Day 7 Activate the Prayer Team

It rained again last night. 

Yesterday I talked about how I added 2 tablespoons of garlic salt to my meal by accident. If you don’t like graphic gross bodily function stories skip this next paragraph.

I woke up at about 10 pm to the sound of rain, hitting my tent, and immediately felt a grumble in my belly. I thought back to science class and remembered that salt within a cell attracts water for dilution, and I had a lot of salt in my belly and digestive system. I started making plans pulled my trowel out of my backpack, and at 10:30 the rain stop I climbed up the hillside behind my tent, dug a hole and filled it with liquid. I awoke at 11:30 to the sound of something rattling outside and realized I had not closed by rain fly when I got back in the tent my sleeping bag, floor and shoes were wet. Luckily my bag did not soak through and remained warm.  At 2:30 I repeated the same thing, and by Gods grace, the rain ended again for a short 10 minutes. 6 AM. I woke up and repeated the same process. Salt consumption lesson learned!

We hit the trail an again it was drizzling with cold wind. This is supposed to be one of the hottest parts of the trip where you seek shade during the day and hike early morning and late evening.

As we ascended up the trail we could look back across the valley and see the trail we had come down the previous afternoon. 

Although it was still cold and wet, I did take a few more pictures today. 

I found some Chaparral Yucca beginning to bloom. I showed pictures of this with the dead stocks, a few blog entries ago.

The trail wound up along a ridge line, and we could see between the two valleys as the trail snaked between the hills. Far in  the distance, a desert road is visible that we would soon cross.

The cold blowing rain and overcast skies were starting to get to me. I knew it was time to reach out to my prayer team. I started to dictate a message, explaining my situation, but between raindrops and my thick gloves, after about five minutes, standing in the cold, it was accidentally deleted. I prayed for myself, continue down the trail and came across the smiley face that somebody had scratched in the sand. 

Shortly I arrived at the desert Road scene from high above. There sits a water cistern that in the summer time is a vital source of hydration not so much this year. The bottles you see inside are put there by Trail Angels.

I was still getting frustrated with the cold in the rain, so I took a moment and I sent a shorter text to the prayer group at 9:55.

At 10:08 I went around the Bend looked to my left and saw an incredible rainbow going from mountaintop to mountaintop.

That was all I needed my spirits were lifted. I knew the God was with me and I knew that my prayer team was with me. I put on some worship music and continued down the trail.

We continued winding from one valley to another sometimes up sometimes down we stopped for a quick lunch snack with a beautiful view.

We eventually reached the desert floor and continued along it for a couple of miles to scissors crossing where a local PCT hiker who assists other hikers provides a cache of water and Gatorade. 

His hiker name is the professor and as we were on the side of the road trying to get a hitch to the town of Julian for the night he pulled up.  We jumped in the car along with one other hiker named John and showed up to Julian, as once again, the rain started to come down. 

Jillien hosts one of the iconic PCT stops, Moms Pies. If you show them your PCT permit you get a free slice of pie with a scoop of ice cream and a hot drink. I chose strawberry cherry pie with a flaky crust, cinnamon ice cream and hot apple cider. It definitely was delicious and very appreciated.

Calling around to all the local hotels, there were no rooms available. It was cold rainy and the only option was the local VFW hall. You could sleep outback on their porch. Not an appealing option. I again searched hotels, and found one last bed-and-breakfast I had not called before. I called asking if they had any rooms, they did not; as a second thought, for some reason, only on this call, I asked if he knew of any place in town that might have something available for PCT hikers. He asked if I was a hiker and I said yes and he said well we have a fifth wheel that we reserve only for hikers it has three queen beds, and can sleep a maximum of four people. I said will take it and he sent me the address. Two other hikers, a couple, were sitting at the next table at Moms. Earlier they had been discussing with us if we had found any place to stay, at the time nothing. We shared what I just found and told them that it was three beds as a couple they could have it. They said they would love to go in on it with us, dropping our share of the price in half. 

We got our stuff into the fifth wheel, laid out some of our gear to dry, and headed off to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. I got the house salad, which was very good and spaghetti with sausage, which wasn’t. 

Back to the fifth wheel, shower, blog, and sleep. 

Today’s miles 13.6 total trail miles 77.1