October 5th, 2018
Zero day
Distance: NONE! Josh drove me around all day and it was awesome.
I felt a bit guilty about taking another zero after just taking one in Bishop, but I could justify it when I needed the calories. I weighed myself when I got in and I was at 121 lbs. A day later, the scale was saying I picked up 3 lbs! It doesn’t surprise me, since I stuffed my face all day.
Josh was very kind to drive me around for all my errands. I went to Walgreens, Dollar General, a barber, the post office, and the grocery store. We stopped to have lunch at a AYCE Chinese buffet. He had to wait for me while I gorged on 5 plates. My stomach hurt so bad afterwards, but it didn’t last long. After we picked up the kids from school, I treated everyone to ice cream.
The fam, minus Mom (Becky), who had left earlier to visit friends.
In the evening, we went to a party at Josh’s co-workers house. This was no ordinary Friday night party. Bryson, or Freebird, had just gotten back the day before from finishing the PCT at the northern terminus! He was having a big party in celebration and fittingly, there was TONS of food.
I didn’t remember passing Freedbird but he did know Isha (Roadwalk), the Belgium lady that I met in NZ on the TA and again just before Ashland. In the long-distance hiking world, there are only about 2 degrees of separation.
I felt a little awkward crashing the party and trying to explain that I was still hiking the PCT going south. People were having such a hard time fathoming it. They had been following their friend’s videos and posts for so long that they understood only one way of doing things. That’s ok, I understand what a crazy concept this trail is in general.
Freebird posted video commentary of every day, so I hope to go back and watch some of it when I have the time. In one scene, F-18 jets roar overhead. They are his squadron’s jets, since he just retired from the navy. They did a fly-by just for him when he was on this section of the trail. I’ve never known hikertrash to be able to call in their own jets!
Freebird and I…you can tell by our red faces and shaggy hair that we must be thru-hikers.
Another unique aspect of this party was that Freebird had all his gear set-up in his living room for everybody to inspect, just like if he were camping overnight. People joked that he was still so attached to it that he was sleeping inside his house in his tent. It might not be far from the truth. It was a neat idea to let everyone see how he lived for 6 months.
After I over-ate ALL the good food once again (ribs, tri-tips, cornbread, hamburgers, etc), we went back home and went to bed. My stomach didn’t know what to do with so much food. What a great zero.