More letters from the trail

Space Man Spiff writes:
5-7-08 Barrel Springs mi. 101

Haven't written for a few days, because man I've been tired! We reached the 100 mile mark and did 2 consecutive 25 mi days. Let me tell you how I felt today: like a lead puppet that had been thrown against a wall, stepped on, intoxicated and operated with rusty strings. Yup, I hurt! But now that I'm lying down under our tarp, in the wind, to the sound of incredibly small and loud frogs, I feel great. A few blisters, achy knees and feet, but we made it. Several times today I found myself in a laughing fit unable to walk because I was practically falling over...and you know what? My legs felt better. Laughing really does help out here.

So let me back track a minute: 2 days ago we were in Mt. Laguna waiting for the post office to open so we could pick up our package. A word of advice: The people at the store are very nice, but the P.O. is only open half days so I wouldn't send a package there if I'd known. We had a very short day of hiking that day and slept at a picnic area. Everyone we talked to the next day had experienced rain, even the ones camped at the same picnic area, but not us! Don't know if it was the tree above us, or our Seattle-ified perception of rain, but we slept out that night!

Yesterday, hiked 25+ miles from the picnic area to Scissors Crossing, a road intersection at the desert we hiked into last night. LONG day. Hot and steep hills, and long switchbacks. Hiked from 6am-8pm. A bunch of other folks welcomed us to camp, as it was dark. (It gets dark in just a few short minutes, at 8 pm every night.)

Today, another long day from 6am-7pm, but felt a little more manageable. Perhaps just getting used to it. In the middle of out hot day, came across a water cache that was full with water I relying upon, as I only wanted to carry 2 liters up the mountain on my sore knees. Sure am thankful for those Trail Angels who hike gallons + gallons of water up to the caches, or drop it off at the roads.

Apparently, we're known on the trail already. A couple introduced themselves to us when we arrived at Barrel Springs, saying they'd heard all about " you gals who can't be stopped once you get started." Hard to tell them that I don't like being called a gal or that people are probably just surprised we hike as far as some of the typical trail dudes. But we do start earlier than anyone else, it seems.

Speaking of which, here's a sample schedule of our day.

5:00 am-Wake up, or try to. We keep setting our watch alarms but can't hear them because they're lost somewhere in our sleeping bags. But we definitely wake up by 5:30 with the light.
5:30-6 am-Do many things at once: Pack up camp, tape blisters, brush teeth, eat a bar...
6 am-On the trail.
9 ish-Eat breakfast
1 ish-Eat lunch, hopefully at water
All day-Take breaks often to drink, eat, pee, tape feet, laugh at ourselves.
7 ish-Find camp, make food, try to write to you all.
8 or 9-Sleep!

Last night I think I saw a comet! And tonight, we're sleeping next to Brigit the horse, whose hooves we follow on the trail when she's ahead of us.