5 June ~ HIker Heaven!!!!

Hello m'dears! Goodness and I arrived this morning to Agua Dulce where we had a wonderful breakfast with Racheopod and were reunited with our Gnar. I am now sitting in what is appropriately named, Hiker Heaven. We will be taking a zero here tomorrow and enjoying the unbelievable hospitality! You walk up to this ranch and see all of these white tents set up outside with cots inside and many stations to meet all hiker needs. An array of clean clothing and sandals to choose from as your laundry is washed, a pile of movies for all to enjoy, and even a few 'private' sleeping spaces for couples. Goodness and I have scored the horse trailer! This space is the platform that you see above a pick-up truck bed and it is quite sweet. There are a row of hiker boxes to sift through for gear, a single wide trailer kitchen, community hair clippers, and even a sewing machine that I will be hitting by and by today! We spent last night about 2 miles away so today is a near-0 for us which gives us much time to rest. The first of the month was Gnar's 22nd birthday. I grabbed a pair of numeral candles and we sang near the top of Mt. Baden Powell over snow cones. I randomly and magically found an unopened bottle of Grenadine at the top, so we busted out our cook pots and mixed the snow on in! It was fantastic! Yum! Most of that day I spent in a meditative state through some loverly country. That evening, our Cardinals split for the Frog Detour. Gnar went up to scout it out and we went down to a roundabout trail that resembled a rock quarry. It was certainly rougher terrain than we were accustomed to thus far but reminded me greatly of the Sierras. We cowgirl slept at the river after a nice long descent.

The next detour day found us also in Sierra reminiscent territory as we climbed and climbed and climbed up to a sweet saddle. We also went out on a short jaunt to a formation called 'Devil's Chair' which was just a nice long rock jetty that looked out over a valley. The odd thing was that there was this cage around the entire thing of which Goodness felt was condescending. We later supposed that it was for the area laymen to feel safe out in the wild. We joined the PCT again that evening and were delighted. :) The following day was the 3rd and we awoke after more cowgirl camping out at a small empty boyscout camp. My first thoughts of the day were happy birthday wishes to my Aunt Carol and my old pal Dave Gehrke!! Hope your day was more than you wished! We slept next to a stream with Racheopod that night and I sang Bobby Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe as a lullaby per the date. Music has been central to my walking experience and the trail is the perfect place to memorize lyrics and poems. I will be printing out many more things that I want locked in my head. So if anyone has something wonderous in mind, send it my way! I wrote out the lyrics to the Siren's song, Go to Sleep Little Babe from O Brother Where Art Thou and now Gnar, Racheopod, and I have it memorized to sing at the gloaming tonight.

Tomorrow we are getting an Angelride to REI and a larger grocery store. I will attempt to write more catch-up entriage tomorrow to detail my adventures living in a castle with Racheopod.