Date: June 7 – 11, 2017
Miles: 0. 
Health: Healing from shin splints. 

The next morning I wake up to a strange sound. Chickens? I turn around and see four chickens surrounding Blü who’s soundly asleep. They hop on top of him one by one and next go around me. I spend the next half an hour watching the chickens doing their thing around the patio and front yard.

After the chicken watching I go inside and find everyone in the kitchen eating breakfast. Rachel's husband is making us breakfast and I'm soon offered pancakes and eggs. Today's a zero day so no one is in a rush.

We spend the day chilling in, watching movies and resting. Once you stop hiking, you feel like you've been hit by a truck, every muscle in your body hurts. Funnily this all disappears when you get back on the trail, but in towns we're lazy, slow moving creatures.

My shin is still hurting badly. I don't know what to do with it. I can't go out now, and if this is shin splints, it's not going away in a day or two. I'm getting afraid that this injury is going to hinder my hike.

Zeroing

Everyone enjoys our stay at Tehachapi and at Rachel's so much that our one zero turns to two, and then three. We go to movies to watch the new Pirates movie, go to the farmers market, eat, rest, and enjoy our stay.

While others are getting ready to go out the next day, Rachel comes up to me and tells me not to go out with my shin. She tells me what I already know, if I hike on with my shin splints, I risk getting a stress fracture and that would most likely end my hike. She tells me that while they are going out of town with their entire family for a hike, I would be welcome to stay at the house and rest. There would be also few other hikers coming in and staying. We would be housesitting and looking after the animals and plants.

I thank Rachel for her offer but I don't want to stay and watch everyone else hike on. But that night I also have a talk with Blü and my options are quite clear: hike out with hurting shin and risk a stress fracture, or stay back and rest for few days and then get back on the trail. This makes everything pretty clear.

I decide to stay back and rest my shin. The next morning I tell Rachel that I'd like to take her up on her offer and stay back. While they are leaving, she tells me to give rides to other hikers and bring two other hikers in from trail. They are joining three of us who are staying at her place.

The next section is about 100 miles and it's going to take others around five days to complete. This, with the zeros we already took, gives me about a week of rest. That should be enough to heal.

Now I have to decide weather to stay behind my trail family, or skip to Walker Pass and meet them there. I don't like the idea of skipping, but if I stay behind, I won't catch them before the Sierra. And going to Sierra alone, or with people I don't know, is a risky move. With all the snow, you want to go in with people you trust and know.  I would have to do 8 days of hiking in 3 days. I can't do that.

The snow pack in Sierra is so big this year that I want to go in with people that I trust so I have no other option than to skip a 100 mile section of the trail. This spoils my continuous footpath to Canada, but things don't always go as you want.

Trail angeling

It's time for everyone to get back on the trail. As everyone is getting their gear ready, I feel bad. I don't like staying behind, I feel like I'm going to miss out.

Everyone gets on the truck and I drive them to the trailhead. As we approach the highway 58 trailhead, I see a lone hiker in the distance coming in. As it's a hard spot to hitch, I make a mental note to offer him a ride before I leave.

We say our goodbyes and everyone's getting ready. I notice Fyre isn't looking good, actually she's looking really really sick. After watching her for awhile, I try to tell her not to go out but she tells me she's fine. The weather is really windy and actually cold. Everyone leaves and I go and pick up the lone hiker. He introduces himself as Neon and I give him a ride back to town. It takes about 20 minutes to get back as the distance is quite long.

I drop Neon at the hotel and go get some food. Just as I'm driving back to the house my phone rings, it's Fyre. She sounds really bad and asks if I could in anyway come and pick her up from the trailhead, she's too sick to hike. I tell her absolutely and turn the car instantly around.

In about half an hour I'm back at the trailhead but no sight of Fyre. It's getting dark and the wind is really hard. I take out my headlamp and start walking down the trail. Soon I see two hikers far in the distance. As they approach it's Fyre and Blü. He wanted to make sure that Fyre got back alright. Blü fills his water bottles back up and then heads back out to the dark night.

I drive Fyre and I back to the house. She goes to sleep and pretty much spends the next three days sleeping. Good things she turned around as she was really sick.

