Still don't understand how I can drink a few beers at night, then wake up at day light and start packing. Maybe I sleep sounder in the night?

P & SP were up a little bit after me. I had put her phone back onto the picnic table and took away my note. After I wrote last night's entry a chunk o' the drunk folks came back from the bar. "Let's steal their wood over there and we can have a fire!" I went to swap my iPod for my USB battery that was charging on the camp host's RV. I took my iPod and Sideproject's now-charged phone, as to be safe from the wandering drunk folks.

Anyways, this morning we got packed up and walked to town. (a whopping .25 miles). I got a huckleberry pancake AND a breakfast burrito. Spent breakfast pushing photos up to this site. Later we walked up to the store where they had Wi-Fi. I found it faster to push up photos over the 4G rather than the Wi-Fi. After charging stuff up I started calling the phone numbers in the PCT register about a possible ride back up to the trail. Nobody was home except for one woman who had family over so that was a no-go. The most recent Best Show on WFMU finished downloading so I had another thing off my todo list.

We walked over to the gas station and tried to hitch a ride. I got the last of the photos uploaded to the blog so I could officially get that to-do list item crossed off my Trout Lake list.

About 30 minutes later a truck came by, backed up, and the woman hopped out and said "jump on in!" We got a ride in the back of the truck up to the trailhead. The lady had mentioned her mom ran the general store in town. Yup, Greg's daughter Laura gave me a ride back up to the PCT, a tad over 19 years to the day that he did. It was his truck also, although not the same one I was in though. We thanked them and they drove off.

I had to take a few 1994 photos so I said goodbye to P & SP. The rocks looked a bit different and I spent some time wandering around trying to find a campsite that I thought we stayed in. Turns out the photo of the campsite I have is about 1.5 miles up the PCT. All these years I thought the photo was taken at a campsite right next to the road.

It took a little bit to get motivated, it always does after a town stop. The rain came in and I had to hide out in a patch of trees that was not burnt up in a forest fire that happened last year.

The weather stayed cloudy so I couldn't really see Mt. Adams at all The forecast is for more rain tonight so I wanted to be sure and camp earlier.

Passed a creek and someone was camped there. Walked a bit farther down the trail and then cut off the trail over to a spot in the trees that looked like it might work to camp at. Just as I was thinking this was where home would be tonight, I saw a white patch about 15 feet away. I thought it was some sort of salt licks or something (how they would stay together in the rain I don't know). I walked over to it and it was a pile of toilet paper, maxi pads, and possibly diapers. This is the kind of stuff you might see in a car-accessible area, but never out in the woods like this. I turned around and went back down the trail.

Crossed the Lewis River and then started looking around for a sheltered spot. Found one a bit off the trail that would work. The angle was a little more than I'm used to (and "unacceptable" for most folks) .

Went and got water, saw a few random trails that probably led nowhere, to campsites full of people, to empty campsites completely sheltered from the rain and a day-old cooler full of food and beer.

It is kind of nice making camp around 6pm, very not used to that. This is probably the earliest I have typed an entry in a long time (8:11pm currently)

Still don't know what the plan is for next week. The only thing different is that I do have a beer I'm packing to the top of Old Snowy Mountain in the Goat Rocks.