Pizza From Strangers

9:25 AM

At 10:00 PM a hiker suddenly walks by with a headlamp. Handy, because I’m instantly lit up. At 11:00 PM I had to go to the bathroom, so I turned on my own light as well 🤣.

The nights are getting colder and colder. That’s going to be something in California; I’ll have to come up with a solution for that.

11:35 AM

A water source, but I don’t quite trust it—it could just as easily be an open sewer 🤔. Three Germans are filtering water there, but they say it tastes a bit strange. Not for me!

3:28 PM

Pretty hefty log.

4:51 PM

I’m sitting in the grass by the road when a car with three older SOBO ladies pulls up. They’ve just come from the resort, which is just a bit too far for me to walk to. They ask if I’d like a slice of pizza, because they don’t like it themselves. No problem—anything’s better than freeze-dried meals 🤣. And it wasn’t actually that bad, but maybe that’s because I haven’t had pizza in a while 🤣.

5:19 PM

Heh, finally another water source. Whether it’s good water is still questionable, since it flows out of a lake.

5:50 PM

In the open sections it’s blazing hot; you really have to keep moving to get back under the trees.

7:40 PM

Alright, I’ve had enough for today. Everyone is passing me, but I don’t really care. I’ve booked a little motel for tomorrow so I can get everything back in order. I can’t check in until after four, but it’s only 33 km, so that’s manageable. Mostly I’m just glad I’ll be able to replace all my broken gear.

Total: 38.65 km in 11:38 hours
911 m ascent
1,072 m descent

And all that without a hip belt—but it helps that the food bag is almost empty 🤔.