Mon. Oct. 3     No miles    Waiting in Etna for storm to stop

This morning’s mountain view was pretty discouraging–the mountains were still covered with clouds, AND below the clouds I could see SNOW.  Even in Etna it was very cold and dark clouds covered the sky.  But we enjoyed a great Alderbrook breakfast and met some other people from the San Francisco Bay Area who were also staying there!  Tuning in to the weather channel on TV gave us a forecast of nice weather, beginning tomorrow, which gave us a lot of hope!  Again we said to each other, “The last time we got ‘stuck’ like this was in Tehachapi, and the Lord had a good reason for it then, so He must have another good reason now, besides ending the forest fire.”

Bill and I went for a walk around Etna, and enjoyed the steel sculpture honoring the packtrains in the mountains.  We also went to the drugstore soda fountain and had big hot fudge sundaes.  A husband and wife team of pharmacists own and run the store, with a “soda jerk” to do the fountain part.  We’d seen this pharmacist couple at church on Sunday, when they were talking about how many people who are on prescription drugs to treat a MEDICAL problem are also troubled and unhappy, with plenty of PERSONAL problems.  As pharmacists, this couple often know more about the drugs than do the doctors, so they end up doing a lot of counselling with their customers, and because as Christians they actually CARE about the people who come through their door, the counselling often leaves the “medical” behind and steps over into the spiritual.  They have spent many sympathetic hours with people and had the incredible joy of seeing them put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, then watched them being set free from the problems that resulted in dependance on prescription drugs.  The end result is actually less BUSINESS for the pharmacy in terms of dollars, but great REJOICING for the pharmacists.  Awesome!  We got to talk briefly to this very dear (but very busy!) pharmacy “team” there in the store.

Further walking in town included some beautiful fall foliage to admire.  Back at Alderbrook, Bill worked some more with Dave Harrison on fixing the hiker washing machine.  In the end, it turned out that it needed a new part that would cost as much as simply getting another used washing machine.   Then Bill and I went out to get ourselves some dinner.  It was 47 degrees and raining on and off.  The sky was still full of dark gray clouds.  But further checks of the weather reports still said conditions would improve rapidly tomorrow, so we decided we’d at least TRY to go farther on the PCT.   We settled down to enjoy one more night on a bed instead of the ground.  Hopefully the next bed we sleep in will be our own bed back home!