This sound: (burbling water).

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Water. This little tricklet of water managed to turn two complete trail zombies, on the morning of Tuesday April 23rd, into robust trail bound…. whatever we are now. (laugh) Walking machines. And we were just commenting how funny it is that our trip seems to be peppered with so many highs and lows. One minute we feel like death on two feet, and the next we feel like we can go all day again. So ah, we just had our breakfast. We each had a nice, long drink. We probably each had two quarts of water to drink. And ah, feels great. And we’re ready to go out and face more desert today. We get the, we cross the Pines to Palms highway today. We could go to Palm Springs if we really felt like it. (Pete laughs) But ah, I think we’ll have to skip that, we might hitchhike and get some more water at that point. That’s ah, thats pretty much the beginning of our day. There’s no more smoke in the sky that I can see, so they must have put that fire out yesterday, or just got it under control. In any case we never, never ah got close enough to see any flames, so I consider that pretty lucky.
———-
Pete: Look at uh, look at his rattle on his tail, too.

Dylan: He’s not rattling right now. But he’s about 4 feet long. We could toss a couple of rocks at him, see if he’ll leave the trail.

Pete: Lazy, a little bit.

Dylan: Yeah, it’s a little too early for him, he hasn’t warmed up yet.

Pete: That good too, he’s probably about 2 feet from you.

Dylan: Yeah.

(Pause)

Pete screams.

Dylan: No I don’t think we’ve got too much to worry about. Beautiful coppery brown rattlesnake. Well he’s turning around to face me.

Pete: You better get off the trail a little bit more.

Dylan: I didn’t go past but I made an attempt there. He reared into striking position so I backed off. Looks like he’s calming down.

… walks around mumbling ….

Pete: I got some pictures of him.

Dylan: Stopping to snap pictures of the pretty rattlesnake.

Pete: I almost stepped on him too. He was like right where that bush is. Just laying lazily.

———–

Ok, time to relate the Tale of the Close Call… (laugh). So the day today was hottest one so far and, and that was about all.

Pete: Saw a rattlesnake. But we already got that.

We uh, we got through the rest of the day. It was sweaty and hot and hard to keep going sometimes but we still made our 20 miles with some time to spare. So, it being the one week aniversary of our first day on the trail, Pete and I decided we were gonna ah, we were gonna hitchhike, or actually just walk a mile down this highway to get some water at a restaurant. Pete and decided we probably oughta celebrate by also getting a meal at the restaurant.

Pete: Especially since we’re a day short.

Yup. We were a day short on our meals and we figured it was all but necessary that we do so. So ah, we walked a mile down the road to the restaurant. And, low and behold, the restaurant’s closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There was a little faucet spigot, which uh was pointing the wrong direction so it spewed water up into the air. But you could still kinda get some water from it. So we each had a drink but decided that we still needed to get some food, and so we oughta hitchhike into Anza which was another 5 or 6 miles down the road. So ah, we get out on the other side of the road, get a ride just like that. From an Indian guy. And he drives us all the way into town to a grocery store where we proceed to pig out on potato- salad-provologne-cheese burritos. And ah, what else did we eat, we ate strawberries…

Pete: Fat-free goo bar.

Yup, fat free goo bar. Strawberries, and

Pete: Fat boy

Fat boy ice cream sandwiches for dessert. And I drank 32 ounces of gatorade like it was nothing. (laugh) And ah, having done that, and we filled our water bottles up and used the bathroom at the circle K, we got back out on the road to get our ride back. (laugh) And we sat there for probably half and hour, 45 minutes. Got passed by a couple hundred cars. And decided we had better start walking. But we were, the sun was still in the sky, and we were pretty certain that even though we were walking we would still get a ride. So we walk and we walk and we walk and everybody’s passing us by. And ah, we walk maybe a mile, and this funny little old guy gives us a ride like, maybe the equivalent of 5 or 6 city blocks.

Pete: The Rev

The Rev?

Pete: He had on uh

Oh, that’s right. And ah, drops us off again. And we resume walking, and we walk probably another 3/4 of a mile. And by this time the sun is going down, it’s getting dark, the stars are coming out. We’ve pretty much lost all hope of getting a ride. And we’re starting up this big hill. I see an elevation sign that says 4,000 feet, and I remember that we stashed our backpacks at 5,000 feet. And my heart just fucking sank. We just started trudging up this hill. We were going around the first corner

Pete: Uh, you forgot the guys that mooned us.

I didn’t even see guys moon us!

Pete: You didn’t?

No!

Pete: The guys that stopped, and made a U turn, and then came back, and then made a U turn again, and then drove by and mooned us?

I… well I got all the U turn parts but just didn’t see them moon us. So that’s why they turned around. OK, well some guys, well you just got that story. So anyway, heading up the road, and ah, so down comes this car, honking her horn while we’re behind the guard rail. Honks her horn at us, swings a Uey, piles of shit all over in her car, flower decals on the sides. And we’re just like, yeahhhh. Starts moving shit over to make room for us.

Pete: She had driven by us before.

Yeah she had driven by us once and felt sorry for us having to walk up that hill. And came back and got us. So thanks be to Jackie, the hippy on her way Idylwild, who gave us a ride not just up the hill but all the way to our backpacks. And pretty much saved us our day ahead of schedule that we were, and would not have been anymore if we had had to walk all the way back up here.

Pete: This was our eighth day on the trail, by the way, not our seventh.

Yeah, our eighth day on the trail, its our one week aniversary of our first day. Or, yeah that’s right. We started on a tuesday and today is a tuesday. And very soon will have been a tuesday will wake up a wednesday. Uh, we’re gonna sleep underneath this wonderful looking huge stone Pacific Crest Trail sign, right out in the middle of the open, cause its dark out. And ah, I think its a fine place to sleep. And when we get up in the morning we’ll read the sign. So thats ah, our misadventures for the evening. Goodnight.