I woke up the next morning at the nature preserve dreading the long road walk we still had ahead of us. Fortunately we had a spectacular desert sunrise which lifted my spirits. As we were packing up a dog came up to our camp curious about the food we were eating. Turns out he belonged to the ranger that let us stay at tge preserve. I was the last to break camp and I struggled to keep up with the group. My feet were killing me. I winced in pain with every step I took. After about 1/4 mile though they numbed up and I was able to catch up. The ranger's dog, aptly named "roamer" followed us down the road. He probably covered three times the distance we were roaming around the desert around us chasing rabbits. He would disappear for about 10 minutes roaming the desert and then run right back to us. He followed for about 8 miles until we decided we better call his owner. Kerry the ranger laughed when we talked to him and said it happened all the time. Fortunately we were still road walking So he he just drove up and picked him up. We ran into our friends in the "dinner party". We call them the dinner party becaise the started cooking their dinners during lunch when they took a siesta to beat the heat. It always great to meet back up other trail friends. The road walk was rough, but we were on a dirt road now so it felt a little more like trail. The road led us through this huge Joshua tree grove. They were the biggest Joshua trees I had ever seen. It felt like walking through a Dr suess book. I was by myself for most of the road walk as my blisters were still killing me. I eventually met back up with the "tan clan" at a water source not too far from the pct. We were called the tan clan because all 4 of us had tan hiking shirts. We took a little siesta at the water source and pushed on towards the pct. When we finally back got back on trail we all celebrated. It was only 5 o clock but we set up camp at the first level spot we found. It felt soo good to be done with the road walk. We were Glad we had did the alternate, but given the choice again, we probably all would have skipped it. The alternate was rough, but it made for some interesting stories that we wouldn't have had if we skipped it. Well all cowboy camped and looked forward to an easy weekend in big bear. Day 18 - 22 miles