Day 4-Day 5

Left the campground yesterday after what felt like forever. We'd been joking that it felt like our new home there under that magnificent tree. My heels felt much better but as soon as we set out it became painfully (very painfully) obvious that I wasn't healed yet and my shoes just made every step so excruciating that my mood took a nosedive. It was very apparent that I would not be able to hike with the setup that I had. Sparrow suggested I use my camp shoes (Vivo Barefoots) and rig them I not rub my heels. 30 minutes later and some McGyvering later, I had some brand new hiking shoes that made my feet feel WORLDS better.

Ill put up a better pic of my them later but you can see me working on them above. After rigging them up, I was actually able to hike without hobbling. It felt soooo much better without anything rubbing on my heels.

The 12 or so miles we did yesterday were beautiful but very very exposed. Have I mentioned how intense the sun is and just how hot it is?? These umbrellas we're carrying are lifesavers. 

Saw lots of arid desert scenes. Lots of cactus.

Water cache at a road crossing

Break time halfway through our day.

All day was one long uphill gaining about 3000 feet in 12 miles, so not bad, but unrelenting. 

Once we got up to around 5000 feet we started seeing familiar sights... Pine trees! 

The pines made us feel much more at home and their shade was very welcome.

Beautiful horned lizard. We've seen a few of these guys. Apparently if you get too close, they will ooze blood at you. I'm not sure exactly how that works as a defense mechanism, but it's pretty interesting.

We spent the night last night in this beautiful alpine desert meadow under a big pine tree. The pine cones are bigger than our hands!

There was a water source right nearby our site but it was a horse trough and didn't look too appetizing...

Someone was actually keeping goldfish in it as well so we were glad we didn't need it as a water source.

Today we woke up and rolled about 1.5 miles through beautiful alpine meadows

into Mount Laguna Campground where many people are getting their first resupply boxes. We didn't send ourselves anything and we're digging through the hiker box (where people discard unwanted food and gear) to resupply. We have a shoestring budget for this hike and we want to make every dollar count!

Going through our gear and taking inventory. 

Hikers outside the campground store.

Planning on doing some night hiking today for the first time on this trip. We plan on doing more of this during these desert sections to beat the heat. We haven't done any so far because if you night hike too near the border, the Border Patrol will stop you a lot and ask for your hikers papers. We're feeling now like we're far enough away to start attempting it.

Anyway, I gotta get back to resuppling. The post office has just opened and people are dropping extra food... Wish us luck!