Captain's Log: Day 34

May 16, 2016

I had been holding off writing about certain plans we had in store for Kennedy Meadows as some of them were surprises for a select few readers of the blog. Rickets was headed home for a few days for his sister's high school graduation (that being the surprise), Loopy was headed back east for her own commencement (having graduated a semester early to hike the trail she still wanted to walk with her class), Eeyore would be getting off trail for good having realized that writing was what he needed to be doing now (I'm sure he will have his own post about his reasons), and the 16th being my birthday I decided I wouldn't mind following them all into LA and spending it on the beach. This was our last morning all together.

Loopy and Rickets had a ride lined up at 7:00am down into town. From there they could catch a bus into Lancaster and then take the commuter rail into LA. Eeyore and I had planned on joining them but my mom had arranged for some sort of birthday surprise at Kennedy Meadows so he and I, without the pressure of catching a flight hanging over us, hung out to wait for the surprise. The morning held an all you can eat pancake breakfast and then lots of just lazing about and speculating with other hikers about northern California and snow.

A bit after noon the surprise arrived: three birthday pies! Everyone on the porch was quite happy about them, especially one woman who said she had been crazing cherry pie for weeks and finally was able to get some. An hour later a hiker by the name of The Great White Turtle showed up. He and I share the same birthday to within an hour two, depending on how you want to treat time zones. We had figured this out earlier but he hadn't thought he would make it to Kennedy Meadow by the 16th but a lucky meeting with a trail angel had gotten him here to share in the birthday festivities.

Eeyore and I had given hope at this point of getting a ride down in to town but as luck would have a trio of trucks pulled in to fill up gas on their way home from doing some trail work. One of them was headed past Bakersfield and offered to give us a ride. From there we could easily catch a bus into LA. It was pretty crazy driving past all the different landmarks that had taken us weeks to cross in just a few hours.

We arrived in Bakersfield around 6:00pm, filled up on McDonalds, and headed across town to the Greyhound station. It was a little strange wandering through town with an ice axe and spiked crampons strapped to the side of my pack but we didn't run into any trouble.

The bus was an hour late getting to the station and was pretty packed already. Eeyore ended up with a seat in the back of the bus and I with one a few rows ahead of him. I began settling in to try to sleep on the 2 hour ride and heard a commotion behind me. Without any provocation, the guy next to Eeyore had begun throwing punches at his face! He has a post that will do the story actual justice but the long and short of it is that the guy was taken off in handcuffs and Eeyore and I were able to get a seat together.

Loopy had already left for her flight by the time we arrived in downtown LA so we headed over to meet up with Rickets. He was staying with friend at USC living in one of the fraternity houses over the summer. We took an Uber over to the campus which felt incredibly strange to be doing after just hitching rides for the last month. It was after 11:00pm at that point and we only had energy to go get some food and then pass out on the couch.