Day 4- April 23rd

Hola!

Today was so long, it felt like two days put together! We started nice and early at the Boulder Oaks Campground, said goodbye to our trail friend Daniel who decided to leave the trail today :'(

Walking straight up another biiiiig hill, (this is starting to become a recurring morning theme of ours), we popped onto a very exposed ridge, taking in some awesome expansive views with some giant far away windmills, teasing us with air movement from afar that we were just not feeling... :p

It seems that our hiking style is to leave a little after everyone else, but then somehow pass many people in the first few hours of hiking, then "leapfrogging" for the rest of the day: (resting on and off at different times and locations than other hikers, so that you see each other multiples times a day)

A couple notable people that we see a lot are: 

Focus- (from Seattle) he started out with a small group of people but we somehow always tend to see him more than the others. (He got his trail name on te first day when his hiking buddies (Christy and Daniel) repeatedly told him to "Focus Charlie!"

Patrick- Has a very similar hiking pace as us, we tend to see this guy mainly at night and early mornings. 

Mike- just met him today, he's an older, very sun-exposed man, who doesn't wear much on the trail. Today I donated one of my bottles I sunscreen to him. (It's a weird brand that Claire says stinks) :p And I don't go through mine quickly since I'm taking protective clothing approach through the desert.

Orion- This guy is a character. We camped in the same area as him on the second night. He lives in Portland, Maine, and has the best trail laugh we've heard so far! Our second encounter was him catching up to us in the hot desert sun, BAREFOOT! To my shocked response he simply replied "I'm just trying it out"

Orion went on ahead of where we camped last night, and today on our first steep incline,we found him up on a cliff just off the trail, waking up at 10am or so (super late for a through hiker). He had hiked into the night and the only spot for him to camp was just a little smaller than his tiny tent! 

As the desert was heating up, we walked through a field of unexploded ordinances, I thought to myself "my grandpa is an expert on these, I wish I brought him along!" (Love you Papa, thanks for reading everyday)

Shortly after this picture we ran into Tommy and his awesome Poodle Charlie! He hiked with Claire for a bit (because this dog loves the ladies) and we were reminded of our dog Starlite for a brief moment:

We took small breaks all morning and kept moving, drinking enough water and snacking on some bars. By 2:00 (the hottest time of day) we HAD to find a nice shady spot for a siesta, but of course, as has happened once already, no shade for another hour! We finally found a nice spot where Claire and I laid out the Tyvek (cheap makeshift ground cloth for our tent, costing $7 instead of $80) and proceeded to eat about 8 "normal" servings of food from our pack. No joke people, we ate... (Claire pictured on her foam pad at the top of this entry)

After we ate half of our food, and laying around for an hour, we booked the last two miles down, (and then back up again), to Mount Laguna, making a new daily record at 16.77 miles! 

We had a beer and, (not surprisingly), more food and desert... (We hongry!)

Tonight we're stealth camping in the closed campground just outside the town.. Shhhhh! The free camprgeound is three miles down the road, but since we need to resupply in town here tomorrow, we weren't about to make this a 20 mile day... 

Tonight again, no rain fly. The stars are beautiful and the long day was perfect.

It's 9:07pm, waaaay past my bedtime! 

Thanks for reading!

Edit: after posting, and as I was falling asleep, I open my eyes for a second and I saw a nice long shooting star. A perfect way to end the night!