Day 5, 2.87 miles

I woke up this morning in the sandy wash and checked for mountain lion prints right away but didn’t find any. Andre woke up shortly after I did and I helped him discover Pop Tarts, haha. 

“Thank you, this is a great breakfast!”

I know in yesterday’s post I said the sun gets hot at 8:30, but it definitely got hot at 7:30 today. We’d been descending down down down into the desert floor and were now feeling the heat! 

I told Andre I’d meet him in Julian, and headed off. It was a pretty uneventful few miles except that there are suddenly TONS more cactus! The trail hit the highway and followed it for a bit, and eventually I made it to Scissors Crossing. There under the bridge I met another hiker named Alon from Israel. He had camped right near the highway last night and was also going to hitch into Julian.

Alon

This picture was from later in the day but I just wanted to give you a face for the name!

Alon and I walked down highway 78 for a bit just passed where another road connects to it. I’m glad we did because in a few minutes, a car pulled out from that road headed towards Julian and stopped to pick us up. If we stood before that road we would’ve missed the ride! The hitchhiker-picker-upper was named Sonny. He lives in the area and commutes to work past Julian everyday. 

He was very nice and drove VERY fast! Alon and I crammed in the back of the cluttered sedan and we zipped up the windy 40 mph country road doing at least 60 all the way to Julian! We thanked him and got out, I was pretty surprised I didn’t lose my pop tart breakfast! After walking for 5 days at 2mph, driving and making crazy turns at 60mph is pretty intense.

We walked up to Carmen’s Garden. CLOSED (except for hiker trash!!) What a beautiful oasis in the desert. Carmen is a trail angel in Julian that owns this restaurant. I’m glad I started my hike when I did because as of May 1st she’ll no longer be open to thru-hikers as she’s selling the restaurant. In 2016, Claire and I didn’t stay here but we saw Carmen in the general store and she gave us a ride back to Scissors Crossing!

Carmen

It was so wonderful spending my nero (near zero) day here. Carmen’s helped Sierra greeted me and gave me a nice clean tub of super hot water. First I soaked and washed my blistered feet three times and took off all the old bandages. Then I washed my dirt-face (above picture taken after the face wash) and I added my dirty clothes into a load of laundry to be washed.

Next came the fun part.. I popped 12!! blisters on my feet, yeeeeeouch! Why would I do that to myself? Well, for us hikers, it’s better to pop the blisters so that we don’t continue walking on them and making them worse. It actually doesn’t hurt that bad, you just break the skin with a needle and make sure everything drains out, before slapping some Leukotape back on and walking the next 20 miles. :p Becasue I took a nero here I was able to add the extra step of applying some salve to them and letting them completely dry out overnight before taping them up.

Sarah (with her dog Porter), let me use a sweet salve that worked miracles on my dried, gross blister-laden feet.. Climb On. Mainly used by rock climbers for dried cracked skin and open cuts.

This stuff is magic.

After my laundry was done and I had elevated my feet for a bit, it was time to go get my free pie from Mama’s bakery. They are a great little store in Julian that offered a free slice of pie and a lemonade (otherwise ~$12), to PCT hikers that show their long distance hiking permits. It was there that I saw a familiar face, PUMA!!

Puma

Puma thru-hiked the trail in 2016 and Claire and I met him/talked to him a number of times. He was one of the last hikers to see us after we got sick and before we got off trail! It was so great to catch up with him. He’s FLYING this time around, I believe he started on the 21st and has been doing 20+ miles everyday. No blisters! I could learn a thing or twelve.. his girlfriend started a few weeks ahead of him and he’s planning to catch up with her in a bit. I think that’s so cool!

We said goodbye and he headed back out onto the open trail. After hitting the grocery store and picking up some flip flops (I forgot to get some before I started), I headed back to Carmen’s for more relaxation. I met many hikers during the day there, some just arriving, some leaving that had already stayed a night out on the porch. 

When Carmen was leaving for the day the invited us hikers to come have a shot with her. She accidentally poured two extras, and just before we were about to take them, two hikers, Kayleigh and Debbie, entered the restaurant and received instant tequila shots. What a greeting! I said goodbye to Carmen for what will most likely be the last time :( She is so awesome and treats everyone like family. After leaving she leaves her restaurant open to us to sleep inside/outside, take advantage of free soda, and even a free beer on the honor system (see first pic) 

Speaking of free stuff, check out what someone left in the hiker box!!

Must be a $20 jar! I just scooped all of this into my big plastic peanut butter jar and it’s a great mix! 

Later in the evening Alon and I decided we would go eat at the Julian Grille, and the idea spread like wildfire! Out bro-date turned into a party of 10! It was really really fun meeting everyone at dinner and talking story. It seemed that everyone had a couple funny stories to add to the conversation. I told them my “Desert Creature Religion Theory”, you may vaguely remember this touched on in 2016. I’ll go into more detail about it at a later time, so you’re just gonna have to wait and keep reading! Gotta do something to keep this blog interesting, hahaha.

Roy took this sweet selfie of our 10 top. I’m in between smiles as we had no count down, that’s why my face looks weird. Roy was almost a pro surfer and I geeked out in his surfing “portfolio” that he had on his phone. This guy had surfed 20ft+ Hawaiian scale waves on the North shore of Oahu. If you know, you know.. let’s just say he’s really really good.

The cheapest AND biggest thing ordered on the table. I figured since I don’t eat much veggies on trail I need to stock up in town! This filled me up :)

I got to talk to Claire for over an hour after dinner. I miss her a lot... I lost my little bracelet she made me for the trail today at Carmen’s and no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find it. It make me super sad. I know that’s a trivial thing to be sad about, but when you have so few possessions out here on the trail, losing something that someone close to you MADE for you is like losing a friend :( It’s all in my head of course and she said no problem and that she’d make me another one! :)

I’m sleeping out on the porch tonight at Carmen’s and plan on getting a nice and early start tomorow to beat the heat! Trout rolled in while we were at dinner and he’s going to let me have some of his leukotape for my (hopefully healed up) blisters in the morning. 

Thanks for reading!