Day 39 – 6/5/11 – 17 miles (583)

Not bad mileage for not starting until almost noon. After a leisurely hotel continental breakfast, we found out there was no one available to give us a ride back to the trail, leaving us forced to hitch. We walked to the end of town and had to keep going to get out of the way of some other guy who was trying to hitch. I think hikers and homeless people look the same to a lot of people, and it seems only those who recognize the difference (trekking poles!) actually give us rides. Anyway, eventually a nice guy with a pickup truck stopped for us and said he’d take us most of the way. Not bothering to ask where ‘most of the way’ was, we jumped in. Turns out his ‘half a mile’ from the trail drop off point was really more like 5 miles. Now we were stuck walking along an interstate highway. When we got to a reasonable pull off point about a mile later, I stuck my thumb out just in case, and immediately a car stopped and took us the rest of the way.

Now it’s back to the very dry trail. Sixteen miles from the highway to water, and 20 miles to the next source after that. These long water hauls will take my pack the heaviest it’s been.