Day 35: 356.7 - 363.5 + 3 miles on the Acorn Trail

I actually slept pretty good on the side of that mountain. I think it was due to it not being so cold. It was windy when we woke and we broke camp quickly after a junk food breakfast. We were up in the air if we were going to hike to Hwy 2 or take the steep Acorn trail down so we could make it to the post office in time to retrieve Josh's care packages.

Immediately the trail climbed and the wind blew cold leaving a haze between the mountains on the horizon. I tried to get into the groove that I was in yesterday but it was just not happening. It is always hard hiking the day you know you're going into town because you just want to be there already. There is no measured pace, no 'let me take a quick breather', no 'stop to take a picture of that bug', it's just go go go and kind of stressful for me.

We leap frogged a couple of hikers whom we leap frogged the day before, Homegirl and Buttercup. Buttercup is a part of the "Walk Off The War Project" which is designed to give veterans the opportunity to recover from their service by hiking the National Scenic Trails. He was very nice to talk to and I loved his trail name. He says "My name is Buttercup, as in suck it up buttercup." That made me laugh.

We finished the last of the up hill shortly before we arrived at the Acorn Trail. Josh made the executive decision to take the trail over hiking the next 8 miles to hwy 2 and hitching in so we could have time to hit the post office, resupply and do a little resting. Sounds good to me!

The trail is steep, no joke. If I had it to do over again I would have not taken it. Once we got to the bottom we had at least a mile of road walking to do that was also downhill. My knees KILL tonight and I've got some Achilles soreness going on. Half way to the bottom Josh called around and booked us a room. I originally thought we were going to just bounce in and bounce out but you know how town goes. We got a reasonable priced room at The Cedar Lodge and I highly recommend it. Big rooms, clean with a fridge and full size coffee maker and a shower that was huge and had seats in it so I didn't have to sit on the floor while I scrubbed my feet! It even had full sized towels! We headed directly for the room and checked in, dropped our pack and headed directly to the market where they were serving fresh BBQ. There, we met up with the AT boys again and they teased us for shopping hungry when we came out of the store with four bags of food, none of which were for resupply. We headed to the Post Office and Josh retrieved one package out of two and had to track down the second which was mistakenly delivered to the hardware store.

Back at the hotel we set up epic carpet picnic and ate everything! Grapes, strawberries, BBQ, beans and macaroni. For dessert we ate some of Josh's sister Tammy's homemade chocolate chip banana bread and I about died it was so good. We must have eaten half the loaf and the further to the center we got the better the bread tasted. After our pig out session we laid down and played on our phones and rested until the evening when we headed back to the store to do resupply.

It is always hard for me to figure out resupply in grocery stores. I have to stop and lay everything out by days before I check out to make sure I've got all my meals covered. I'm sure that will get easier the further we go. I bought Ms. Julia another post card (Carlos tells me she is convinced I'm in Florida) and my mom a mother day card.

We dropped everything off in the room and went to dinner at The Grizzly Cafe. As we walked up a guy dressed in the tale tell puffy jacket and trail runners yells at us "no hiker trash allowed!" I joked with him a bit before we headed inside. The cafe was not at all what I expected but the food was awesome and not over priced.

After dinner we went back to the room and repackaged everything for travel which consists of tossing the copious amounts of factory packing and putting stuff in ziplocs. We have to carry six days of food to get to our next section and goddamnit, any way you slice it, food is heavy. I don't like carrying it, almost as much as I don't like carrying water. But I do like eating it, so there's that.

Right. Is it's almost 10 and were all packed up to head out early tomorrow. We hope to make it up Baden Powell tomorrow but I'm not sure if that's going to happen. We shall see!

Until tomorrow! Goodnight!

P.S. Our Easter Bunny toy was retrieved from the hiker box in Cajon Pass and taken to Las Vegas! Someone on Facebook posted a picture of him all bedazzled and with his original note. Travel well Mr. Bunny!!