Despite not setting an alarm I managed to wake up at daybreak. After shuffling around a bit I heard Gabe shuffling around too. Got packed up and made a breakfast of pasta, rehydrated marinara sauce, and rehydrated veggies.

While Gabe was making coffee, I saw something run past him. I was trying to process in my head what I was seeing, it looked like a cat or a rabbit. Gabe saw it and we both realized it was a buwnyy wrabbit.

Frank came by as we were getting ready to leave. RWE came by soon after. We were all excited to get to Stehekin.

I told Gabe about a dream I had. It was one of those dreams where everything gets made right, then you wake up and everything is still unright. You see, we are talking dominoes.

Sometime in the mid 80s my two-blocks-away friend Jason and I loved setting up dominoes and watching them fall. We wanted to make something bigger so I brought a set from our house. After we had had our fun they all got randomly shoved back into the two boxes. I took my box home, put them in my parents' game cabinet, and that was that. Fast forward many years and I think Cora and I were going to play dominoes. The game wasn't working out right and we realized that there were doubles of a lot of dominoes and others were missing. I realized the boo boo from what had happened 20 years before that.

So in my dream last night I dreamt that I had brought the box of dominoes to Jason's house on 18th ave in Yakima. His mom still lives there. I told her the issue with the dominoes and she understood the problem right away. She took me to where the games were and here was the box of their dominoes. I spent the next 30 minutes sorting them out so each box had the correct ones. We talked a bit and I left. I was so happy to finally have these in order. I didn't realize how bad it was bothering me.

So I woke up and the first thing I thought: "crap! that box of dominoes I haven't touched in nearly 10 years at my parents' house is still messed up"

Ok, now back to our regularly scheduled PCT hike:

Gabe took off earlier than me since he said he felt he was going to be getting a phone call on line 2 soon. I left about 15 minutes after and didn't see him until the very end of the hiking day...a whole nine miles.

The walk was good, mostly flat and downhill. The trail got a bit confusing in one spot and I saw some rock cairns that made it look like the trail went over this giant log. I followed it even though the dry creek bed it crossed was about 10 feet below. It was a little unnerving crossing it (since I had my video camera out it made the crossing harder). I got to the other side and didn't see a trail. I crossed the log again, looked around, and eventually found the trail. I went back up to the log, took my trekking poles, and bashed the crap out of the rock cairn...didn't want another hiker to make the same mistake. It would have sucked to have fallen off the log this far into the trip.

Finally the switchbacks showed up and I knew we were close to the road. When I got to the bridge over the Agnes River Gabe was there. I had Gabe take a photo of me in my 1994 pose. The bridge and sign have changed. We got to the High Bridge Ranger Station and there were a few hikers there. The bus was running a bit late so we had a while to BS and take photos. Dora and Spitfire had left me a note on the trailhead board.

The bus came and down the road we went. The driver stopped at the bakery which is a couple miles out of town. I bought about 20 bucks worth of goods. The cashier girl asked me if I had met (drawing a blank...her trail name is Siesta), I told her I hiked with her on and off in the desert. Siesta worked at the bakery last year and is hiking the PCT this year..so they are all eager for her to come rolling into her old workplace...but having hiked from Mexico.

We got to Stehekin a bit later. The damage from the mudslide was a bit significant, yet seemed very contained. The only reason I say this is that several cars are still buried two weeks later, yet the flow goes in between a couple of buildings. One of the buildings is the public laundry and shower, that didn't get wiped out (whew).

It turns out there is no easily accessible Internet nor phone here. Well, there is Internet, but only if you use the dedicated computer at the hotel/lodge. There is also a public telephone, but I was told by the post office guy that it doesn't work so hot. (see below). It was getting a bit stressful in that I needed to get my credit card bill paid, get money moved around, plan out my meeting with Cora, and get a note on the blog saying I wouldn't be getting it updated anytime soon.

