We “slept in” today which meant I got up around 7:30 and Wolf Bird got up at 5:45. One of us clearly excels at sleeping in. We got a delicious breakfast at the Teddy Bear restauarant right next to where we were staying. It was just us and the locals eating so early on a weekend.
After that we hung out enjoying a last shower and having a nice bed and TV. We packed up our stuff and planned to Uber to the grocery store in town, as it was almost two miles from where we were staying. Two miles isn’t very far to walk, but when they are off-trail miles, I refused to walk more than a half mile or so! No use wasting my energy when it’s not even getting me to Canada. There were no Ubers on the road when we checked around 11AM (other hikers told us there’s only one uber driver in town) so we decided to do the only logical thing, which was eat some more. We got food at the restauarant connected to our hotel and by the time we finished eating there was an Uber driving and we requested it right away.
We had a nice ride to the grocery store and then bought food for our next ~100 mile stretch. Once we were all packed we called Kathy, the woman who gave us a hitch yesterday, as she said she would give us a ride back to the trail. About 15 minutes later her and her husband Mike and cute little dog Rosie showed up and drove us up to the trail. They were such a nice couple and we couldn’t believe how kind they were to go out of their way to drive us back! And they were so casual about it too.
We got to the trail and started hiking around 2:15. We planned to hike about 10-15 miles depending how we felt. It was funny because the trail gets fairly close to town, where we just were, and we could see the lake of Big Bear Lake for quite a while. It felt great to be hiking again especially after being rejuvenated in town. All that food and rest really restores the mind and body. We had a really enjoyable afternoon hiking through beautiful trees. We chatted much of the way and time just flew by. We only passed two hikers right after getting on the trail and didn’t see anyone else the rest of the day.
We got to a campsite at the 12 mile mark around 6 or 630 and debated whether or not to stay. There weren’t marked campsites up ahead so there was no guarantee we’d find a flat place to sleep. But we both felt really good and decided to chance it and hope for the best. We walked another three miles to a forest road and were excited to discover flat ground right next to the dirt road.
We are sharing a fuel canister for this section so we switched off cooking dinner and setting up our tent and enjoyed a fancy new (and very spicy) ramen brand for dinner. What a great day!