Saturday, May 2nd--Day 10

Can't believe we've only been out here for 10 days now. Or, maybe I can't believe that we've actually been out here for 10 days now. I guess it's just disbelief all around.

Woke up at 5:45 this morning, packed as silently as possible (we were sharing a room with two other people who were still asleep), and blew out of town. After a long walk along the highway, we picked up the trail, and I could not have been happier to be hiking again. We climbed back up into hills and, as is becoming our routine, put in a lot of miles right away.

Inspired by another hiker, whose name I'm not writing simply because I don't know how to spell it, but he has a pretty cool mustache and he looks like a villain straight out of an old cartoon--Snidely Whiplash! From Dudley DoRight! I knew--

Right. Ok. So, I climbed a giant pile of rocks, a dangerous, stupid move, but well worth it. The jagged edge of one boulder ripped my finger as I pulled myself up, and then I found myself straddling the same edge, hanging on for dear life as the wind picked up and tried to blow me off the rocks and the mountain itself. (The pile of boulders was right at the peak of one of these hill/mountains, on the very edge of a precipice. The view was outstanding, and I did feel so very alive.)

After the rocks, we made our way along the hillsides until the trail poured out onto a dirt road, which led to the house of a Trail Angel named Mike Herrera. We'd heard of him, and his house is listed on the water (?) report, so we headed over to his place.

We came upon a one-story house in the middle of a gap between the hills. Tables were loaded with food, and there were several other hikers helping themselves. A woman named Suzanne introduced herself and told us to eat and drink. I asked about Mike, and a big man lying in a hammock in the far corner of the yard raised his hand, and told us that for each beer we drank, we had to take a shot of tequila. So, we ate, and we drank, and we sat around talking and laughing. We talked to Mike a bit:

Jerry: "How do you like living up here?"
Mike: "It's great. Except for a lot of hiker trash."
Me: "Yeah, we ran into some of those on the trail."
Mike: "You guys are like locusts! Swarm in here and eat!"
Jerry: "You keep putting food out!"

We all laughed. It was like a movie. I'm out of page and that's pretty much all anyway. 'Night!