Captain's Log: Day 67

June 18, 2016

After forgetting to turn my alarm off, I was up early. Rickets and Loopy took the opportunity to catch up on sleep after the trying last four days. Not wanting to wake them I went to the main office where I talked with the woman at the desk, Nancy, and worked on catching up on blog posts. Eventually she had to lock up to check a guest out and I headed back to the room.

Rickets and Loopy were still asleep so I continued writing posts in the bathroom until they woke up. We headed down the road to the diner and had a good solid breakfast even on top of the heavy dinner the night before. Then laundry and familial phone calls. And finally the checkout process.

Loopy had been debating whether to stay on trail or not and reached her decision: she was going to get off and head to New York to figure things out for her upcoming fellowship there. If everything went well she would be back out in August to do Washington so there was a decent chance we would see her again! Our last mile together was walking down to Safeway for a final resupply. We hugged goodbye in the parking lot and wished her safe travels and happy hitching.

Rickets and I headed to the other end of town to hitch out. We didn't have to wait long and for a ride with a close friend of the man who had given us a ride into town.

With not much daylight left we only went about 8 miles. On the way we passed a fish hatchery and a power plant and began to walk through terrain reminiscent of the savannah with tall brown grass and the same scattered trees. We were getting into volcanic territory and had 25 miles of rim walk the next day to look forward to.