Bill and I had planned to be happily headed back to the PCT this morning,  with a “Kennedy Meadows, here we come” cheer.   But instead, what we had to deal with was continuing to feel weak and not hungry (though a bit better than yesterday).  We sat down with Christy Rosander, and decided the best thing to do was just go home for a couple of weeks.   A quick computer check of different transportation options showed that renting a car was the best thing,  so we scrambled to toss our stuff into our packs, and Christy drove us to Enterprise where a little red Kia was waiting for us.   She even gave us a bagful of water and snacks to eat on the way!   We owe the Rosanders a HUGE debt of gratefulness for all they have done for us!

The trip home was uneventful.   Both of us are still pretty wasted, so we took turns driving.   It was very, very weird to be heading HOME instead of into the Sierras.   But we looked back over the trail so far, and saw how many, many times God was preparing the way for us, working things out, and watching over us, so we figured He must have a plan for us in this, too.   Even getting sick.    “If we were not sick, we would for sure have headed into the Sierras today,” we said to each other.   “The only thing that stopped us was this waterbug.   So God must have some reason either for wanting us home awhile OR maybe He doesn’t want us going into the Sierras yet.”

By this morning, I knew there was something seriously wrong with me.  I was too nauseous to eat, and for me, that’s amazing!  I also felt very faint and weak.   I managed to eat a banana for breakfast by just nibbling on it little by little.   Bill and I had planned to go to church, but that was now out of the question.   We figured we must have giardia or something similar,  and were trying to plan how we could organize getting to a doctor for a prescription,  when Christy volunteered to take us to the place she goes, an urgent care center in Bakersfield.

This was WAY over and above for her to do this–not only is it a long way to Bakersfield, but she was in the middle of getting her college age son off to his summer job as program director at a Christian camp in Big Bear.  We were enormously grateful.   Bill was a bit “brighter” because he’d been taking Christy’s leftover medicine already, but I was pretty wasted.   So the Bakersfield expedition was very hard.   I had trouble even with standing up for very long at a time!   But we finally had our turn with the doctor and after some frustration in trying to find a pharmacy that had enough Flagl for TWO full does, we were back in Tehachapi.

On the way back to Christy’s house, she stopped by Valley Oaks, the Christian school where she works. It involves a unique mixture of homeschooling and classroom schooling.  We were able to meet the principal and admire the really nice building (the story of how God provided a place for the school to meet is an adventure in itself!).  But I was very tired, so as soon as we were “home”,  I went straight to bed.   It seemed like only 5 minutes had gone by when Bill woke me up at 10 pm to take more medicine.    Hope it works.   I want to get back to the PCT!     Our original plan was for Tuesday, but it’s looking iffy.

 But one nice thing about all this driving around with Christy Rosander is that we’ve been able to get to know her better.  And I don’t mind saying again that she is one amazing lady!  She told us that originally she and her husband were not interested in backpacking.  They climbed pretty much every mountain of note around here and in the southern Sierras before Christy got “into” backpacking.  She often goes alone, since the rest of her family mostly would rather get up early from a “base camp” with lots of comfortable stuff, go climb a mountain and come back to base camp.  Backpacking is much more spartan.

I am very hopeful about feeling better tomorrow, but I don’t know what we will do about returning to the trail on Tuesday.  I don’t think we can do it in our present condition.

It was a beautiful warm morning, and the weather report was VERY encouraging–at least a week of steadlily growing warmer, plus plenty of sun.   I had a delicious big breakfast–the Rosander’s hospitality is awesome!   But Bill is still sick.  He did not get up for a long time, and we had a very worried discussion about what might be wrong.   It’s the same as 2005–no fever, no sore throat, no “runny tummy”–just total loss of appetite,  nausea and tiredness.    The conclusion was that maybe he is just very, very tired, and needs to rest?

I spent the morning doing the usual “town chores” of airing and cleaning gear, doing laundry, writing, etc.    I also got to admire Christy Rosander’s Granite Gear backpack as she got ready to head out on a training hike.   Every other day, with full packweight, she climbs Tehachapi Mtn.   She’s planning to leave in a couple of weeks to hike the PCT from here to Donner Lake.   She is one amazing backpacker lady!  Meanwhile, I tried to be diligent about snacking at every opportunity, trying to fix my calorie deficit.  That’s one thing I love about doing the PCT–I get to eat and eat, as much as I want!

Dinner was provided by Dan Rosander–homemade pizza.   Bill managed to nibble a tiny bit,  but that was all.   We are all beginning to think maybe he’s got giardia or something similar.   Christy said she had giardia last year, and her symptoms were very much like Bill’s.   She showed us her prescription, and there were a few pills left.   Unknown to me,  Bill took one!   (A good plan, as it turned out).

I felt fine when I went to bed, but during the night, I woke up feeling very ill–nausea and weakness, yikes!   It was a miserable time.  Now I know how Bill must have been feeling.  I guess whatever Bill got, I got too. Bummer.

Walk to Lórien: Yuledays camped near stream

It was cold, gray and windy this morning, and we were hiking along IN the clouds, which swirled all around us.  I call this “cloud ballet” because of the dramatic, graceful way those graywhite swirls dance and leap and turn.  And then hooray!   We reached the 500 mile post!  That was worth a cheer!   No sunpatch for breakfast–all we could do was hunker down, gobble granola and go.   The guidebook had ecstatic descriptions of the views (“You can see Magic Mountain!  Hollywood!…) Oh well, at least we had “cloud ballet” to watch.

