Last night about 11:00pm I woke to the sound of voices and lamps. I heard Texas Poo's voice so I called out to them. The headlamps shone on my tent and they said hello. We chatted for a few seconds and they continued on. Turns out I didn't do my usual map check to make sure I wasn't near the trail. This time, I had basically gone north off the PCT to a flat spot...had I gone north again a few more feet I would have hit the PCT because it made a u-turn going up the hill.

Nature had its own alarm this morning, it was a chipmunk trying to sound like a beacon or something. Beep, beep, beep. Later I heard the sound of rain on my tent! It didn't last long but it got me up and ended my sleep-in. I ended up leaving around 7:00am or so.

Got to Peavine creek and made coffee/breakfast. TP and SS were just getting ready to leave there. They camped there at the creek last night. It was a bit of a complete pain trying to get water out of the creek, simply because it was surrounded with wiry brush. My phone was nearly dead and I couldn't charge it since it was cloudy.

Walked by myself for most of the day. This section is a bit drier and I had walked .3 miles past the last water for 10 miles. I decided to just eat the .6 miles and go get water.

I am using this water treatment stuff called "Aquamira", it is basically two bottles of chemicals. You mix 7 drops per liter from each bottle into a mixing cup and then wait five minutes before pouring the whole works into your water bottle. Today was the first day ever of this trip that I kicked over the mixing cup by accident.

Lost the trail where it turned off of a logging road, ended up having to go back a bit and mark an arrow with sticks so future hikers wouldn't make the same mistake. Every time you see an arrow with sticks pointing somewhere you can readily assume that the hiker who put it there had gone a wild goose chase beforehand.

Ran into TP and SS at Moose Creek around 3:30pm. They had been there a while and were leaving soon. I made dinner and we all talked. I mentioned not being able to wake up and how Texas Poo complaining to his mom (that morning when we all camped on that Lookout Rock) about not being able to wake up brought back a lot of memories for me. TP said that one time as a kid he wouldn't wake up. He was lying face down and his Dad spanked his butt with a belt and told him to get up. There was a bit of silence and I said "man....nowadays you have to pay someone good money to get that done", longer pause and then big laughter.

After they left, guess who showed up? It was Skinny D and Spoonman! I didn't recognize him at first due to his beard getting bigger. We got caught up on trail gossip and they soon left.

I ended up walking into the night...and took a bat to the face. No, not a baseball bat, a bat bat. He/she bounced right off my face. I had new headlamp batteries in which was awesome.

There was a lot of manzanita brush around so finding a camp spot was a little tricky. Eventually the trail crossed the Summit Peak Road. I went down the road a little and found a turnout that must have been from the logging days. Within about 10 minutes I had my tent set up and was asleep in the tent.

[this was added a week later]

I was also on the radio on this day! I couldn't write about it since I wanted to surprise Cora. She finally heard the show. Tuesday nights on WFMU FM (airs on the Internet too, wfmu.org) there is a show called the Best Show. I called in from the trail with my story about listening to Frankie Teardrop on the Stand By Me bridge. I told myself earlier in the day that if I got service later that night I would call in. I had no service at all for a couple days. Around 7:00pm (the show airs 9-midnight ET) I rounded a ridge and had three bars of service. "Crap...I have to call now". I was hoping I wouldn't have service so I could chicken out. The call went good and I can't believe it was 5-6 minutes long, it felt like two. I was having to hold my solar panel against the setting sun so my phone wouldn't die. While I was on hold I tried sitting down and I lost service. I had to call back again, fortunately the lines were not super jammed at that moment and I got through in about five minutes.

If you go here to the 1:24:00 mark you can listen to my call.

Here is an article on the show and its host, Tom Scharpling.