I got my earliest start of the trail this morning. I'm getting better about breaking camp now. Also I wanted to get moving because we were at a much lower elevation and it was going to be a scorching hot day. With the early start, I caught an amazing so rise coming up over the mountains. 4 miles in we hit the first water source. It was a snow melt stream so I soaked my feet sore feet for a bit. The cold water felt soo good on my blisters. The day got hot quick but fortunately there wasn't too much uphill. We came to the junction were had to split from the trail. We had some last minute debates about just going through the closure instead of taking the alternate. Ultimately we choose to take the alternate. We had two miles of alternate trail left before the road walk began. At the raod junction there were some nice picnic table and running water where we stopped to eat lunch. We didn't stop for long though as it was only 1130 and we wanted to get some more miles in before the peak of the heat. We made it to just before a turnoff to the highway we were going to have to walk along and found a dry relatively clean cement culvert that offered the perfect spot to take a break from the heat in. It was only about 4 feet high, but was very wide and had refreshing cross breeze blowing through it. I laid out my tyvek sheet immediately and started napping. Roman only hung around for a little bit and then continued on by himself. It was about 1 so i decided to just rest in the shade and start hiking when it began to cool off. The four of us, Sam sarah pacer and i felt like real vagabonds hanging out under the culvert. I pulled out my harmonica and practiced a little bit to complete the picture. Later we all cooked our dinners under the road. It gave me a real appreciation of what it must be like to be homeless. I know that at any point i could off trail and be home in less than two days if i really wanted/needed too. It would have been a totally different feeling if that culvert was actually my home and you didn't have a meal to eat under it. After waiting out in the shade we set off on a long grueling highway walk around 430. Fortunately there was a very wide median to walk on so it was pretty safe. However the noise from the traffic was deafening. I yearned for the peace and quiet of the trail. It's amazing how I had forgotten how loud cars, traffic and cities were. After waking in the median for about 3 miles we got the highway and walked up a dry wash thatfollwed the highway. It It was nice to be further from the traffic, but the creek wash was very sandy and difficult to walk in. My feet would slide back every time I took a step and was very painful on my blisters. The creek was led to a residential road which led back to the highway in a little town. WE stopped at the circle k gas station and got some cold drinks. The man inside was extremely nice and let us fill our water bottles and hang outside the store. Never inmy life was i so happy to sit on the ground in front of a gas station. I think we all went back in the store about 3 times getting more snacksamd drinks. I had the best tasting gas station hot dog of my life there, even though i had no idea how old it was. We got some interesting and confused looks from people going in and out of the station. Not many pct hiker go through this area normally so we looked pretty out of place. When people asked wherewe were hiking to it was fun to see the shock on their faces when we said canada. One guy asked us where we're staying and we told him we had no idea, even though it was already 730 by this point. He mentioned a park nearby we could probably vamp at otherwise the nearest motel was 10 miles down the road. we decided to go check out park. We waited until dark as we figured it definitely wasn't legal to camp there. We walked as far as could to the back of the park to a clearing behind some brush and made camp. WeFigured if we got caught the worst that could happen is theyd tell us to leave. We cowboy camped and planned on getting an early start to avoid detection. I was glad to be done for the day but i knew we still had many more milesof road walking to go. Day 16 - 15 or so miles, mostly on roads
We packed up camp quickly the next morning so no one could stumble on us. We hiked out of the little town towards the next town of yucca valley where the next turn off was. It was a brutal road walk, with parts on the shoulder or in the ditch along side. I powered through it as quickly as I could even with sore feet. We got to yucca valley around 11 and again hung out at a local gas station. They actually a pretty decent selection of fresh fruit there. I had been eating pretty chappy lately so I opted to only eat fresh thing in town. The cold grapes, apples, pineapple,celery and carrots were incredible. We hung out at the 7 11for about an hour and then went back iut on the "trail". I was glad once we turned off the highway because the traffic reduced significantly on the next road. We had am uphill trek through the heat to the next water at a local restaurant in pioneertown. turns out the restaurant, pappy and harriots was a hot spot for bands to play at. I wish we were there on a Friday night because we heard it was apreretty hopping place. We ordered some food and then they let us hang out in the shade on the back patio. We set back out around 5 not know how far we wanted to go or wherto camp. On the road, a ranger pulled over and told us we could camp on the nature preserve a few miles up. We wanted to go furthur, but camping options were limited and we were all pretty beat. We cowboy camped in the parking lot of the nature preserve and enjoyed a beautiful desert sunset. Only 20 or miles till we were back on the pct. Day 17 15 miles