But finally we came to The Big Right Turn and headed down, north, into sun at last and Antelope Valley views.  Where the trail turns east, we were VERY glad to find that instead of the rough, deeply gullied mess we had to deal with in 2005, things were much improved (though there were a lot of “blowdowns” to contend with).

We reached our first “poppy patch” and I was very excited–sure enough, when we finally got down INTO Antelope Valley, there were poppies everywhere, plus lots of green, irrigated fields.    The PCT, of course, takes its own sweet time about getting there, by travelling way off to the east.   By 2:30, we had reached Hikertown, an experience in itself, where hikers can choose from a crazy array of accommodations.  Bob the caretaker met us at the gate and gave us a tour.  Hikertown is made up of a random collection of old Hollywood “western town” false fronts, only here, there really are ROOMS behind the “fronts.”   The “post office” really IS the Hikertown PO, where all the hiker boxes come in (ours was there, hooray!).  The “feed store” is actually the computer room and a sort of museum as well.  The Hikertown garage has been turned into a hiker lounge, with lots of comfortable couches, a TV, a kitchen and a large dining table.

We ended up chosing to stay in a “room” that was half a shipping container with a clock tower on top and a 1950’s Rolls Royce parked outside.  Bob gave us a ride down to the store, where we got ice cream and other treats.  When we got back, I did our laundry, but had to dry it by hanging it on a fence, since the dryer wasn’t working.  It was so windy that things dried very fast, but I kept checking for fear that something might blow away off into the valley!   Bill worked on doctoring his toes–he has some blisters.  Bummer.  My feet are fine.  Other hikers were there, hanging out and waiting for the UPS truck to arrive, because one guy, “Maximum Chill” had ordered a new pack and was anxious to receive it and head out on the trail again.  There was much rejoicing when the truck got there, and the pack DID come!

Eventually I went to the kitchen and made us some dinner, which included a fresh fruit salad (very wonderful after days of trail food) and some other hikers found a cake mix.  They decided that passing the 500 mile mark was worth a celebration, so Bob the caretaker rounded up some eggs and we ended up with a great chocolate cake plus ice cream to go with it.  We feasted and laughed and talked till all of a sudden someone looked at their watch and gasped, “Yikes!  It’s almost Hiker Midnight (9 pm)!!” and we all scurried to bed. 

I had written in the Hikertown trail register, “The PCT goes WAY west, then WAY east.  Why not make a new trail straight from Casa de Luna to Hikertown?”    This is a fun place to be, and it really was great to be able to celebrate 500 MILES DONE!

Walk to Lórien: Streambed near Bruinen

We stayed last night in a jewel of a little motel in Los Banos, just off Interstate 5. It was called “Economy Inn” and was obviously a labor of love for the owners. Being a “plant person”, I went nuts over the landscaping of gorgeous succulents. We were on the road by 6:30am, on a very cold, cloudy morning, watching a pink sunrise over very snowy Sierras. The orange orchards were in full bloom— very like driving through perfume. Nearby mountaintops had a light dusting of snow.

We mailed a lot of resupply boxes at Santa Clarita, with very friendly and enthusiastic staff who answered us “Don’t worry! your boxes will make it! We are shipping them with love!” The clouds overhead grew thicker the farther south we went. We had a quick shivery lunch by Camp Pendleton, where we saw Marines in desert camos messing around with tanks on the bluffs above the ocean. We dropped the car off in downtown San Diego and took the trolley, watching carefully for any fellow thruhikers. At last we saw them! A whole group got off the trolley at the same stop we did!

We met Old Goat, an experienced PCT thruhiker, plus others. After that, every trolley that came by dropped off even more hikers, including the famous Billy Goat! A cheer went up from all us PCT alumni, “Billy Goat! Billy Goat!” The poor little rural bus ended up stuffed with hikers and packs. The driver said, “Wow! This time of year I always expect hikers, but you guys are the largest group I’ve ever driven!” We all cheered loudly! But rain was beginning to fall, till by the time we got off at Campo, it was really coming down, and it was so cold you could see your breath. We were the only ones to get off at Campo— everyone else was going to set up camp at Lake Morena, then get rides to the border tomorrow.

We’d been advised to go first to the store, where we got nice hot burritos for supper, and the store owner suggested we go to the Campo history museum, where the caretaker would let us stay in one of the out buildings. The store owner commented about the weather.  “I’ve lived here for 20 years, and I’ve never seen such a cold, miserable April.”  Oh, great! 

At the museum, we couldn’t find the caretaker.  The only guy around was holed up in his very wet little dome tent, and smoking something illegal.  He blearily stuck his head out and told us, “Oh, you can camp anywhere on the property–no worries.”  So we ended up where we are camped tonight very comfortably out of the rain– underneath an old rusty truck trailer. It is a real hobo camp!  Close by to the truck trailer are signs reading, “1875 Hangin’ Tree”  and “Site of famous Campo Shootout.”  No danger of shootouts tonight in the pouring rain and cold!    But the weather report for tomorrow sounds promising— hope it turns out to be right!