Day 38: Wasting Your Life Is Admirable
May 18, 2017
Mile 517.59 Hiker Town to Mile 529.90 Campsite
Laziness is a requirement to live a happy life. Probably won’t read that in any B.S. book of inspirational quotes. But really, though, I feel like I can make an argument for it. Sometimes the thing that you need most is to not do squat all day and that’s exactly what I did today. I was able to sleep in which consisted of waking up at 5:31 instead of 5:30 because my body wanted to mess with me and prevent me from getting any real kind of extra sleep. Got to call my dad which included a whole 15 minutes talking about Indy 500 practice times and even able to shave my neck (I get a full on Andrew Luck neard if I don’t tame it every now and then). At 8:00 Glow Worm and I took a shuttle to a near by convince store where we spent the next FIVE HOURS. Yes, we were there from 8:00 am to 1:00 pm. In that time I managed to consume a breakfast burrito, a Yoohoo, a Snapple, and a M&M cookie ice cream sandwich. Other than eating we just pigged out on social media and caught a little bit of 500 practice. Well, I watched practice. Glow Worm could care less. Then again, most of my friends from Indy could care less.
After finally arriving back to Hiker Town I went back to my tent to take a nap. Come to think of it, it was my first intentional nap since I left home. There was the time I fell asleep on a rock a mile from McDonald’s and in the Uber on the way back from REI, but those weren’t true naps. Although, this wasn’t really any better. It was so damn hot in my tent. Hardly any breeze at all and I had to completely remove my sleeping bag and strip down to just my shorts and I still could feel beads of sweat trickling down my back and arms. I lay there for an hour and a half without ever falling asleep. By the time I got up my sleeping pad was totally drenched in my own sweat. So that was rather unsuccessful
Not quite what I imagined when I signed up for this.
We did get an update on Cougar. She has…um…I don’t really know. She used big words and medical speak, but her leg is a bit screwed up. The chiropractor did things (once again beyond my level of understanding) and she said that they’re going to take a few days off and then zero with us in Tehachapi before hopefully resuming with us. She also said that the trail angel that they’re staying with was going to do some trail magic at Cottonwood Creek 17 miles from Hiker Town and that they were going to help her so we should see them tomorrow.
We hiked out of Hiker Town at around 5:00 pm to avoid hiking in the heat of the day. The trail followed the Los Angeles aqua duct which is more or less a metal pipe that you can walk on for a few miles. It was actually pretty surreal. It’s a pipe with just the top quarter exposed with the rest in the rest in the group headed due north in a desert valley completely surrounded by Joshua Trees.
Obligatory PCT-LA-Aquaduct-walking-away-from-camera photo.
We hiked through the evening and watched the sun set behind the mountains and continued as the stars began to appear. This night hike was much more pleasant than our harrowing night coming down San Jacinto. We eventually cowboy camped just off the trail at around 10:00. No moon tonight. Just stars. Absolutely beautiful.
Sunset.
