Captain's Log: Day 15

April 28

4:00am hit and I woke Rickets to begin our 22 mile trek to food. You can only be so quiet when packing up and the five of us were packed pretty closely. Raptor and Loopy woke up for the entire 20 minute performance while Eeyore didn't even stir. Which was good because he has mentioned how much he had wanted to sleep in that morning.

Almost everything was a bit ache-ey after the 27 mile previous day but we picked up speed and were soon making good progress in the morning chill. We passed through a public works faculty, past a damn, and then quite a ways around a lake. Along the way we found a trail magic stash with water and fruit - a blessing when you're in a dry stretch and running on fumes.

It was about two miles in that my brain actually woke up and realized that Eeyore had not in fact said anything about wanting to sleep in. Nor had there been any discussion about just Rickets and I making the early morning push. Big oops. I left a note with the trail magic and texted him apologies knowing I would spend the next 20 miles kicking myself.

We stopped briefly at a picnic area for our last bars and to fill up on water for the last 14 miles to McDonalds. The rest of that 14 went by relatively quickly amid much discussion about topics all over the map.

We started smelling the McDonalds half a mile before we got to to the interstate. It was close but we made it in before 1:00pm. A number of hikers were already there.

The grand tradition of pillaging the value menu began. I started with 3 double burgers, 3 sandwiches, a large fry, and large drink. We caught up on email and blogging as we worked through the food and waited for the others to arrive.

The other three arrived between 2:00-3:00pm. We hung out eating, charging devices, and filling up on water for the next 28 mile dry stretch.

We finally got out around 5:00pm after a resupply at the gas station and set out to put a 5 mile dent in before it was supposed to start raining at 8:00pm.

Campsites were somewhat limited. Usually camping in a wash is fine but definitely not a place you want to be in a rainstorm. Fortunately we all found spots and were able to hang out talking as dinner had already been taken care of at McDonalds