PCT, 89.5 alternate, 12.5 off)
I woke up this morning around 0200 and had to pee again - for the first time I wasn't annoyed at having to get up in the middle of the night to pee. I'm a recovering dehydrated thru-hiker! As a bonus, The Milky Way was even more amazing than before.
At 0500 I woke up again to pee (yay!) and decided to stay up. I ate some of the fruit Jeff brought, sat on one of his camp chairs, and enjoyed knowing that I didn't have to hike out. I talked with some hikers as they woke up and shared strawberries and blueberries with them.
Jeff ambled over after a while (he slept in his car) and apologetically said he didn't think he could give us a ride to Ridgecrest because he didn't think there was enough room in his car, a Prius (what Nick drives). Nick said, "I have yet to be let down by the Prius - I can fit anything in there!" and the two of them went to work creatively packing the car. Sure enough, everything fit with room for me to sit in the back. I was impressed.
Jeff's packed-to-the-brim Prius
Jeff drove us to Ridgecrest and helped us find a hotel (the first place we tried, one recommended by other hikers, was booked because a Mercedes commercial was being filmed or something). Jeff noticed a Starbucks across the street and commented that he wanted to stop there, so after we left our packs with the front desk we treated him to a coffee (it wasn't much by way of repayment for all he's done for us but it's a start). We chatted for a while and then, sadly, Jeff announced that he had to go back to work. I nearly cried. I feel as if I didn't get to spend near enough time with him! He is such a beautiful soul.
After Jeff left, Nick and I had some time to kill before the noon check in. We worked out our resupply and ordered essentials for the next section (like bear canisters, micro spikes, and bug nets), we went to Walgreens and bought me another pair of sunglasses (this is my third pair so far, I keep breaking them!), we went to a fabric store for beeswax to lubricate our faulty tent zipper, and we ate pho at a Vietnamese restaurant (not as good as the pho we had in Boston but it was still tasty).
my huge bowl of pho - I ate every last bit
While we were driving into town we noticed there was a Navy base; since Nick had to sign some Army paperwork using an official government computer, after eating pho he got a hitch to base from some guys in uniform he saw at the restaurant. I sat at Starbucks and just relaxed (and ran into Katie/Spice, the hiker we picked up in Big Bear).
Once Nick returned from his errand, we did a little grocery shopping and now I'm sitting in bed about to eat my half of a mini-watermelon with my camp spoon - I'm doing all I can to re-hydrate. We have a little over two days of desert and a possible 30 mile stretch without water sources to get through before we get out of the desert and to Kennedy Meadows and I don't want to have a repeat of the past few days - being dehydrated is no fun at all.
Kennedy Meadows. Wow. I'm not sure I'm prepared for this next section yet!