For the next days I pretty much work as a trail angel. I give hikers rides back and forth the town and trailheads. When ever I get to either end, there's always more hikers in need of a ride. Pretty soon my phone is ringing constantly as more hikers hear that I'm giving rides and I have to start getting more organized. One of the hikers, Crumbs, who's staying at Rachel's, helps me out and drives with me for few days.

While in Tehachapi I also meet another Finnish hiker. She did a section of the PCT. It was great speaking Finnish for a while. Although speaking about the trail is a bit hard as all the terms are in English so we constantly find ourselves switching to English words.

One day I also go get two hikers who are also staying at Rachel's. I pick up Camp Counselor and Poison Ivy from the trailhead and give them a lift to the house. We spend few day hanging out.

The days go by fast and my shin is starting to feel a lot better. The shin guard that I bought for it also helps.

I keep hearing messages from the trail that it's really windy. A lot of the people I take up to the trail, I end up picking back up as they turned around due to the strong winds.

Fyre and I start to make plans on how to get back on the trail in Walker Pass.

Date: June 6, 2017
Miles: 8.8 miles (14.2km), from mile 549.7 to Willow Springs Road.
Health: My right shin hurts so bad I can barely walk.

I slept like a rock. The night was cool and I had set up my camp on soft pine needles. I woke up to others rustling their gear. I turned around and saw that Blis and Sunshine were still sleeping so I didn't hurry. We only needed to do little over 8 miles to the Willow Springs road to hitch to Tehachapi so there was no rush.

After a lazy start, I head out with Blis and we're soon walking among the hundreds of windmills. The rest of the trail goes through the massive wind farm.

Few miles in my shin starts to hurt bad again and I pop the strongest painkillers I have to numb the pain. As the medicine kicks in, I can walk like normal and I'm enjoying the hiking immensely again.

As we see the road in the distance, we get cell reception and both Blis and I call home. He stays a little back and I keep hiking, talking with my mom and dad and brothers.

A little before I reach the road the painkillers start to wear off and my shin starts to hurt again. This doesn't look good for my hike. I can't keep eating painkillers to just be able to hike small days.

As I'm almost at the road I see a familiar blue frisbee, Copper Tone is here! I limb to the road and see not only Copper Tone but Legend too. Double trail magic!

I sit down and get a soda from Legend and soon Copper Tone brings me a root beer float. This is my first time having a root beer float and it's really good. It's basically ice cream in root beer and on the hot trail it tastes absolutely delicious.

Others are there as well and soon get a ride to town. Me and Blü stay behind.

After a while of sitting around and talking with Copper Tone, it's time to get to town. Blü, Birddog, and I start trying to hitch. We stand in the sun by the road and try to look our best but no cars stop.

We're about to give up as a white SUV pulls over and a nice lady offers to take us all the way to Tehachapi. We hop in, happy to be out of the hot sun.

As we're driving down to town I get a message from Pony and she tells they have been invited to stay over at an trail angel's house and me and Blü are also invited. That sounds really good!

We get dropped off at the front of the small mall in town and after thanking the lovely lady for our ride, Blü and I head out to eat. I'm starving for some town food and we go for some sushi.

After stuffing ourselves with ice cold sodas and sushi we head to the grocery store close by. Pony messages that they'll come to pick us up but it's going to take a few hours. To kill some time we get more sodas and then head to Taco Bell. We sit in the air conditioned fast food joint and drink endless drinks, talking with few fellow thru-hikers who were eating there.

Pony messages that they are coming to town and that they will pick us up at the grocery store. We move there with Blü and soon everyone arrives. After doing some grocery shopping we stuff all of us into the car and drive to the trail angels house.

Once we got to the house, we saw how amazing it was. The house was perched on the foot of a mountain, and Rachel, the trail angel whose house we were staying at, had made it a real haven. Her family consisted of four beautiful children, her husband, a dog, a cat, and four chickens.

The moment we got there she welcomed us to her house and life. She offered us not only her house, the change do laundry, take a shower, clean loaner clothes, and food. She had made us a nice, big dinner and we ate it at her backyard. The whole house was filled with peace and love, and I felt at ease from the moment we stepped in. I couldn't believe how lucky we were.

