Alright, over 1/5 of the way there!

Alright folks, this week has been absolutely incredible.  Here is a quick overview of what we have done.

5/21 - Day 26 - 24 miles - mile 454 to 478
This day we left the Saufley's place and headed to the next water source: another trail angel's house (the Anderson's) 24 miles away.  Some hikers are really crazy and do the "24 24 24" challenge... hike 24 miles in 24 hours drinking 24 shots/beers on the way.  People asked us we were going to do that and we said heck no! We get dehydrated enough hiking in the heat! 

So we left the Saufley's at about 5:30 in the morning and headed off with our really heavy packs.  Other than water, I would say food is the heaviest thing in my pack... and since our next resupply was 5 days away (we thought) we needed 5 days of food... but 5 days of food isn't what is used to be.  5 days of food is a lot of food.  We need a lot of calories.  This is roughly what I eat every day:
Breakfast: pop tarts and HUGE snickers bar (the bigger the better), and a breakfast shake (160 calories)
Snacks: Cliff bars, trail mix, chex mix, anything that comes in bar form
Lunch: Preferably bagged tuna with peanut butter and hot sauce... I know this sounds disgusting but out there on the trail it is absolutely magical.
Dinner: A Pasta Side or a Rice Side with a package of ramen noodles mixed in and maybe a scoop of peanut butter and hot sauce
Desert: A 360 calorie cinabun

Okay so that menu times 5 means a lot of weight.  So off we went.  This day had three pretty significant climbs but we got the first two over with before it was really hot out so they weren't all that bad.  Around lunch time we walked up on a water cache that the Anderson's had set up called "The Oasis."  That water cache is awesome.  It's tucked away in the shade and they have all these chairs set up so that we could really relax. I can't really explain just how amazing a chair is to me now.  Whenever we stop walking we try to find a shady place with rocks to sit on.  If there are no rocks we sit on a our packs.  If our pack is uncomfortable then we sit on the ground.  Nearly all of these options require me to put at least a little pressure on my feet for one reason or another (like balance).  Chairs let us actually rest our feet.  They are amazing.  But like all good things, this break had to come to an end so off we went again to tackle the last large uphill before coming into the Anderson's place. 

Now the Anderson's is about 2 miles off of the trail. And actually we weren't sure we even wanted to go.  We had just had a long break at the Saufley's and we had heard that the Anderson's want you to spend a minimum of two days there.  And those two days are just a long party.  That just didn't seem like our scene and so we debated on if we wanted to go there or not... but then Mrs. Anderson actually showed up to where we were, put us in her car, and drove us to her house, promising taco salad.  When we got to the Anderson's we realized that it was all that everyone had told us it was... a fun time, a good party, and a really nice place to just relax and have some fun.  But that wasn't the whole story.  In the backyard they had a maze through these beautiful trees with random spot cleared out for sleeping.  MudD said it reminded him of Sleepy Hollow.  So we were able to go to bed early that night and really relax. 
Day 27 - 5/22 - 23 miles - mile 478 to 501
We woke up at the crack of dawn (like usual) and snuck out of the Anderson's before we could get stuck there with the promise of homemade pancakes for breakfast.  We weren't looking forward to walking the two miles back to the trail so we stuck out our thumb at the first car that passed us by... and he picked us up! Easiest hitch ever! We were back on the trail in no time and going up another mountain.  This day was just beautiful... lots of shade and the birds were singing.  We even saw a deer.  We had a weird lunch break on top of a concrete water container in no shade and fire ants everywhere but hey, we had all the water we could drink.  Originally our plan was to just do 20 miles every day until the next town and just take our time with that... but that would mean that we would stop at mile 498! We couldn't stop that close to 500! So we went on... and nearly missed the 500 mile marker all together! Luckily our friends Thirsty Boots and Tower turned around and saw us walking right passed it and pointed it out to us.  What a great mile to pass.  500! I'm still amazed that we walked that far.

That night we camped up on a beautiful ridge and I was asleep before the sun went down.  But then sometime after the sun went down the wind started blowing really hard and that combined with the near full moon shining down on us, we didn't really sleep well that night.

