Captain's Log: Day 26

May 8, 2016

Every 20 minutes for the entire night a huge gust of wind would rush down, kicking up dust and sand and threatening to topple tarps and tents. This, as you might imagine, made it quite hard to sleep and the morning was rough.

It started with a big climb that went by painstakingly slowly with the sleep deprivation. Fortunately it was our only climb of the day. Even more fortunately there was a water cache, plastic chairs, and apples waiting for us at the top.

The rest of the morning was spent riding hills slowly down into another wind farm and towards the road. Once we arrived at the road, the first of two that lead into town, we stopped to take stock of things. We had planned on doing another 8 miles to the highway but decided to bail early given various aches and how much longer the first 16 miles had taken than expected.

We called a trail angel for a ride into town and then hung out napping by the side of the road until she arrived. She dropped us at the airport which provides camping for hikers.

From there we met up with Raptor and headed for lunch at the BBQ place. We spent a while there eating after which I called my family to wish my mom a happy Mother's Day. Over the course of the call the others decided that it made more sense to take a $1 bus to the town of Mojave and split a cheaper motel there that was close to a grocery store.

We waited for the bus at a Burger King next to the bus stop. During the wait we met a few other hikers and FaceTimed friends back at school. They're just beginning their last week of classes and then descending into finals prep. Pretty surreal how different our situations are.

We got to the motel and rotated through showers. There was a pool and a hot tub but we opted for watching Edge of Tomorrow instead. We each drifted off at different points in the film.