After the dinner we had to go back to town as Roller needed to get there. She was leaving us for her real world needs. She and her husband were moving to a new home and she needed to be there to organize everything. We were sad to see her go but we're happy to have hiked with her for as far as we had.

We all said our goodbyes to Roller and wished for her quick return to the trail with us. It felt bad to have a member of our trail family leave, even if we knew she would eventually get back on the trail.

We drove back to the house and after few beers went to sleep. Blü and I set our sleeping bags on the front patio as it was quite hot inside. Everyone else slept on the large living room mat and sofas.

When I was getting to sleep I noticed I had completely forgotten to document the day after we got off the trail.

I hope a few days rest would get me shin back to hiking order, everyone is zeroing here.

Date: June 5, 2017
Miles: 8.2 miles (13.2km), from Tylerhorse Canyon to mile 549.7.
Health: My right shin is hurting badly. Every step hurst.

We sleep in the shade of a large tree and I keep dozing off but not falling in to deep sleep. The sun keeps moving so I have to constantly switch places, and the ants keep getting into my sleeping bag. I do however get some sleep as every time I wake up, there are new people under the tree. Soon every inch of shade is used by a hiker. It doesn't even need to be flat.

Once the sun starts to set, everyone perks up a little. Packs are being packed up and slowly people head out to the heat. We wait for a little longer as there's no reason to go out too early.

While we wait the girls sing show tunes and everyone's having a good time. While I'm tired I'm still in a good mood. I use KT tape to tape my shin hoping that would help. Queso and Pony also give me some muscle relaxers and stronger painkillers. Thank you guys!

Then we slowly start heading out, one by one. The hike is beautiful as we watch the sun set behind the mountains and paint the windmill farm down below with golden hues.

The trail is relatively easy. There are few longer climbs but mostly it's nice and even. During one long climb the sun finally goes behind the mountains and all light goes out. It's time to take out the headlamps.

As I climb the shin that has been good so far starts hurting more and more. Soon I have to seriously slow down. I take more painkillers but they don't seem to work. I'm forced to limb again.

I look at the map and I'm 10.6 miles from the road where we hitch to Tehachapi. I know I can't do that with this leg tonight. There's a nice campsite few miles up, and from there it would be mostly downhill to the road. I decide to do the rest tomorrow and just make it to that campsite for tonight.

Even those few miles to the campsite are too much and by the time I make it there, my shin is hurting so bad that I have tears in my eyes. Thankfully others have had the same idea to camp here so I pull up next to Blis and set up my cowboy camp. It wouldn't make much sense to get to the road in the middle of the night as hitchhiking to town would be kind of sketchy.

Those were some hard 8 miles. It doesn't look good. I quickly fall asleep as I'm still tired from previous night.

Date: June 4, 2017
Miles: 24.1 miles (38.8km), from Hiker Town to Tylerhorse Canyon at mile 541.5.
Health: My right shin is hurting and after 10 miles walking becomes painful.

We're crossing the Mojave desert today and tomorrow. As temperatures at the desert get really high, and there's practically no shade, we're hiking this section during the night.

We spend the entire day just relaxing and eating at the Wee Vill Market. I eat tacos, burgers, and milkshakes all day. Everything is really good and all the amenities are easily available. This is one of the perks of thru-hiking: you can eat like a pig and still lose weight.

We try to sleep in the small areas of shade but the flies and the heat make it impossible to fall asleep and soon retreat back to the cool air of the market. Waking up early, not having any sleep during the day, and going out for an all night hike is not the best option. Sadly there's not much we can do.

We eat and rest and eat and rest. Finally the sun starts to set and we start to head back towards Hiker Town. Our ride arrives and we all hop on. After an interesting 10 minute ride we arrive. While everyone's getting ready Blü and Fyre join us from Hiker Town. There's a lot of hugging and yelling.

From Hiker Town the trail goes along a small road for awhile. We sing and dance down the road towards the Mojave and the sunset and everyone's in a really great mood. I love the goofiness of our trail family.

After the road walk we reach the open part of the aqueduct and turn sharply to right. We walk along the concrete side and wonder why the water seems to be going away from LA until we realize it's probably going towards the water treatment plan down the road.

