One thing I really like doing in the mornings is something I call “chasing the shadows”. As the sun rises and we’re going over ridges, they go from being mostly covered in shade to eventually becoming all exposed, which is when I start thinking of shade breaks. Today was filled with awesome little purple flowers, and the shadow chasing had me feeling very energized for some odd reason despite the big uphill climb!
Julian shadow chasing
Mountain-covering flowers
A shade-providing tree Claire and I utilized in the midday heat back in 2016. This time we passed it around 8am!
Wildflowers all over
We hit a cool little private water cache set up next to someone property that butts up to the trail in the middle of nowhere. There was a little bit of water in case anyone was running low. We rested here for a bit and then started our hilly, roller-coasters descent back down to the desert floor!
Aaaand back down
Normally, my knees start to hurt during downhills, but the long descent was so gradual that I felt pretty good! Even with a super long day at a very quick pace!
On the way down I texted my cousin Ryan who lives in Tehachapi. I had texted him about a week ago but I had accidentally texted his old phone instead of his current one. When I texted his new phone, he quickly got back to me and said that Julian and I could stay at his house and rest tomorrow! That worked out nicely!
Excitedly, we sped down the last 8 miles of trail/road and made it to hwy 58 to try and hitch into Tehachapi. Cousin Ryan offered to pick us up at the hwy on ramp around 4:50pm, but since we had already hiked 24+ miles and it was only 4pm, we figured we’d try and hitch in to hit the post office to get our resupply packages before the post office closed.
Luckily, after a couple minutes, a single truck was driving by the exit. I approached him and he said he’d take us into Tehachapi! We didn’t even have to go down to the actual highway, which Claire and I did last time to hitch into Mojave and is pretty sketchy...
First stop Post Office, second Stop Denny’s :)
There was a Denny’s right near the post office, so right after we got our packages we went and had some milkshakes and a little food. Cousin Ryan picked us up from Denny’s shortly after around 5pm on his way home! Everything worked out great!
I’ll post pictures of Ryan and Rachel and the house tomorrow since we’re taking a zero day here in Tehachapi. As for today, we showered at the house and then headed out to a business called Local Craft Beer. This is a place that they go to every Wednesday night for trivia night. It reminded me a lot of a few different places in Portland. There was great craft beer and we ate Thai food and enjoyed listening to the trivia questions. We saw Keg-legs there! She was the only their hiker there!
Ryan and his team of engineers (coworkers), always make a name that has to do with Mongoose, and today their name was Phenomamongoose! They won the trivia night!! After trivia I got to check out two baby tortoises, Spike and Littlefoot.
Spike
The trivia team! Cousin Ryan and Rachel on far left
It was definitely a fun day! Everything timing-wise worked out great today! Julian and I are super grateful that Ryan and Rachel let us crash at their place and use their amenities with such short notice!! The love of family is always felt genuinely. You two rock!!
I realized today that I’ve done 106.89 miles in the last 5 days! That’s over 20 miles every day on average! We’re feeling good Physically and can only imagine we’ll feel better after our second zero on trail here tomorow in Tehachapi! That’s it for now, it’s way past my bedtime!
Thanks for reading!!
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