Day 19 – 9/12/19

19.5 miles / 365.2 total

We finished up the last couple of miles of sweet sweet Big Indian trail and popped out at the trailhead campground, where we both were able to time our morning bathroom breaks for the pit toilets!

And then we were back on the real ODT, the one where the map has a note saying something to the effect of “we marked this as XC because although it’s an old road, it’s so faint you can’t actually see it”. There was some tiring cross country in there for sure, but also a good bit of followable track.

We stopped at a spring for lunch and rested a while, not in a big hurry. We were only 6 miles from the Steens Wilderness Resort, our destination for the day, and this is Dan’s last day on trail.

At the resort, I picked up my three boxes: a resupply, new shoes, and my solo tent and warmer sleeping bag. We also bought like $30 worth of snacks. Unfortunately, there was no real town food to be had here or 3 miles down the road in Frenchglen.

We paid for a tent campsite for the night (we’d have gotten a cabin, but they were all booked up), but spent the entire afternoon loitering in front of the resort office while tending to chores such as showers and coin laundry, exploding gear everywhere, and trimming our toenails. This campground is actually nicer than any motel we’ve stayed at on this trip.

I’m so hungry though. The little camp store really only had sodas, candy and some sweet snacks. I packed an extra dinner from Fields, anticipating the lack of meals here, but man, but other than that, I had an empty food bag coming into here, and I need my new resupply for the next leg. I so want some real food!

I also have some 4G cell service and very slow WiFi here and got some more website issues resolved and almost caught up on the blogging.

Best of all, Dan had enough cell service to stream the most recent episode of The Great British Bake Off from our tent before bed!