Soon we take another sharp turn to the left and cross the open stream. From here the aqueduct continues as a large metal pipe. The trail follows on the top of the pipe and we form a line like ducks. It starts to get dark.

We follow the pipe for few miles and more singing and laughing occurs. While the trail would be pretty fast to hike on, as it's mainly flat and straight, we move really slow. It gets so dark that we need to turn on our headlamps.

We take another sharp turn, this time to the right and leave the pipe behind. Now the aqueduct follows underneath us in a concrete channel and as we walk on top of it, we can hear the sound of the rushing water. Now the trail is so wide that we all walk side-by-side. This is fun as normally you could never do this on the trail, and now you can hear what everyone in the group is saying. We played all kinds of games to make the time go by.

Even though it's already late, the desert floor is still very hot. We stop every now and then to have a drink pause and just cool our bodies. I look at the clock and our progress and we're doing about 2 miles per hour. A far cry of what we usually do.

As the trail turns up from the desert floor towards the wind farm, the wind picks up. The large windmills look eerie against the black night sky. Soon it gets so windy that we have to put on our wind or rain jackets to get some protection. The wind is so heavy that we need to really lean into it to keep walking.

My right shin has been progressively getting worse and worse as we have hiked. By now it's hurting so bad that I keep popping vitamin I like it's candy. I'm sure the ibuprofen is taking the worse of the pain away but it still hurts so much that I'm limbing and keep biting my lip. I can barely keep up with the group even though they slow down to wait for me.

Blis keeps me company and talking with him distracts from the pain a little. But still the last miles to the bridge where we've planned to stay for the night are pure pain. It's already 2am and I'm tired but we would need to wake up in two hours to hike the 7 miles to the only shade where to spend the day sleeping. I know myself, and with my limbing, that I won't make it there before the sun comes up, so I decide to keep going. It means I have to hike throughout the night, against heavy wind, limbing, to get to the shade.

Few people tell me to stay, looking at my limbing, but I have to choose between limbing in dark and cold, or in sunlight and extreme heat. I choose the colder weather.

Pony and Queso also want to get all the way to the canyon before the sun comes up and leave with me. Pony gives me some muscle relaxers and stronger painkillers. Me and Queso head out first and Pony says she'll follow us.

I can't keep up with Queso in any way and I stay behind immediately. Pretty soon I don't even see his headlamp anymore. I'm limbing alone in the dark, trying to protect my face from the wind, and try to avoid stepping on the small jumping desert mouse that cover the trail. They get completely disoriented when my headlamp hits them and start running against my legs. Few run against me and I try my best to avoid the cute little beasts. Hope I don't see any rattlers.

Every now and then I look back but I don't see Pony's headlamp. Strange. She's a fast hiker and I'm basically crawling forward, she should catch me in no time.

The combination of the wind and the pain on my shin gets tiring and I have to take breaks constantly to rest and stretch. On one long uphill I finally run completely out of energy and as I see a small brush that provides a little coverage from the wind, I stop for a small night lunch. Looking at my progress I'm doing about 1.5 miles per hour, which means I barely make it to the canyon before the sun starts to heat up the desert.

As I get up to walk again, I see a headlamp climbing not far behind me. Pony. I hike slowly upwards, she'll catch me soon. We stop in the wind, between the windmills, to talk for awhile. She's also having a tough time. I wish her luck and she soon speeds ahead of me.

The sun is already getting up and we see the scenery better. I catch up to Pony every time she stops to take photos of the hundreds of windmills around us. This would be a perfect spot and timing to take some great sunrise photos but I'm too tired to stop. I just try to take few snaps and keep limbing. Need to get to the canyon before the sun gets too high.

Finally I reach the last climb up and at the bottom I meat Dragon and Andrew who've camped there. They comment that I look like shit. I feel like shit. I quickly continue as I just want to get up and to sleep.

The climb feels like torture and my tired legs aren't helping. When I see the canyon I start to smile. I see Pony and Queso setting up a camp under a tree below and yell to them to keep me a spot. I hop and limb down as fast as I can and set up my tyvek and sleeping bag and quickly fall asleep. Rough night but made it here before others and before the sun made the air too hot for me to hike. The plan is to stay here all day and then start the next climb as the sun sets.

