I had my tracksuit on this morning. At one point I unzipped it halfway, then walked around asking my friends: "Hey, I'm going down to 7-11 to get some smokes, you need anything?"

Cora and I got the tracksuits for our wedding party we had four years (!) ago at my parent's house in Yakima, WA. It was fun to wear the whole getup.

People left after breakfast. It was hard to say goodbye to Cora with me being so close to home. At least there is only about another month of hiking. She was going away for work for a couple of days and had a lot to do this past week with meeting me at highway 26 and this weekend. I can't thank her enough!

A couple other PCT hikers were in the area, it was Birdman. I hadn't seen him since I think the Onion Valley Trailhead (where I went into Independence) way back in June. He was doing good. He too was saying goodbye to his wife that morning.

I sat by myself at the picnic table decompressing. People had left a lot of food so I was chowing on that.

My friend Joh was coming out today but not for a few hours. Chris, Yonna, and Jen were coming out also.

I decided to check out Shrek's house in town. He is a guy who takes in hikers. Got there and there were a few people there. I didn't recognize any of them.

There was a treehouse platform up in the trees so I spent some time up in there working on the blog. I looked up at one point and there was Chief standing out by the road! It only took me 1600 miles to catch up to him.

I climbed down and went and said hello to him. It was good to see him. He was pretty rail thin. He told me he ate a ton of food at the breakfast and lunch buffets at Timberline lodge.

My friends from Portland all showed up. Jen and her boyfriend Joe had brought me homemade cookies. Chris and Yonna brought my laptop and a few other things. Joh brought a cooler full of beer. (Thanks everyone!).

We left Shrek's place and went down the street to the alehouse for dinner. Chief came along too. We had a nice dinner and it was good to get caught up with Chief on what he was up to.

Chief said he was up around Mt. Jefferson when the storm hit last weekend. Said it was one of the most unnerving things in his life. Lighting appearing everywhere nearby, loud thunder, huge amounts of rain, etc.

It turns out we had some miscommunication as to when I was gonna be in Sierra City, so I missed the birthday party that he had set up there...he said they still had a great time regardless. He also said he had a good time talking to my friend Chris at Shelter Cove (and the beer perty that I missed there too).

Chief told me about staying at the Anderson's house and how he had a good time there. He had heard some crazy things about that place so when he saw Terry's van looking for hikers, he had hid the first time. He was really glad he went there though.

Chris and Yonna bought me dinner (thanks!). We all went down to the river to let the dogs run around. Somehow JJ Cale came up and Joh mentioned how he had died last month. I gotta load up my iPod with his music when I have my laptop going. I have always liked his songs.

Everyone except for Joh left. We went down to the marina and camped in spot #13. I have a lot of blogging to catch up on so it looks like I'm going to be in Cascade Locks for a good chunk of tomorrow too.