PCT day 10 - A trip to paradise
It was a bit windy and a bit cold but I slept well. Woke up to my 5:30am alarm. Set off hiking at 6:15am when it was cold and windy. Not looking too hot this morning!...
The hat went on and off about 15 times. As soon as I was in the shade I was cold. It's never the perfect weather – when the sun is out we are looking for shade and want it to be cloudy, and when it's cold and clouIdy we want the sun to come out! I was hiking fast today, I even kept up with Pop for a bit!! All I could think about was onion rings / french fries / burger / chocolate milkshake / onion rings / french fries / burger / chocolate milkshake....
Got to the paradise cafe around 9:30, not bad for 8 miles. Have to admit I was bit disappointed that they were only serving breakfast and I couldn't get a burger. Instead I had a mushroom and feta omelette, which came with a hash brown the same size as the omelette, plus sourdough toast and a chocolate milkshake (at least I got my milkshake!). I couldn't quite manage it all, true hiker hunger is yet to kick in!
It was then time for my first hitch. Me Kat and Foxtrot, we got picked up in under 2 minutes! A man called Franz picked us up, originally from Munich. He gave us a tour of the fire damaged areas, and took us to the outfitter where we met a bunch of other people. Great place to buy new shoes if yours are hurting as a few people did.
Went and sat in Jo An's for the afternoon. I had another chocolate milkshake and some sweet potato fries. Jesse came and found us, it was so cool to see him again! I also saw Helen and Natasha who I was with at scout and frodos, well, they saw me. It's so odd to be in the middle of a random town in California and for someone to recognise you and shout your name, and to me it happened 3 times today!
Cuban B rocking the rain skirt:
The gang all together:
Idyllwild town monument:
Rowan had been in town for couple of days because of a problem with his foot, we were due to stay at a trail angels house but not until after 5 so we went to Rowans cabin and chilled there for a bit.
Took a shower and did my laundry. So nice to be clean(ish) and not stinking. 4 of us made arrangements to stay with a trail angel who told us to come any time after 5, after a long trudge up a hill, which I had a sense of humour failure about, we arrived at 6:15 and there was a note on the door saying because we hadn't arrived by 6 they had gone out – so we had to find somewhere else to stay! We ended up walking back over to the other side of town to get a cabin - the cabin is nice and I'm looking forward to a lie in tomorrow! We got a pizza takeout (10% discount for thru hikers). We are in a cloud. Visibility is poor and the air is wet and cold. I'm so glad we are inside. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, maybe a bit of a storm so a good time for a rest day. I heard today that some people have been calling me English – I had no idea! Don't want that trail name though. Cuban B slept like this the whole night, with the heater on:
Tomorrow is a whole day off. The only walking I will be doing is to the supermarket and pharmacy.