Now it's time to sleep.

Date: June 3, 2017
Miles: 0
Health: Feeling rested but my shin feels a bit iffy. 

I slept poorly last night. The trailer, and the night, was so hot that I was up still at 2am. To add to the hotness, the wind picked up at night and kept rocking the entire trailer back and forth. Sleeping outside would've been a better option.

As the sun rises so early in the morning that it's almost impossible to sleep anywhere which isn't in a shade. I woke up as the trailer felt like a sauna and escaped it only to realize there was nowhere to go to escape the heat. The desert floor, and everything else down here, was just unbearably hot.

In the bunk room I find Taylor and the Swiss. Taylor is using MLD Burn backpack, which is the 38 liter version of the 48 liter Prophet I'm using. As I'm having trouble filling up my pack, and I've been wondering about the size of the Burn, I ask Taylor if I could try out his pack with my gear. He throws me the empty pack and I run into the trailer to see how my gear fits inside the 10 liter smaller pack.

I can easily fit all my gear, plus 3 days of food, to the pack. Wow. I seriously want a smaller pack. Only thing that I don't like is the small opening of the Burn. It makes getting stuff in and out a bit harder.

Soon the first people of our trail family start appearing. By the look on their faces, and the stories they tell, I'm not feeling bad at all about skipping this section. Apparently the trail was hot and full of biting flies. This matches what other people before them had been telling. I feel bad for my friends who are still out there as the sun starts to really heat up the air.

We take the early morning shuttle to the Neenach market to eat breakfast and to enjoy the air conditioner. It's all about the small things here. After filling our bellies with soda and burritos, we make our way back to Hiker Town.

One by one everyone, except KB (Sunshine) and Blis, arrive to the Hiker Town. Pony had heard a tip that the Wee Vill market would be a better spot to camp and starts to organize a ride for everyone there.

I was a bit skeptical and didn't really want to commit to leaving Hiker Town. It's where the trail continues, and I had already spread out all my gear. But the more I heard about the Wee Vill, the more it made sense to go there. There we could sleep on grass (instead of the never ending sand we've been on for the past month), and the restaurant and store would be right next door instead of a 10 minute ride away.

I ran back to my trailer to put my things back together and barely made it to the ride to Wee Vill. But I'm happy that I did. It turned out to be a great place. Other that our trail family there were hardly any other hikers there, and the place was pretty cool for resting and spending a day out of the sun.

We setup our cowboy camps right along the fence on the soft grass and went to the restaurant to stuff our stomachs full. I had carne asada tacos and they were SO good!

As the place was closing up for the night, I managed to call Blis and Sunshine who were still on the trail and get their orders in before the restaurant closed. An hour later they both joined our ranks and Blis got to have the burger he had been talking about the whole day. It was good having most of the tramily back together again.

During the night I got woken up by the wind as it was just whipping everyone's gear around. I tried to secure Pony's stuff under her as she was sleeping next to me, and had to push Roller back on to her side as she had encroached a bit too much of my sleeping pad. The grass felt so soft to sleep against.

Date: June 2, 2017
Miles: 0, hitch from Casa de Luna to Hiker Town.
Health: Feeling good and anxious to hike again. My shin keeps hurting. 

Note: as my camera is still broken (see day 25), all photos here are from iPhone 7 Plus. 

I first woke up at 5am. No one from our group was moving so I got back to sleep. I woke up again after six and slowly started to get up. The pancake breakfast was at 7am so I had nowhere to be before that. Sunshine, Fyre, and Blü were still sleeping.

It doesn't take me long to get my things together so I head out of the forrest and down to the house. As I get there I see Blü. I thought he was still sleeping?

As we're waiting for the pancakes we all sign our trail names on the sheets covering the front of the house. Soon the first ride goes out but no one from our group is on that.

I've decided to get a hitch to Lake Hughes, get my camera, then hike the 2.1 miles (3.4km) from the town back to the PCT.

I don't get full from the pancakes so I get my gear, fill up enough water and hike out to the small cafe in town for second breakfast. I order breakfast burrito with extra bacon. As I'm eating two older gentlemen strike up a conversation about hiking the PCT. They also wonder where I'm from due to my accent.

