Wed. August 10       Miles today: 16.1        Total so far: 1,515.4           So. Ca Section F

We said goodbye to Debbie early this morning, very grateful for their hospitality and prayers.  Mel dropped us off at the Denny’s near the post office on his way to work.  We planned to have a big breakfast while waiting for the post office to open!  We’d hardly sat down when Mel came back with a packet of “stuff-to-mail” that I’d accidentally left on the seat of the car.  I was so glad he had spotted it! 

We had a great breakfast and got some friendly cheers and encouragement from two truckdrivers at the table next to us.  Then it was just a short stroll to the Tehachapi post office, for the LAST time!  And as usual, no box for us.  I told the patient clerk that we wouldn’t be bothering her again, and arranged to have the box sent home, whenever it did arrive.  (Note: it never did!  And it never returned home, either.  It just disappeared somewhere in the USPS.)  But we were all set with everything we needed–food and maps!  And the fact that we had those two vital items was purely and simply a gift from God to us.

To get back to the PCT, we’d arranged for a ride with trail angels Don and Winnie,  so we went out in front of the post office to wait for them.  It was a hot day already, so we “lurked” in the shade.  Don and Winnie were right on time, and turned out to be a wonderful old couple “whose backpacking days are over”, but they love helping hikers.  They were all excited because the space shuttle Discovery had safely landed at nearby Edwards Air Force base the day before, and they were there to watch.  “Happy trails!” they cheered as we started off on the PCT once more!

PCT Section F begins with a walk along the freeway, but finally it headed up the hill, with a “nice little” 2,000 foot climb.  No biggie, we got used to those in Washington!  And there were the great southern CA rock formations again and yes, still some wildflowers!  We also enjoyed the great views of the Mojave as we climbed higher and higher.  Eventually the PCT travels along a jeep road, and I guess the yahoos like to use PCT emblems for target practice.  Sigh.  The windmills of course were all humming away.  To me they look like great white flowers.  I don’t know why so many hikers grump about “ugly windmills.”  To the north were fine views also, and we kept looking there hoping for some tiny glimpse of the Sierras up ahead.

By late afternoon we were headed downhill among awesome rocks, when as we came around a bend in the trail, what should we see but a mama bear and cub, right IN the trail ahead of us.  They did not see us–boy, bears can be clueless!  After silently admiring them for a moment, it was time to run them off, so we did our “alpha bear” routine of yelling, waving trek poles and stomping at them as if we were angry.  “Hey, yousa!  Get outta MY trail!”  Mama and cub went tearing up the mountain and out of sight!  Good!  We do our best to “teach” any bears we meet that people are ALPHA bears, and are to be respected.

Around 7 pm, we reached Golden Oak Spring, and Bill went right to work pumping water through our filter while I got ready to cook dinner.  We’d heard that somewhere between Tehachapi and Kennedy Meadows, a number of hikers had picked up a dose of giardia, and we didn’t want to add to the statistics.  But man, filtering water is a PAIN!  Golden Oak Spring has a water trough, but the water in the trough was yucky and full of tadpoles.  Fortunately, the water runs into it from a pipe up above, and Bill would fill our “washtub” (the cutoff bottom of a 1 gallon plastic jug) from the pipe, then pump the clean water out of the washtub, instead of the dirty water from the trough.  He “did” enough water for dinner, plus 18 hot miles of no water tomorrow.

By the time we were done with all the water filtering and eating dinner, it was 8:00, and already starting to get dark.  Once again, we were reminded that the days really are starting to get shorter here!  In Washington, we would have been able to keep going for a little while.  Normally we would NEVER camp where we had cooked dinner, but going on now was out of the question.  So we found a nice tall tree to hang food bags on in case mama bear showed up, and camped near the spring.  Our evening serenade was a frog opera chorus, plus the gentle humming noise of nearby windmills.  It was so wonderful to be back on the PCT at last!

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!