October 29

Distance: zero!

Lunch: J – turkey sandwich (A+), A – meatball sub (10/10, realized a dream!)

Dinner: J&A – mashed potatoes and goldfish crackers (A)

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Looking at the next section, we thought doing it in five days would be too easy. It would only be 20 miles a day! Plus, we have to schedule around the post office hours in Big Bear Lake. If we stuck to our original plan, we’d have to kill a day in Big Bear. Instead, we decided to kill a day in Wrightwood, enjoying our cozy cabin for a other 24 hours, and shorten the section from five to four days. This probably won’t come back to haunt us, right?

We slept in. We got coffee. We actually took it slow in the morning. It was nice. We’re doing more zeros and rest days now that we’re out of the Sierras. The four months of continuous hiking have worn our bodies. We’re at a level of tired that one rest day can’t fix. Nevertheless, these rest days are important. We can get a few more calories. We can stretch. We can walk around without a pack. It doesn’t fix us completely, but we get some recovery in.

We got our resupply and traded snacks with TimTam. Even though we have a variety of snacks and bars and meals, we have favorites, and our opinion on some foods has changed over the months. Foods that we loved at the beginning are growing old. Doing a lunchroom style trade was mutually beneficial.

The coffee shop in town offered PCT hikers a free cuppa. We didn’t even have to prove anything! We just have that look, apparently.

Jason got a haircut at the hair salon. He tried the barbershop, but they were fully booked for the day. On a whim, he walked into the salon. Katie graciously gave him a cut between customers with actual appointments. While women sat around waiting for dye to sink in, Jason plopped into a chair and got the pro treatment. It was Jason’s first time in a hair salon. She even shampooed his hair! It was quite an experience.

Afterward, we went to the grocery store to get lunch at the deli. Alex fulfilled her months-long dream of obtaining a meatball sub. Across the street, the gas station/market offered PCT hikers a free hot dog! Again, we didn’t have to prove anything! Wrightwood goes hard in supporting hikers!

We saw a few other hikers we didn’t recognize getting their free hot dog while we sat outside. They had just got to town. We keep thinking we’re the last ones, but it seems like there’s always someone else behind us.

We had a chill evening watching Breaking Bad reruns in our cabin as we ate our groceries. We’re getting better at not buying too much at the grocery store. In earlier towns, our eyes were bigger than our stomach and we nearly made ourselves sick.

We’ll hop on trail early tomorrow to get a full day, probably.