August 14
Lost Lakes – Showers Lake
1070 -1082
Woke up to woodpeckers hammering away at ghost trees. Sounds like hard wood. Do woodpeckers get headaches? Do they have extra reinforced bird skulls like rams do?
I didn’t even realize there was a Jeep trail next to my campsite. That explains the extras like giant nails in the trees.
At Carson Pass, the volunteers had cookies and Cokes and snacks for PCT hikers. I sat on the porch and chewed away. There was a cloudy looking cloud coming over, full of thunder and threats. I petted dogs and tried to wait out the rain. If it would just start raining already. That got boring after an hour. I moved my rain gear to a more accessible spot than the very bottom of my pack and kept going. Twenty minutes later, lightning cracked and the rain started to fall. I got into my plastic clothes and kept hiking. For the next two hours, I met drenched day hikers. Some of them were turning blue. The dogs were super excited about walking in the rain. The people looked like they were going to get into the car, crank the heater, and never go hiking again.
Out of everyone I met, these ducks were the most pleased about the rain. It’s not often I see ducks in the ponds and then suddenly there were 12-15 of them, having a quacky duck party in the rain.
I could have walked further but I came to one of those super pretty streamsides that was too awesome to pass up. 
Spinstera 
From Wikipedia after scientific research:
Woodpeckers are better than hoopoes at varying the path of their pecks. By moving their beaks around more, woodpeckers minimize brain damage in specific areas.
Woodpeckers’ skulls are more flexible because of the plate-like bones. That helps to minimize the damage of all that pecking.
Woodpeckers have a special bone that acts like a seat-belt for its skull. It’s called the hyoid bone, and it wraps all the way around a woodpecker’s skull. Every time the bird pecks, the hyoid acts like a seat-belt for the bird’s skull and the delicate brain it protects.
Even the woodpeckers’ beak helps. A woodpecker’s upper beak is longer than its lower beak, kind of like an overbite. The lower beak is also made of stronger bone to help absorb impact.
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