July 8th and 9th

The adventure continues! I thought I'd stop posting a blog on the last day of the PCT, but I was wrong! There has been some unexpected "road magic" now that we're off the trail, and I thought I'd share!

Claire and I had stayed in the Motel 6 last night and woke up nice and early to hit the road. We found that the cheapest way home was a $131 Greyhound bus ticket from Reno tonight at 8:30pm, so we each bought a ticket.

Reno is about a 3 hour drive from Mammoth, so just to be safe, we picked up all our packages from the Post Office and checked out of the Motel 6 by noon, giving us plenty of time to hitchhike to Reno by 8:30pm.

We had no trouble getting a ride straight out of Mammoth within 10 minutes. It was a cool couple who had been living in their van on the road for the last 3 months, rock climbing all over Utah, Colorado, and California! They were currently rock climbing at Tuolumne up in Yosemite and we're just in Mammoth to grocery shop. 

They drove us a quick 30 miles up to Lee Vining before they headed West over Tioga Pass back to their climbing location. I made them a little care package of Mom's dried apples and bananas and a few Big Island Candy Co. cookies that my Dad had sent us. 

They dropped us off outside of a small lodge and within seconds a cute little white dog ran up to us. The owner said if we patted our thighs the dog would stand on its back legs and give us a hug. The dog was awesome and her name was Nutmeg. The owner, Brett, started inquiring about our packs and we talked with him about the PCT for a while.

We told him we were hitching up to Reno to catch a Greyhound and he said he was heading that way in a few minutes! He mentioned that he had a long drive to Portland, and I exclaimed, "That's where we live!" He said he'd just have to take us all the way up there! What are the odds!?!

We called Greyhound and somehow got our tickets refunded even though we didn't purchase refundable tickets! We decided to give him $40 each for gas, still saving us over $90 each on the bus fare! 

Meg and Brett

The surprise road trip was awesome! We checked out the salt sculptures at Mono Lake right near Lee Vining, and then started on our long drive North!

 

The best thing about road tripping instead of taking the bus was that we got to stop and eat whenever we wanted to, as well as taking the scenic route! 

We drove all the way up to Lassen Volcanic National Park just before it got dark. This place is beautiful! I've never seen anything like it! It was getting late so we decided to camp there for the night.

The next day we did a nice little morning hike in the park around Manzanita Lake.

We then drove up to Weed, CA, and had a great breakfast at a neat spot. And got to check out Mt. Shasta. Then we drove up through the very scenic Klamath Falls area and then up the I-5 towards home.

We stopped at his mom's place quickly who has a farm outside of Salem. The cherries were at the end of their season and he let us raid some apples, plums, and blackberries! We had handfuls of fresh fruit straight off the trees! 

We also got to check in on 4 barn owl babies up in a nest in their old barn. They were not pleased by our presence and loudly hissed at us when we took a picture.

So creepy! 

After that, we drove the last hour to Downtown Portland, where he dropped us off and we caught the bus back up to our house. It was such a trip that one minute we we in Mammoth and the next we had embarked on a 793 mile road trip with a kind and generous stranger!

It was definitely a great cap to the PCT experience. Brett has been planning to do the PCT for a few years now and is thinking this next year or the year after if he can "escape" from the busy-ness of his produce business that he runs back in Virginia. It would be crazy to see him out there on the year that I re-do the PCT! 

-Thanks for reading!