We awoke to discover that an animal (a deer, we think) had dragged one of Wolf Bird’s trekking poles a few feet and chewed on the straps! We each woke up in the night thinking we heard something so I guess that must have been what we heard. We finally ran into the inevitable today: snow. It was just brief patches, the longest being under a mile, but it brought me back to what it was like in the Sierra. We have been very spoiled with easy and dry trail and soon we will encounter much longer and tougher areas of snow. We are also at a bit higher elevation than we’ve been in recent weeks and I was feeling it! The climbs definitely felt tiring to me.
We ran into a couple we had hiked near back in the beginning of the Sierra and it was nice to catch up briefly with them. We didn’t talk for too long as the mosquitoes were attacking us! We also passed a woman and her horse who are on mile 600 or so of their section hike of the PCT.
We passed many day hikers today–it is a summer Saturday and we weren’t too far from a trailhead so this wasn’t surprising, but was quite the change from the usual solo hiking we’ve been doing. We planned to take a break at a rest stop on I-80 that was just off trail. It has bathrooms and water and vending machines so we were looking forward to these simple pleasures. When we arrived, we were disheartened to find the saddest-looking vending machines I have ever seen. They were all nearly completely empty. Luckily there were a few Kit Kats left which we were excited about. We didn’t stay long as we only had just over 4 miles left for the day until the road to Truckee! Town! We haven’t stayed overnight in a hotel in town since Mt Shasta a couple hundred miles ago so we were looking forward to this town. We were arriving at the road on a Saturday but decided to book a hotel for Sunday night instead as the price was half that of Saturday night. Our plan was to camp near the trail tonight (Saturday) and hitch into town tomirrow (Sunday) and take a zero and stay overnight at a hotel in Truckee.
We have been hiking near/with Phil for the past few days and sadly Truckee marks the end of his hike this year. He’s run out of money and will head home with his parents who are driving out from Indiana to meet him.
We arrived at the road to Truckee quickly and immediately heard someone yell “hey hiker trash” to us. We walked over and a man sitting by his car with a cooler offered us cold sodas and beer! He is a trail angel named Reno Dave. We sat and chatted with him for a bit and he informed us that the road to Truckee would be closed tomorrow from 7 to 1 for a triathlon. We were very glad to find this out ahead of time and de used to head into town tonight I read and hopefully find a cheap place to stay the night. Reno Dave gave us the number of a trail angel who we left a voicemail for and then he offered to drive us to town. We graciously accepted and were off to Truckee!
Reno Dave told us the lake we saw in the distance was where the donner Party wintered in 1845. I had read the entire Wikipedia article recounting the Donnerparty earlier in the hike and was amazed we were in the exact place where they got stranded. snow he also pointed out where the transcontinental railroad was built! Dave a paperbark produces/designs video poker games for casinos and hisim pant has 90% of the market share so maybe you’ve played one of his games! He dropped us off at a shopping plaza and Wolf Bird, Phil and I quickly headed over to Panda Express where we each ordered 3 entrees and ate the entire thing. While we were eating the trail angel, Sugar Mama, called us back and said she has a reserved spot at a campground nearby we were welcome to share with her. And she would pick us up to take us there whenever we were ready! We were very aescited and grateful. The three of us did our laundry and got some food for dinner at the grocery store and then called Sugar mama to pick us up. She hiked the trail in 2009 and has been living out of her trailer traveling for a number of years. She had a sweet dog Howie who we enjoyed playing with. We washed in the river by the campground and enjoyed chatting for a while before bed. 
