Day 31 - Day 32

May 9 - May 10

Mile 468 - Mile 478

When we woke up we only had ten miles to go before Casa de Luna, an infamous stop on the PCT run by trail angels Terrie and Joe Anderson. Their place is situated in such a way that you have to go to their place for water since its in the middle of a dry stretch... and then you stay because it's so much fun.

Anyway, we packed up underneath we the power lines, still in the clouds and we expected it to be an easy and cool walk to the road.

Within an hour, however, the sun had broken through the clouds and really started warming things up. The trail in this section was essentially just a small path through a maze of dense chaparral so there weren't many views and it was a tad monotonous.

We got to the road finally and Terrie herself showed up in her van to shuttle us and a few other hikers to her house. There wasn't enough room in the first shuttle for all of us, so Mike and I opted to wait for her next run.

While we waited, the mail lady showed up to deliver mail to a mailbox right next to us and as she got out of her truck, we saw she was wearing a Casa de Luna shirt. It's that popular of a place.

Croom and Mike relaxing on the outdoor couches.

One of the rules of Casa de Luna is that you have to wear a Hawaiian shirt while you're there. Another rule is you have to eat taco salad for dinner and pancakes for breakfast. Works for us.

We donned our vacation shirts and made our way to the backyard where we set up home base in the forest of manzanita bushes. 

For the rest of the day, we relaxed and did our chores. Our stay bled into the next day as we had our Sierra resupply strategy to flesh out and this took longer than expected. We used our time to brainstorm with other hikers, look at our maps, and decide how to tackle this formidable section of trail that we will be in very soon (crazy!). 

A group of us walking back through town to the hostel after visiting the only store in town, a gas station convenience store. By the way, one perk of the Hawaiian shirts is that locals are able to identify us by them and direct us back to the hostel if we get lost.

By the end of our second day we had had a great time, but we were definitely feeling anxious and ready to get back on the trail. After our second night of incredible taco salad, good music, and great company, we called it a night so that we could get an early start (and some more pancakes) in the morning.