Day 28 - 34 miles (!!!!) - 501-535
Well the wind from the night before didn't let up... and we didn't realize that it wouldn't let up for some time.  Normally MudD gets up, gets his stuff packed up while I lay there and try to be as small as possible and then gets out of the tent so I can get packed up and we don't get in each other's way.  But this morning was just too cold and too windy.  We both stayed in the tent until we were ready to take it down.  I think this was our record time for getting out of camp.  We were out by 5:25 which is 5 or 10 minutes faster than we normally do it.  That morning was just cold and windy so we didn't stop and didn't take breaks and just put our legs on cruise control and did the 16 miles into "Hiker Town" in about 5 hours. 

Now Hiker Town deserves its own paragraph.  Hiker Town is just someone's house in the middle of nowhere.  There are a couple of farms around this place but nothing else.  So I guess this guy bought all this property as some sort of investment opportunity.  His first night sleeping at his new place, him and his wife looked out the window to see what they thought were a bunch of homeless people camped out in their front yard.  They could just not believe that all these people were choosing hike from Mexico to Canada.  But slowly they got to talking to these hikers and really took a liking to them and slowly started building things to help the hikers out.  Now these two have produced and directed movies for Disney so they are kind of creative people.  So when they wanted to build a little place for hikers to sleep, they didn't just build a shack and put some cots in it.  No, they made a miniature hotel.  And when hikers started to ask if they could get maildrops sent to them there, they didn't just designate a closet as the mailroom (like I probably would have done) but they hired a guy to build a miniature post office!  This place is bizarre and wonderful at the same time.

But we couldn't stay there forever.  We had the dreaded Mojave Desert to hike through.  Everyone had told us that the day we entered the Mojave would be the hotest day of our lives.  Well they were wrong.  We went through on maybe the best day possible.  It never got above 80 degrees that day (or the next) and we cruised through those next 18 miles.  They were completely flat and our bodies are at the point where they can handle flat.  In fact I say unless we are going uphill, there is no need to stop and camp for the night.  I guess that's why we normally start the day with a climb.  So we just cruised to the next water source - a water cache set up by the owners of Hiker Town - and set up camp for the night.  We got in about 9:30 and did the last couple miles by the light of the moon that had kept us up the night before.

This might have been one of our weirdest camping spots of the trip so far.  I am not exaggerating when I say that we were in the middle of a wind farm.  I have never seen so many windmills in one place.  Needless to say that night was windy but we found a nice spot that was protected by some hills and we slept well.  Our feet were sore, our knees hurt a bit, but boy we were really pumped that we had hiked 34 miles.  Even though the last 3 or so miles all I could think was "this is miserable," as soon as we got to camp I knew that this day would be one of the days that I really remembered well after the hike.

Day 24 - 23 miles - 535 - 558.
Boy was I tired this morning.  We let ourselves sleep in all the way till 5:45 am!  But then got going... and the going was slow.  Luckily it wasn't hot just like the day before.  This section was extremely exposed.  Even the water cache (with chairs!) that we found at noon wasn't in a shady spot like they normally are... there just wasn't any shade.  Nothing really sticks out about this day.  We just cruised and had a good time.  We were in good spirits for most of the day knowing that we were walking into a town.

Now we are actually in L.A.  Our friends that we started hiking with but then lost a few days into the trip had plans to meet up with an uncle in L.A. these days.  We were too far away to get a ride so we rented a car, picked up our friends behind us, and headed out to L.A.  We have been here now for two days are we are leaving tonight to get back closer to the trail and get ready to get moving tomorrow.  We have about 140 more miles of Southern California to get through and we are anxious to get it done!  We will be at the address we posted below till June 4th! So feel free to send us a letter if you want!

Fast feet, fast miles

MudD goofing around at the 500 mark!

Trail leading down to Hiker Town

A good shot of the Mojave

Walking into Hiker Town

Hiker Town post office and sheriff station

Heading out into the Mojave! Check out how flat that is!

Weirdest place to sleep

Going up out of the Mojave!