As I tell them about my plans to hitch to Lake Hughes, they offer me a ride. The other gentleman tells me he's going to the same direction and can give me a ride if I don't mind waiting for him to do few quick errands. I don't mind.

We hop into his car and drive around the town to do his tasks. It doesn't take us longer than ten minutes and then we're on our way. He's originally from New Zealand and we talk about how he got here and differences between the two countries. He's running the local newspaper in the area and everyone we meet seems to know him.

We drive by Lake Elisabeth, which has almost dried up, and soon arrive to Lake Hughes Post Office. I get in, show my ID and they start searching for my package. There's only a handful of packages and I can quickly see there's no Amazon packages in the pile. The two workers spend ten minutes looking for it but can't find it. We try to search it by the tracking number but as Amazon didn't ship it with USPS, that's useless.

It's not looking good.

I call the shipping company and after a moment with the representative, they can't seem to know where the package is either. The problem is that I've shipped the package through general delivery, but that only works on USPS. And apparently using common sense is not an requirement for shipping companies, so they can't find Lake Hughes Post Office without a physical address on the box. Lake Hughes is a town small enough that if you blink while driving through, you'll miss it.

So the representative takes my number and says he'll call me back once they find my camera. So now I start thinking where I can send the camera next as I'm going to be leaving the town right away. Even if they would find it, it's Friday and the post office won't be open until Monday. And now I can't get on trail before I hear back from the shipping company and can give them the new address where to ship my camera. I start counting days and miles. Will it make it to Tehachapi? That's 4-5 days, but only two business days. Lake Isabella? That's over a week away.

As I'm doing all this in my head, the gentleman who gave me the ride has been patiently waiting and offers to drive me a little ways down the trail. As I can't get on the trail right away and lose cell reception, getting a bit ahead and then waiting for others and the call sounds like a good plan.

We start driving and stop by at a small grocery store so I can do my resupply. We drive down few minutes and then we pull up on the road, we're at Hiker Town. I'm two days ahead of everyone else. One problem at a time, first I need to locate my camera. So I get into Hiker Town and just wait for the call.

Hiker Town is a, how should I put this, a place with a lot of character. What that character is, I'm not sure, but it's definitely unique. Bob, the caretaker of the place, shows me around and I find a lounge area where to chill. It's really hot outside already as we're on the desert floor.

After few hours my phone rings and it's the delivery company. They plainly inform me that they've lost my package and that they're going to look for it for 8 days and get back to me. Great!

I call Amazon, explain the situation and they offer to refund me immediately. I accept. As this is happening I realize that there's a larger city of Lancaster not far away and they have two Walmart's. Walmart has a camera department. A quick call and the lady at the other end confirms they don't have the camera I'm looking for. But I have better luck with the second Walmart. Now I just need a ride there.

Hiker called Papa Homie is going the same way so we first take a ride to Neenack market and then hitch a ride to Lancaster from there. A lovely lady who picked us up takes us all the way to the Walmart. I head to the camera department while Papa Homie does his thing.

As I reach the camera department I can quickly tell we're at the wrong Walmart. We forgot to specify which Walmart we were going. Dang. After Papa Homie finishes his shopping we take Uber to the second Walmart.

I run in and go directly to the camera department. No luck, again. They don't have the camera here either. I've come all the way here so I really want to find the camera. I ask around a little bit and there's a Best Buy in town close by.

Another Uber drive later we arrive at the Best Buy and there at the camera department I see my camera. One MasterCard swipe later I'm holding a working camera again in my hands. I feel so relieved.

As we get out we notice the Five Guys restaurant opposite the Best Buy and as we're quite hungry, decide to do a quick pit stop. I devour over 3,000 calories in under 20 minutes. That's a great thru-hiker lunch.

We take another Uber to get back to Hiker Town. On the way we stop at Neenack to buy some beer and snacks for the evening.

As we get back to Hiker Town, few other familiar hikers have hiked in but not anyone from our trail family. I'm pretty beat so after few beers I crawl into the old trailer where I'm sleeping tonight and go to bed. It's hard to sleep as it's so hot.

