Oh, the Luxuries . . .

We made it to the Heitman's in Old Station, and we haven't left yet. But that has nothing, I assure you, to do with Evie's Birthday Celebration last night, nor the several beers consumed, nor the fact that we stayed up 'til midnight playing "I Never" in a tree house.

I'm telling yall, this trail is fabulous. Literally, when we finally, after 60+ miles of roads, found the trail again, I wanted to kiss it. But I couldn't because I was too full of barbecue and wine, and it was getting dark, and we were trying to hike at least a few miles. I was full of barbecue because the trail goes right to Drakesbad Resort in the middle of Lassen National Park and Drakesbad has a hotsprings pool and showers and barbecue on Wednesday nights, which is when we happened to be there. And they LOVE hikers. Everything but the food was complimentary, and food was half off.

And this treat of a trail stop happened right after our road walk, and the road walk, which was so hard on my body, was delightful in many other ways because I had the Six Pack around, and folks were still wonderful to us even though we weren't on the trail. When we passed through Greenville we collapsed on the high school lawn with strawberries and coconut Popsicles from the store across the street, the caretaker let us into the boys locker room where we got to take cold showers. He even provided us soap and towels. So when we got to Drakesbad we weren't even that stinky.

And now we're in Old Station at the Heitman's house and we've showered and eaten wonderful food yet again. If we're not careful, we might get too used to these creature comforts!

Lucy reminded me on the phone the other day, that she rarely hears about the trail. Instead she hears about all the soft beds and the margaritas and the big breakfasts and the ice cream and really, I assure you all, we are hiking! We see trees and dirt and rocks every day! We eat lots of nasty bars and Mike N' Ikes and sweaty cheese with dirty fingerprints on it. We find lakes occasionally and jump in, and crash in the bushes at night time, and then we get up in the morning early early early (Evie has a new little ditty he likes to sing at 5am as he throws pine cones at all of us still peacefully sleeping) and hike some more!

And speaking of swimming holes, we swam in Lower Twin Lake (another goddamn Twin Lake) and it was incredible! It was warm enough to actually swim, and the bottom was hard packed mud and the water was crystal clear so we could see all the way to the bottom when we were swimming, and we could see the light playing of the water reflected on the lake bottom. It was idyllic! Another place to go back to. And today, when we finally leave the Heitman's, we shall hit a long waterless stretch in the hot, dry sun. But we hear there are caves to take refuge in, so maybe we won't really hike until evening anyway.

Oh this trail is full of woes . . .