I asked the girl at the store about the Internet and she said it was for hotel guests only. Ugh.

Outside the store I saw Skinny D. I went up and gave her a hug...I had not seen her since Northern California. She had finished the trail, turned around and went back south since this was her favorite trail town. She was leaving on the ferry at 2pm..this was the end-end of her hike basically. Skinny D told me that she finished with Grand Entrance, B*rad, Butters, and Spoonman. After that everyone kind of went their separate ways.

Gabe and I walked up to the campground and found a spot to park our stuff. I went to the Post Office but didn't get my box since I didn't want to deal with it right now. I went back to the store and told the guy there I would give him five bucks if I could use the Internet for a few minutes. The owner was near and he said "just take him up to the rec room....no, keep your money". Nice guy! I went on the net and got all my loose ends tied up as much as I could, plus I got Amtrak and Greyhound schedules for Gabe. It looks like he is going to have to spend a night in Chelan or Wenatchee after getting off the ferry boat.

Later I met up with Gabe and everyone at the public shower/laundry. Gabe showed up after taking a shower and I was asking him about the pay phone. He had bought a five dollar calling card and said the connection was horrible. He could hear his wife talk, but she could not hear him. "I can't hear you", she would say. Eventually Gabe got so frustrated he screamed the word "fuck!!!" into the phone. "oh, I heard that", his wife said.

After taking a shower and doing laundry a bunch of us went up to the restaurant for dinner. It was a bit pricey (a few guides say it is overpriced, to which I agree). The meatloaf was $15 good, not $23 good. I only say this because the bakery was totally worth spending more money than what it actually cost.

As we were eating, three more hikers showed up. Storytime, Tea Time, and...Hooligan! I hadn't seen Hooligan since the Sierras. He is the guy I first met when we were hitchhiking into Mojave together. I thought he would have been done by now but he had to go to Canada and re-enter the USA to get his Visa renewed. (he is from Ireland). He told us how he had taken a side trip to climb Mt. Shasta. On the descent he met a guy who was driving to Alaska. He said "I have only known you for five minutes...but could I ride with you to Vancouver, BC?".

They rode together but got hung up at the border for a few hours, mostly because the border guards were really perplexed at how they knew each other "met on Mt. Shasta in California". He got dropped off at the Vancouver airport, but was unable to get a flight to Toronto where his brother lived. He ended up taking a 72 hour bus ride to Toronto. Prior to the trip his Dad had reservations about the bus trip. Hooligan assured him it would be no problem...it would be nice in fact, especially since he had spent the last 2200 miles walking.

Nope, the bus ride was worse than the PCT he said. It stopped everywhere and time stood a bit still.

The store closed at 8:00pm so Gabe and I went to the store to get some snacks. They were out of ice cream pints. Just after we said "oh well", the woman suddenly remembered she had just received a flat of Oreo cookies and cream ice cream pints. She brought the flat out and we each bought one.

Back at the restaurant the other hikers saw what we had and boom...they gave money to Tea Time and he went and bought about five more pints. "Wow,the news travels fast among you hikers", the woman apparently said.

I also met the guy who left the note about the wasps in the middle of the trail, and at the loo a couple days ago. Kind of nice to finally put a face with a note in a ziplock bag, in the middle of nowhere.

Back at the camp now. Hooligan and Tea Time just came crashing through our camp with no headlamp. I lit up the path to where Storytime was camped..since they were camping next to him.

Gabe is gonna leave on the 2pm boat tomorrow. I am a bit unsure of my plans. Cora isn't meeting me until the 25th and it is 81 miles until the border. I have time to kill. A woman I met today told me of a couple good side trips that I might do. I just don't know what the weather is going to do. It is supposed to be nice in Stehekin for several days, but kind of crappy on the west side of the North Cascades (the PCT is on the east), so who knows what will happen.

Ok, off to bed, gotta wake up and catch the bus up to the bakery for breakfast!