September 7

Slept in till 7 today. Soooo nice. Stayed in camp till after 9 and started on a short day of 20 miles. We had decided that instead of two 35 miles days, we would take a 3rd day to get in to elk lake resort and then go out to Bend in the am. Adding this extra day made us really short on food and were mixing spare scraps of dehydrated anything together to have for breakfast. Lunch was a few pieces of salami and half a piece of bread each. Scraping the last peanut butter from the creases of the jar. Brett made powdered gravy and drank it like a shake. The miracle of the day was when I found pudding mix in the heaps of used up wrappers. That filled us up and kept us going for the rest of the day. As we were headed out from lunch, Scallywag caught up with us. We also met three section hikers taking a couple of months to hike oregon. Mapolis Margaret, Woody, and Chef Beard. I've realized that I haven't been sharing trail names, but it's one of the best parts of the trail! We were all chatting and they gave us some bagels and bars that they had been trying to pawn off on people. Me me me! So grateful and we gifted them in return. As were hanging out, another hiker walked up beaming with joy at having caught up with people. His name was Pitfall and he was part of the,now broken up, Lobster Crew. The Lobster Crew, we had heard rumored, was a group of people competing against Team EZ to be last to Canada. We've been joking that a meeting with any members of these teams meant that we were doomed to make it to Canada. Throw in the towel. But really, the team had just been going slow to enjoy the Sierras and Pitfall had been doing 30 mile days since Tahoe and we're still on time to make it to Canada. All this meeting left us a bit behind in our plan to make it to elk lake for food and showers and laundry before closing so we high tailed it our fastest yet. 3-1/2 mph for 13 miles straight with no breaks. By some miracle we made our goal and got there with 15 minutes to spare, but the lights were off and it appeared to be closed is this the right place? How can this be? We knocked on the door. Afterall we just ran 13 miles with empty bellies. Surely someone can respect that, right? Wrong. The guy said that their hours changed and they'd been closed since 7. It's not a store but a bar and we couldn't do laundry till the morning. Here's the hiker box now get out. Uhhh. This isn't what we expected. But we scrounged some tasty morsels from the hiker box and were happy that we wouldn't go hungry after all when a cheerful fellow came up and wanted to show us around camp and give us some "snackiez" he said. He worked there but not today. Today's his day off. He showed us some campsites we could use free of charge. Gave us the info that the other guy didn't-if you don't need a towel or soap, the showers open and free all night. And then he left and came back with "snackiez" a little box with granola bars oatmeal and BBQ chips. BBQ chips! I don't think I can express here how absolutely giddy we were to have chips in our grasp. We thank thank thanked him a million times, but I don't think he really know how thankful we were. A few pieces of wood left in the fire pit and Brett made a nice fire . A rare occasion on our hike. We cooked up a feast and are now going to sleep with full bellies. That's rare. We just can't carry enough food to be full usually. Tomorrow we scamper into Bend as fast as we can. New shoes a REI, bread cheese fruit and salami at the grocery store, ump qua huckleberry ice cream, and brewery tour through downtown bend, then zoomin through the res of Oregon to cascade locks. Over halfway through Oregon already! And loving this journey more and more every day.


P.S. Probably won't have access to a computer for a while so won't be able to update photos.