Last night it rained for about half the night. We woke up in Warner Springs and relectantly got out of the tent to pack up. Although reluctant, we had been there for a whole day yesterday, and were eager to leave.
Saying goodbye to our friends staying an extra day, we headed out. Our blisters were popped, however they were as bad as new when it came to pain factor. Within the first few miles, I had to stop and situate my feet. The pressure from my shoe on both my heels caused me to limp on my toe side on both feet, aggravating the arches. When we stopped I taped up a blister I had forgotten on one of my toes and changed my socks to thinner socks.
Viola! The sock change had relieved the pain! It was like magic. My huge blister (or what remained) on the left heel was no longer rubbing thanks to the thickness of the thin socks!
Feeling 100's of times better, we trekked on at a faster pace. Slowly climbing out of the valley, we crossed a nice stream 5 times, there were different cacti and all sorts of beautiful flowers blooming left and right! We even saw a few nice yuccas that reminded us of day 1 in Campo:
Claire and I's hiking style is to not eat much in the morning, (this morning being an exception as there were some goodies at the Warner Springs resource center like fresh fruit that we consumed upon leaving) but then eat little snacks throughout half of the day, until we get substantially hungry for a lunch. Today my lunch consisted of tortillas with these awesome Spam Singles I found in the hiker box at WS!
Hawaii represent!!
Don't worry that's not all we eat on the trail. Walking 13.21 miles (that's what we did today), you eat a lot..
A lot of people have been getting things in their resupply boxes which they're already sick of. Since Claire and I are resupplying along the way, we are able to grab many items from the hiker boxes that other hikers have tossed (such as the spam singles). This allows us to vary our diets quite well. It also saves us a lot of money because that means less items we have to buy at the grocery stores in towns!
Just yesterday one of our friends gave us some couscous and also some potatoes (think Idahoan packets) with nuts and grains and dehydrated mushrooms mixed in. We ate it all up today on trail. We also had some mac n cheese that was in a hiker box.
Some people make awesome delicious meals like those potatoes with mushrooms, but if they don't eat it all by the time their next box comes, they throw it in the hiker boxes to save some food weight. I've also found some MRE's and other packaged dehydrated meals like the Mountain House brand (our favorite that we've found is chicken and rice- usually $9!!)
Wow, 5 paragraphs on food, you can tell what I think about all day, haha. Anyway, some trail news and updates:
We are about 30 miles from a highway, where Claire and I will hitch 18 miles into the town of Idylwild, where Dave from Mt. Laguna Sports is sending us our new stove. We are also going to buy new shoes as we are 100% sure now that they are what's causing the blisters. (Yes the socks made a difference but our feet are swelling everyday) we need to size up and get a shoe with a little more stability and ankle support.
Claire also said she'll buy me a new pillow in Idylwild for my birthday as mine has a leak and flattens out every 10 minutes :( The leak is too small to find so I can't patch it. Until then I'm using my awesome puffy jacket as a pillow. How you ask? .... Just ask how. Thanks.
Well, since you asked, Claire showed me that our puffys can stuff into their own pockets!
Step 1:
Step 2:
TADA!! A pillow!
Tonight we found an awesome campsite just off trail with a beautiful tree arch and a big nice rock to cook and eat on. (The crappy broken stove we have now is kiiiiind of working, so we'll be using it (carefully) until we get to Idylwild.)
As I said before we did 13.21 miles today, (we would be doing more, but we really need bigger shoes so we're taking it easy) and the highway is 30 miles away. We'll probably do 14 or 15 tomorrow and the same Monday. That way we can hitch into Idylwild wary Tuesday and be productive with our "to-do list." Then hitch back out to the trail to avoid having to spend the night and $$ in town..
These are all theoretical plans, as the trail has its own way of doing things sometimes.. But we love it! Well it's almost 8, past our bedtimes!
-Thanks for reading!
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