Tues. Aug. 9         Still waiting in Tehachapi

This morning, Debby gave us a ride to the post office on her way to work.  We told her that if our box DID come today, we would just take off immediately on the PCT, since we have lost so much time, but if our box did NOT come, we would wait at a certain spot in downtown Tehachapi where Mel could give us a ride to their house on his way home from work.  We told her that if the box did not come today, then tomorrow we would just have to buy food locally and leave.   She promised to pray for us.  I know she and Mel have been doing that every day, and we are very grateful!

To our profound disappointment, there was still no resupply box.  But the helpful clerk (who knew us very well by now!) said, “There’s another truck coming in at 1:00 pm, and we’ll have it unloaded by 1:30.  Come back then!”  So now we had 4 hours to kill, on a very warm, almost hot day.  We decided to head to Burger King for a milkshake, then on to the other end of town to the library.  The walk took awhile,  but when we got there, the library still had not opened.  We took off our packs and sat down on the bench out front.

Now this library has a rather odd setting.  It’s in a stripmall, between a tanning salon and “Hodad’s Hawaiian Store.”  I decided to call home to try for more details onour missing box (like, “did it get sent back AGAIN?”), but I didn’t want to use our calling card at a pay phone.  So I went to Hodad’s, hoping a casual Hawaiian bunch would also be casual about letting me use their phone.  I explained our situation and the helpful Hodad “wahine” let me use her own cell phone!  (This became VERY SIGNIFICANT a short time later!)  I had no luck reaching our daughter, so I went back to the library bench to wait some more. 

A little while later, a family went into Hodad’s and waved at us.  They sort of looked like they’d been out hiking.  About 15 minutes went by, and the mom and dad came out, walked over to us and said, “Hi!  We hear you’re PCT hikers stuck without a resupply box.  We’ve got a whole bunch of backpacker food you can have–how about it?”  Absolutely amazed, we followed them to their truck, where they opened 2 bulging backpacks, took out 2 bear cans, dumped them out and said, “Take whatever you want–free.  Someday WE want to do what you’re doing, and we might be in the same boat.”  They also assured us that the stuff had been cheap because it had packaging flaws.  So now we had lots of freezedried food, energy bars, etc.  Wow!  Truly these people were ULTIMATE trail angels sent by God!  We were awed, amazed and grateful and encouraged.  The family went off, and we went into the library (which was finally open) to rest and read for awhile before beginning the long hot trek back to the post office.   Still no box.  But now, with God’s incredible provision, we could just get the rest of what we needed at a grocery store and take off tomorrow.

By now it was almost 2:00 and we’d had no lunch, so we found a shady willow tree on a vacant lot and had something to eat (man, did I feel like some sort of transient bum, though!) and I wrote a shopping list that would fill in all the gaps in our food supply.   Next came a very long trek all the way back across town (we are talking MILES here, not blocks!) to Albertsons, where I was able to get everything we needed.  Then we had to practically jog 2 miles to make it on time to meet Mel, for one last night at his place.  Mel and Debbie rejoiced with us at the wonderful things the Lord had done for us today, and we all had one last dinner together in their yard.  Afterwards, I sorted all our food (or I should say, GOD’s food!!), divided it between our two food bags, and got everything ready to go.  The food bags were heavy–7 days worth, and not all of it lightweight trail food.   We planned to go to the post office tomorrow morning one last time to check for our box, and if it was there, we would do a little bit of “food switching” before mailing the box back home.   The lack of maps of the trail was a bit of a worry for me–I didn’t like the thought of venturing all the way to Kennedy Meadows with no maps, but again, God provided.  When I mentioned the map problem to Mel, he said “No problem!”  He had a PCT guidebook AND a copy machine!  So he copied all the maps we needed to reach Kennedy Meadows!   Thankyou, again, Lord! 

We went to bed with hearts full of gratefulness and anticipation of the first stage of venturing into the Sierras!  God is truly VERY, very good to us!

Mon, Aug. 8    Miles today: 8.3      Total so far: 1,499.3         Still waiting for resupply box

Our alarm went off at 5:00, and it was still dark!  We will have to move it to maybe 5:20 or so–the days are definitely shortening.  But the sunrise view from Mel and Debbie’s house was beautiful, and finally it was light enough to see the valley below.  Amazingly, though the Tehachapi area in general is quite brown, there are a lot of fine fruit and vegetable farms down there.  Artemis the cat joined me in admiring the view also!

We had been trying to be very quiet, since we didn’t know when Mel & Debbie got up, and when we finally noticed that they were up ‘n at it in the kitchen, and went in to say good morning, we found to our astonishment that they were not only making lunches for themselves, but for US, too!  Wow!  We are so blessed!  Our plan for today was to hike the PCT between Hwy 58 and Willow Springs Road, then back to the post office, hopefully to get our box and be able to leave tomorrow.  Mel dropped us off where the PCT hits Hwy. 58, and we were back on trail–what a great feeling!  Switchbacks took us up high where a Boy Scout bench invited us to stop and admire the view.  Bill commented, “Well, no more rain and trees–it’s back to rattlesnakes and horny toads.”  We’d already spotted one little horny toad on the switchbacks, and figured on seeing more!

Then it was on into the wind farms and a view of the Mojave Desert.  I was glad I didn’t have to cross it now–it was a very warm day, even at Tehachapi Pass.  It seemed like no time and we’d reached Willow Springs Road.  That was a quick 8 miles!  But then it was a LONG wait to get a ride back to Tehachapi.  Finally, a guy who lives up in the hills near the PCT gave us a ride, right to the post office!  That saved us some walking–the post office is way outside of downtown.  Alas, still no box, so we waited in Tehachapi till Mel picked us up again on his way home from work.   This was getting frustrating, and we hated to impose on our kind hosts any more than necessary.  Tonight we prayed hard for our box to come tomorrow!