Sun. Aug. 7         Still waiting in Tehachapi

I got up at 6:00 for a shower, Bible reading and eating–and listening to trains!  Tehachapi is a railroad town, and trains go through all the time.  The famous “Tehachapi Loop” is off to the west–wish we could see it, but without a car, that just would not be possible.  It’s a very clever piece of railroad engineering, designed to get the trains up a steep part of the pass, but without having a steep grade on the track itself.

Bill finally got up, too, and I did some mending on his pack, did some writing, then packed up my pack ready to go.  By 10:00 we were out front waiting for our ride to church.  St. Jude’s turned out to be a fairly new building, with a very friendly group of people.  I felt right at home, and really appreciated the music–grand old hymns accompanied by viola, guitar, and some organ.  The regular pastor was away, so they had a “sub” who normally teaches New Testament–only today he was preaching on the OLD Testament–Jonah, chapter 2, which (hurray!) he took as literal, historic truth, with plenty of practical application.

Our hosts, Mel and Debbie, took us home with them after church and offered breakfast.  A second breakfast?  You bet!  Their home is located above 5,000 feet elevation and they have a great view of Tehachapi Pass.  In the afternoon, our daughter called up, all excited about an engagement announcement in church–one of our pastor’s 7 daughters (he also has 3 sons, for a total of 10 kids!) will be marrying a young man she met in England.  Everyone is thrilled!

We spent the afternoon quietly reading and petting Artemis, the cat.  Then Mel and Debbie invited us to a BBQ dinner outside on the beautiful warm evening.  One of the things we’ve noticed since we arrived in Tehachapi is that it gets dark a lot sooner here than it did in Washington State.  We planned to hike the PCT segment between Willow Springs Road and Highway 58 tomorrow morning, then check at the post office for our box.  Mel said he’d drop us off on his way to work, then we figured we could hitch-hike back.

Sat. Aug. 6        Waiting in Tehachapi for our resupply box

We slept in a bit this morning, then headed out on varous errands.  It was a very warm day.   My errand was to walk 2 miles to Albertson’s and get food for the next couple of days so we don’t need to eat at restaurants.  I planned to get LOTS–we seriously are in calorie deficit.  I chose a route through residential neighborhoods and enjoyed the shady trees and gardens.  Unfortunately, I guess I look like a bum even in my “town” clothes, because I had some occasionally a bit scary run-ins with aggressive dogs protecting their houses from the likes of me.

At the store, I went for a combination of  high calorie food plus fresh fruit and veges.  I’d thought about bringing my pack to carry it in, but didn’t want to risk leaving the pack outside the store unattended.  (I’m sure that NO WAY would they want me bringing it into the store!)  Well, I should have brought it, and maybe left it with a supervisor or something, because I had to carry two HEAVY bags home in the heat.  My poor fingers just about died!  I had to stop every little bit to rest them, so it took a long time to cover the two miles back to the motel, and I was so tired that my hands and arms were shaking.  I couldn’t even hold the phone to make phone calls till I rested a bit.

Those phone calls were my next project-of-the-day.  Somehow, I had to get my prescription refill organized.  After much calling back and forth to the on-call doctor and the pharmacy back home, I finally had the assurance that it would be done, and I could pick up the refill right here in Tehachapi.  Whew!  Now for project #3–laundry!  Just as I headed down the driveway to the laundry machine, a thunderstorm started.  It had been slowly clouding up all morning.  Thunder and rain “drips” continued for a couple of hours. 

We had a delicious lunch in the motel room, then Bill headed out again, and I looked at the phone book for churches so we could go to church tomorrow.  I found 8 nice churches within walking distance, and started phoning to find out their service times.  All of them only had a recorded message, but St. Jude’s, the Episcopal church, gave an additional number to call.  I wanted to check on them anyway, to see if they were “Episcopagans” or real Christians who actually believe the Bible and know the Lord Jesus Christ.  I was glad to hear a “real live person” answering my call and asked them, “Would you describe yourselves as orthodox Christians?”  “We sure would!” said the lady who answered the phone.  When she asked where we were from, all I said was, “Petaluma…” and she joyfully interrupted, “St. John’s!  David Miller!”  It turned out that they knew about my home church and pastor!  St. John’s is one of the minority of American Episcopal churches that actually believes the Bible. The rest are Episcopagans operating under a “go with the flow” mentality which ignores the Bible and has no hope to offer people who struggle with profound problems like addictions, depression, mixed-up sexuality, etc.    Anyway, awhile later the lady (turned out it was the St. Jude’s pastor’s wife) called us back and asked if we’d rather stay with a church family than in a motel.  Of course!  So tomorrow, some church folks will pick us up for church and take us home afterward.  An incredible, un-looked-for blessing!

Shortly afterward Bill returned with my prescription AND a half-gallon of ice cream.  I ate a couple of cupfuls and Bill ate the rest, while I did one more errand–a walk down the street to a quilting store I’d spotted.  My plan was to buy some quilt batting to tie around my waist.  I had been tying my jacket there to “fatten myself up” enough that I could cinch the pack waist belt tightly, but the problem was, my poor jacket would get all wet and stinky from my sweat.  I figured the batting would replace the jacket.  Who cares if batting gets gross?

Bill and I took a nap (again, we find we need rest almost as much as food) before taking a walk to the park down the street for a picnic dinner.  We enjoyed the evening breeze and the dramatic “cloud show”.  Bill couldn’t finish his dinner–he was too stuffed with ice cream!  Then we walked back to the motel, watched a TV program on the bombing of Hiroshima (60 years ago yesterday) and went to bed.  I was really looking forward to FINALLY being able to go to church tomorrow, and meeting fellow Christians who were willing to take us in even though we’d never met before.