PCT SOBO DAY 59 – Chester
11th September 2016
0 miles
Sleeping in a bed is weird. It almost makes your body hurt more. When I get up to go to the toilet I can hardly straighten out my body and hardly place my feet on the floor.
Catwater sneaks out early to get breakfast and I examine myself in the mirror. It doesn't even look like me anymore. My body shape has changed and my face shape has changed.
I call my parents and they tell me I look like Crusty the Clown from the Simpsons. I went to bed with wet hair and I don't own a hairbrush so they have a point. When Catwater comes back we go for breakfast, or second breakfast for her! I don't like breakfast foods that much so I am delighted to discover they are serving the whole menu so I get a chicken (I have a serious chicken craving), cheese, avocado and mushroom sandwich with fries...at 9am. Perfect.
We try and sort out our resupply strategy for the Sierra and do a bit of life admin before we have to switch from the Antlers motel to the Best Western. We go to the laundromat, I love this one, it has a soap centre where every single red button is labelled with 'Tide'. I guess we'll use Tide then. I am putting some serious thought into getting a new pack, I have been thinking about it for days, probably weeks. The one I want is only available online and requires you to measure your torso to get the right size. It just happens that there is a quilting convention in town and there was a lady in the laundromat who had a tape measure around her neck, so she measured my back for me. The trail provides! And I was here that I found out a little secret Catwater had been keeping from me – she is carrying two puffies!!
We head over to the shake shack opposite to get a milkshake while we wait. I get a delicious raspberry milkshake. I would normally go for chocolate but it's very important to establish whether a chocolate milkshake is made with chocolate ice cream or it's made with syrup. Syrup is wrong.
Spice Rack texted me to say they had arrived in town and they were at the pizza place so we walked down to meet them. I was in my waterproof trousers and my puffy vest and I was hotter than hot. I passed a man on the way who I assume was a homeless man. He owns more stuff than I do!
I have a soda while the girls eat their pizza, I discuss the differences between an American and an English breakfast and try an educate them on the importance of a baked bean, and we meet one of Spice Racks friends who hiked the Arizona trail. That sounds like a good one. He gives us a ride back to town, all of 2 minutes down the road – the less walking in town the better! – and we leave the girls to do their resupply at the supermarket, they are heading back to the trail this afternoon.
Back at the Besty Westy I work on the blog and then I have to go and do the agony of resupply. I buy stuff for now and stuff to package up and send further down the trail. I wonder the aisles and hope that something will jump out at me, but I end up buying the same old stuff. And chicken in a can. We'll see how that works out.
By the time I get back, after spending nearly an hour in the supermarket, it's 6pm and time to eat again. I have fish and chips and now I finally feel full.
I have the slight dread about heading back to the trail tomorrow, it's a weird feeling.
I also realised after some research, that I may have be the instigator of the fear tornado regarding the Sierra. So I have been telling people that Kennedy Meadows South shuts down on Columbus Day (10th October). I may have got my information wrong, it is in fact Kennedy Meadows North that shuts down then and KM south is in fact accepting packages through into November. So yeah, sorry about that!