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.