Date: June 1, 2017
Miles: 4 miles (6.4km), from mile 474.2 to Casa De Luna.
Health: Well rested after long sleep. Pain on the front of the right shin bothers a bit.

Note: as my camera is still broken (see day 25), all photos here are from iPhone 7 Plus. 

I woke up lazily. The saddle I was sleeping on was perfect as it kept the sun out, both in the evening, and in the morning. I was in no hurry. I had to do 4 miles and it was mostly downhill.

My shelter had dried up nicely during the night so I could pack it up again and not worry. I probably won't be using it again for awhile. I stuff my pockets with a light breakfast, I'm trying to make it to the Andersson's for the famous pancake breakfast.

The trail is easy but my right shin is causing some problems. I take some ibuprofen and continue hiking. Hope this isn't going to be a problem as I really don't want to slow down now.

The miles go fast and soon I see the road. Down where the trail end at road, I see a car waiting, a ride to Andersson's? This would eliminate the few mile road walk there. I know there's a small group of hikers just few minutes ahead of me so I start slowly jogging down the trail. I'm hoping to catch them and hop on the same ride.

Soon I see them a little bit ahead. We arrive at the road about the same time and I see some familiar faces around the car. It's the girls, Morgan, Kristen, Laurel, and Pig Ben. They're heading out as I'm coming in.

I get a big hug from Terri Andersson. She's giving rides back and forth to her house. We wait few minutes to see if the two other hikers behind me need a ride as well. They are pushing on so we leave to make it to Casa De Luna for breakfast.

It's a short drive and as we arrive, we meet Joe Andersson who gives us a quick go around, tells us the rules of the house, and then tells us to go enjoy the pancakes. I'm hungry so I run into the kitchen.

The front yard is full of hikers and I quickly find our trail family. We exchange stories as I finish my pancakes. While I'm eating, Terri brings in another group of hikers. The place looks great for relaxing. I'm also offered a selection of Hawaiian shirts to wear. Everyone else is also wearing one.

Once I'm finished I start to wonder around a bit. On the front yard there are tables, seats, and sofas for hikers to chill in. There's a rock painting station, portable toilets, a charging station, and trash cans. On the side yard you can do laundry and chill in hammocks.

The backyard opens up to a small frisbee golf area and then to a magical manzanita forest. There are multiple trails that lead into the forest and they wiggle around. There are spots for sleeping and all over the forest you can find the rocks previous hikers have painted. Going around the forest is slow as you constantly stop to read the messages on the stones.

I quickly find a spot for myself close to Blü, Fyre, and KB (Sunshine). After that we go out and explore all the different paths around the forest. You could easily get lost here in the dark.

For lunch we all head out to the small Cafe close by. I order a BLT with fries and a large chocolate milkshake. Their milkshakes are done from five big scoops of real ice cream. Yummy!

I'm way too full to walk but we slowly make our way back to the house. Now it's time to wait for the taco dinner at 7pm. If we're not hiking, all we think is food.

We chill in the hammocks and drink beer. It feels great just being, doing nothing. I also take a shower and do a little laundry.

Around 5pm we see a familiar face appear to the side yard. Blis! Finally! He was off trail for three days and has now caught up to us. His ankle is doing better and he also has new shoes that are helping with his ankle.

At 7pm there's a big table on the front yard with a huge taco dinner. Terri makes a speech about the proper etiquette and then tells everyone to go wash their hands. Then about 50 hungry hikers line up to stuff themselves with tacos.

I make such a huge dish for myself that I don't think I can finish it, but soon I'm standing behind Blü for seconds. He's getting his third round.

After the dinner all the new hikers gather on the front yard and after doing a small surprise chore, get their PCT bandanas. I'm "officially" a PCT thru-hiker now as I have my bandana.

We stay out for a little bit and then it's time to find our way through the dark maze to our own spots in the manzanita forest. This is one of the coolest spots I've ever slept in.

Tomorrow I need to get to Lake Hughes, which is about 8 miles away and 2.1 miles off trail to get my new camera. Hope it's there as the Amazon tracking has been showing it arriving for three days now and I really don't want to end up waiting in Lake Hughes as my friends hike onwards. We're hiking the LA aqueduct in three days and I really want to do that with everyone.