Tuesday, May 2 — day 37

PCT mile 517.60 to 529.42

Today I tried to sleep in but the sunlight just would not let me, so I got up, took a shower and packed my pack. Medic arrived yesterday afternoon and we decided that since the temperature will be in the 90’s today, we will leave after 3pm and hike as far as we can into the night. We’ve got a 16 mile journey to the first water across the desert. Well try to do half of it tonight and the other half tomorrow morning.

Doc, Zero and others arrived late yesterday so we crammed about 7 people into an old minivan to get breakfast at the cafe down the road.  While waiting outside for our eggs and such Doc made the rounds giving shoulder massages.  He’s got a good sense of where the tightness is and some powerful fingers to deal with the muscle knots he finds.  Ahhhhh…

We returned to HikerTown to chill and await lunch and our departure time.  I updated blogs, recharged my electronics and napped in the breezy shade. At 10am it did not seem that hot and I entertained the thought of heading out early, but then it suddenly started getting warmer and I could see the wind turbines 15-20 miles away where I am headed spinning quickly- so lots of wind too… soooo, back to napping!

Doc showed us his sunburn treatment:  juice from a can of French-cut Green Beans… Here he is treating Goat’s face, Tatters’ nose and Corky’s forehead.  They reported that it worked!

We crammed 9 people into that same minivan and drove down the road to get a late lunch.  One lunch offering I have never seen before was deep fried avocado slices…

By the time we got back it was 4:00. Medic and I headed out.  

We quickly came to the California Aqueduct, a cement sided river running from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Los Angeles, which we followed for a few miles.

Then we the came upon the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which crosses the California Aqueduct.  The LA Aqeduct is a semi buried steel pipe with the PCT on top.  First here’s looking to where we are going and then where we came from (with Medic)

You know you are truly in the Mojave Desert when you see Joshua Trees

I came across this cool bug – I think it iscalled a “True Bug”

Our shadows grew long as we hiked into the evening.

We came upon a herd of range cows as the sun was setting 

At about 8:45, wit 12 miles logged and with a half-moon lighting out way, we decided to make camp.  We found a nice sandy spot for me to lay out my groundcloth and Medic his tent and we drifted off to sleep interrupted by coyotes yipping and some late night hikers passin us by (Rex, Tatters, Corky, Doc and Zero).

Thanks for reading!