May 26
Mile 132 – 146
14 miles
Cloudy a little windy and cold this morning. Kept my puffy on, didn’t bother with breakfast, left by 6:30. After an hour I stopped to have some cold soak oatmeal. Funny how you always see much better campsites in the morning and then come evening time and there’s nothing good around. Or it’s already taken.
I hiked for an hour and took a break and did that over and over. By 10 I hadn’t made my ten miles, not even close, but I had made 6 miles. I listened to podcasts to distract myself from my whiny body parts. Around 11:30, I couldn’t keep up with my hour goals anymore. It was time for lunch. I wandered off the path down a dry stream and found a soft bit of sand under some patchy shade. I ate tuna and tortillas. Then I fell into a perfect post-lunch coma.
Sometimes when I’m hiking, I start to space out and then it occurs to me that I may have gotten turned around. One bit of the desert looks very similar to another and I bet I could easily get confused and turned around. All I have to do to reassure myself that I’m headed in the right direction is look down. Every footprint on the trail is headed in the same direction. I’m sure I’ll start to recognize individual tread patterns eventually.
In the distance I could see more Mad Max desert camps of RVs and sheds. The sound of all-terrain vehicles and recreational gunfire drifted on the wind. Memorial Day celebrations gearing up. Around dusk I came to Muir Wood/s, the eclectic creation of Trail Angel Mary. There is a tiny library with some literary company.
She’s also built a privy and bucket shower shed. I was mighty tempted to camp here, just for the privy. But the area seemed exposed and windy so I kept going.
A mile or so later, I found a protected nook and popped up my tent. Town day tomorrow!
Spinstera 