Friday, Feb 21st 2025, 0720-1000
Colorado river to Parker, mm 109.5 End Section 5
4 miles
My stealth spot worked out just fine. A few vehicles drove by in the middle of the night and the highway traffic noise was pretty atrocious, but it was still a pretty awesome spot. I didn’t even feel the need to pack super early before I was discovered. I made coffee, took my time, and enjoyed the bird sounds along the river in the morning. The coots were really talkative
I had an easy couple miles into town. It was a good thing I didn’t keep going the night before because I would have ended up on tribal land. There was actually legit camping along the river there too ($15 paid to the RV park office), but it was mainly appropriate for vans, RVs and trailers. I actually don’t know where I would have pitched my tent, because it would have been right alongside the road and for safety reasons, I can’t do that. Someone will run me over in the middle of the night because you just can’t see my camo tent in the dark. And I have no vehicle to mark my presence, which is what most people expect.
I walked right through the RV park (with Trump flags flying everywhere, read ‘walk faster!’) and then some dirt roads past the Casino. I ended up at a huge shopping center on the outskirts of town… restaurants, Subway, DG, Walmart and Safeway were all competing for consumers, er I mean customers. As much as I hated to, I made a brief stop at the Walmart to knock off a few things on my long list of things to do in town.
This was the first real grocery store I’d been to since Tucson. I got some breakfast and lunch items and a new fuel canister. My old fuel canister, also purchased in Tucson, had just barely made it through the last 3 weeks. I had to forgo hot coffee for a few mornings, just to make sure it would last. I was glad to be able to find a medium canister, because sometimes all they have are the very large ones. Ah, the dilemmas of being a stove user versus a cold soaker. But I love my hot meals and coffee, plus there are no other hikers out here by which I could poach the use of their stoves and pots, thus I carry my own. As with all things, I have no choice but to be self-sufficient and not a moocher of others (throwback to the Hayduke).
My main objective in arriving town early was to get my boxes from the post office. My partner had mailed 2…the one I’d made for Parker and also the one I’d intended to send to Salome, but couldn’t because I got there during a long holiday weekend. I needed a surplus of food since I was going to be caching for the remainder of the route, over 300 miles.
The Parker post office had a strict rule about only picking up general delivery boxes between 9 and 10:30 a.m. It’s not like this was published online, but rather printed on a small note inside the post office. Fortunately for me, hikers in the past had noted this and I was grateful they shared this knowledge. So my #1 priority was to pick up my packages during the correct hours this day. I could have left it until Saturday, but I don’t like leaving things until the last minute.
I was able to drop my pack in the lobby of the Budget Inn and then retrieve my boxes. Oof, were they heavy to carry for 6 blocks back to the motel. Unfortunately I couldn’t check in just yet. The motel had been full the night before and go figure, my assigned room was still occupied right up until check out at 11:00 am. But the manager was incredibly kind and did his best to accommodate me. I hung out in the lobby until the Pizza Hut across the street opened. They had an AYCE lunch buffet, so I strategically went over there to gorge.
I’m usually terrible at getting my money’s worth at buffets, but I killed it on this one…probably my best buffet effort ever! I stayed for almost 3 hours, doing chores on my phone and stuffing my face with pasta, pizza, breadsticks, and cinnamon breadsticks. It’s all about pacing…and hiker hunger kicking in finally. I also downed about 3 refills of soda, so I was pretty wired. When I finally got up to leave, an awesome employee offered to give me a small box to take pizza to go! I couldn’t believe it! “We’re just going to throw it all away, take as much as you like.” she said. I always joke about taking to-go boxes from buffets, but I’ve actually never been able to do so until now. That pizza lasted me through dinner and breakfast the next morning!
After checking into my hotel room, I got down to business in completing all my chores. My friend Alan was coming all the way from Los Angeles the next day to help me cache my food and water for the last 3 sections. So I needed to get all my food divided into 5 different piles, each with various days worth of food, which I still needed to figure out. Plus, I needed to buy some extra items from the grocery. But I decided to put that off until the next day and do my laundry instead. Town stops are never relaxing, rather they are so busy and stressful! As usual, I went to bed late and woke up too early. But it was still a great town day!