Today was a rest day for me. Took my time getting up. Almost everyone was relaxing in camp. 1 or 2 decided to hit the trail early. I believe the ones that did, took a zero day yesterday. Talk to mom for a short while, for some reason we didn't have a strong signal (she couldn't hear me), but I did hear her sing happy birthday which was pretty cool! Thanks Mom!
Work on uploading pics to my brothers Dropbox, but the Internet was really slow and I had almost 300 total pictures to upload. I wish you could select certain ones to upload only. That would save a lot of time. In the end I gave up on it. I will try again in Idyllwild.
Spend at least 5 minutes brushing my teeth. I was using a really crappy/ultralight toothbrush that wouldn't have been worthy of being used to clean a floor. I did purchase a better one at the resource center yesterday.
At some point I decide it's time to go into town and pick up my resupply box. The ride I ended up getting was with the county sheriff. He's taking lots of hikers to and from the post office. I rode in the back with a French couple who kept asking before they stepped into the suv, "you aren't taking us to the jail..." They said it in a joking way, but I could tell they were a little uncertain of the whole situation. The officer ended up giving rides to and from the post office all morning long. I am really bad at remembering to take pictures of these things.
Sorted my food when I return to camp. Everyone is impressed with all my dehydrated/vacuum sealed foods. Especially the beef jerky (Kobe Beef). The mangos are quite popular as well.
Went out to lunch with Gwen, Denise and George. I met Denise yesterday but couldn't remember her name. Ended up seeing Two Tone and Eric at the golf course restaurant. I had a large bacon cheeseburger. It was quite incredible. I also sneak a slice of Denise's pizza.
As we finished up I met Luke, who is a retired Air-Force pilot. He's out here because he enjoys flying but doesn't want to do it for a living. Instead he plans to get into renewable resource research and development. We talked for a bit and I headed to the post office for the second time today. This time I walk. I shipped a pair of micro spikes in my last resupply box but forgot to take them out and send them home in the first box. So I send out another, because there is no way I am carrying those over the next couple passed coming up.
I enjoy the walk back to camp, but get a little lost in the golf course (very close to camp). It turns out Toe Touch (formerly Julie) is following me, which causes 3 more behind her to follow down the wrong path. We see the camp and backtrack to the very easy to miss left turn.
Just before I took one last shower before hitting the trail, Gwen brings me a neapolitan ice cream sandwich as a birthday gift. Then as I packed my gear up, Denise walked around me to take, what looks like a picture, then the entire camp start singing me happy birthday all together. Denise took a video (I wonder if I can post a video on here). That was pretty cool.
[wpvideo VrAh0C3D] Continued to wrap up. Tan Man was cooking some fancy hotdogs and was giving them out for free, some good trail magic. I could have ate all of them.
Said goodbye to a few people and was back on the trail. It would have been easy to stay in that town forever. After about 10 minutes on the trail I was very happy I had left when I did (around 6pm). The views were the best so far. I feel like I'm going to say that everyday. The sunset was especially incredible.
I ended up walking with my headlamp the last 2 miles. Reached the campground and there were already a lot of tents setup. Everyone seemed to have the same idea, get out of Warner Springs after the heat of the day.
Setup my tent get to bed early 9ish. Lots of miles, fire detours, high altitudes and possibly snow ahead.