Gabe and I caught the bus up to the bakery this morning. We spent a few hours there, I ate a bunch of food and charged up a few things. Frank showed up a while later, he was heading out today. Since he didn't have cell service, he ended up sending a text message via Gabe telegram. He wrote it out on a piece of paper and asked Gabe if he would send the text message when he got to Chelan later today.

Let it Be showed up when the bus came back, it was good to see him again. He talked with Gabe and I for a while.

Gabe and I walked back to town which was about two miles. The highlight was passing a gumball machine. I had two quarters so we had gum to chew on during the last mile to town.

I got my boxes from the PO and mailed out a few postcards. Gabe left on the ferry at 2pm. Storytime ended up going on the same boat to Chelan. Storytime said he was so underfed that he was close to quitting...so he was heading to Chelan to sit in a hotel room and pig out for a couple of days.

I went back to my tent and took a nap. I woke up when RWE came by, it turns out my stocking cap had ended up with her laundry (she, Gabe, and I shared a washing machine). As I was getting up a while later, a few hikers came in. One was Burrito Grande, the German guy who I had last seen at the Anderson's house...when he was pushing a wheelbarrow full of beer back to their house (to which I extensively documented on video). He didn't recognize me at first due to the beard. met a couple other hikers, Lotus and Hermes. Funny how we knew a lot of the same people, yet we had never met. Hermes remarked on how I always had the time written in the registers. I told him about the clock site and ended up getting a clock photo with them.

Went back to the store so I could call Cora at 7pm. I tried talking to her earlier, but the payphone was right near where the mudslide was. It was difficult to talk to Cora with a loud road machine moving dirt and boulders around. I figured it would be easier to talk in the night after the workers were done for the day.

I talked to Let it Be for a bit until 7pm rolled around and then I walked up to the payphone to call Cora.

Our talk was somewhat easier this time. The only downside being a woman smoking a cigarette near me and the smoke was drifting into the little room where the phone was...it smelled like a bar. Then there were people talking, so it was really distracting, they finally left though. Then I noticed a girl who was waiting for me to get off the phone. It was a nice talk with Cora, but holy cow, I forgot how horrible payphones are.

Cora is going to meet me on the border at 4pm on the 25th. This means I have some time to kill. I like the idea of meeting her, but the weather needs to hold out also. I kind of want to just push it and then take the bus to Vancouver, but looking at the calendar, I only have to kill an extra day and a half and I can meet Cora on the border instead. (which is the better option all around).

Went to the restaurant and got the nachos, unlike the meatloaf, the nachos were a great deal. I plowed through them and got caught up on a few writing things.

Walked out onto the floating dock to take some photos of the gas pump. Just as I was getting ready to leave, a van pulled up and a guy came down the dock with a camera. "A harvest moon on a clear night...you don't get that chance much". I followed him out onto the end of the dock and we took photos. We started talking and it turns out he is from Bellingham. He knew the record store I used to work at nearly 20 years ago. He told me about the old movie theater they have in Chelan. It was showing the movie "The Butler". He said it made him feel a bit old when they talked about the civil rights stuff. When he was in high school his family moved to Georgia. He said he was completely confused by the "whites only/colored" nonsense. He was on the football team in high school and his team was refusing to play another because they had (gasp!) some non-whites on their team. After practice he asked in the locker room what the big deal was. There was a long pause and then the quarterback said "We do things differently here, you are obviously not from around here". His response was "no, I am not...and I sure as hell won't be staying here either once school is done". He laughed and we walked back off the dock and bid each other goodnight.

My original plan was to take tomorrow off and leave Friday, but I'm getting a little bit of itchy feet so I think I am going to leave tomorrow afternoon, even if I only hike five miles or so. There is supposed to be some trail magic going on at Harts Pass this weekend, but I don't know if I will get there, well, maybe Sunday, but then I will need to go a bit slow since it is only 30 miles to the border from Harts Pass. Time (and weather) will tell.

Been out five months as of yesterday and I still can't believe I will be done in a week. Instead of "thru hiking" I will be "through hiking" bum de dum.