PCT: FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN ADDENDUM

Truckee, CA

Hmm...

After reading my last missive, I'm a bit disappointed - bored, even. It really lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, a problem which I'll attribute to the very strong dose of caffeine I had this morning - my first cup of coffee in months.

Let's see... the High Sierra were stunning! The huge, glacially sculpted peaks were crowned with snow and reached high above tree line. I didn't understand at first the idea of taking mountain passes through this section - why just hike between the mountains?? The PCT generally avoids summits, keeping to mountain shoulders and ridge lines instead anyway. But the High Sierra section is the crown jewel of the PCT, so why skip the summits? Well, the High Sierra are high, for one thing. The mountain passes between the peaks were for the most part above 11,000 or 12,000 feet, the highest being Forrester Pass at just over 13,000 feet. Often the low points on the ridge lines, these passes are literally the best way to pass from one canyon or valley to the next. The summits around the passes are probably attainable, but we put plenty of effort into just getting between them.

And plenty of effort was an understatement. Our pace slowed to about 15 miles a day - all day long. The altitude and snowy, rocky terrain made for slow going. We employed all of the big and little muscles in our bodies just staying upright on the snow. It was fun to pick our own way across the snow fields when we couldn't find the trail, but at times this was confusing and stressful. And then there were the streams. Swollen with snow melt, many of the streams were thigh-deep and flowing fast. There are next to no bridges in this area, so fording or crossing the streams required some thought as well. Reason almost always found a precarious, slippery, rocky way across the streams without getting his feet wet. He would walk up and down the stream bed searching for the best path across. It seemed easier to me to simply take my shoes off, roll up my pants and force my way through the very cold rushing water, leaning upstream and carefully choosing my footing between slippery boulders. Having made it to the other side, I would stamp my numb feet for a few minutes to warm them up again! Some days we crossed ten streams, not including all of the tributaries and seasonal creeklets that pour across the trail. After being in the desert for 700 miles, it was suddenly all we could do to keep our feet dry. Cascades of cold, clear, delicious snow melt were everywhere we looked.

In addition to the challenges of snow, rough terrain, lack of trail, and streams, our elevation change for each day increased to about 7,000 feet. This means that we typically climbed 3,500 feet to the top of the pass, then back down 3,500 feet to the valley of the next canyon. The High Sierra just plain wore me out. By the time we had completed about two thirds of this section, we took a break and rode two shuttle buses and a trolley to the town of Mammoth Lakes. In this compact ski town, we sat back and watched two movies. Though neither movie much captured my attention, I was delighted to order the largest coke available at the concession stand! It took two hands to hold this cup which probably contained more than a day's worth of calories for a non-hiker. With a dose of contraband rum courtesy of fellow hiker Suntan, this was just the diversion I needed!

Back in the mountains, we saw many animals, including bears! One night while cooking dinner, we noticed a bear circling our camp. It was unwise to cook in this heavily used campground, but we were exhausted. Reason and Rascal yelled and threw rocks near the bear, scaring him away. But as we ate dinner, another larger bear sat and watched us from a distance. Rascal told us the next morning that that bear wandered into our camp later that night, sniffed around, and left. It turns out that the bear canisters really do work - the bear did not even touch our food! The bear canister is really for the protection of the bears, rather than humans, by the way. Bears that become habituated to human food and aggressive towards humans are often killed or removed to a zoo. Cubs that are taught to jump on hanging food bags often break their legs in the fall and become unfit to survive. The hope is that these intelligent animals will learn not to source food from humans and will resume their natural methods of hunting and foraging. This, of course, depends on the cooperation of humans.

More welcome were the many deer that would visit us when we camped in the lovely, open grassy meadows in Yosemite. Many of the does appeared to be pregnant. I could only imagine that the yearlings still keeping close to their mothers were in for a rude awakening! One of our favorites was a young buck with little velvety nubs on his skull. He was all teenager, nothing but trouble, challenging all of the other deer! Attracted by the salt in our urine, the deer would fight over such a treat. We carefully covered our backpacks and trekking pole straps, all covered with white salty deposits from our sweat, to prevent any nibbling in the night. I've already had one little visitor who chewed on the chin strap to my sun hat in the desert!

Since hiking north of Yosemite, we've topped 10,000 feet for the last time. We are still reaching above 9,000 feet from time to time, but in about two hundred miles we'll drop and stay below 8,000 feet for the remainder of the trail. We've recently entered a section of famous passes which now have busy roads: Kit Carson Pass, Donner Pass, Sonora Pass. Many of these were pioneered during the Gold Rush era and the Mormon migrations of the mid-1800's.

From one such pass, we stood smiling by the side of the road, thumbs out, hoping to get a hitch to the Gold Rush town of Bridgeport for more supplies. As we put forth out friendliest faces, giant nerdy sun hats removed, another thru-hiker came over to us and asked if we would ride with him and his girlfriend to another town, drop them off, and then park their car back at the pass when we returned the next day. (His girlfriend was visiting and their plan was to start at a point south and hike north to the car.) Needless to say, we were a bit caught off guard - incredulous, really. Once we repeated what this hiker proposed and had it confirmed that he really did mean to turn his car over to us, we naturally agreed! It must be mentioned that we had not previously met this hiker, whose name is Treebeard. However, the hiker community is a small and trusting one. By virtue of our hiker smell and our possession of backpacks, we automatically qualified in Treebeard's mind as part of the tribe and therefore trustworthy. (Much the same way that Pooh has left me and Reason unattended in his home today, free to use the computers, shower, eat all we want out of the fridge, even though we only met him last night!) So off we went with Treebeard! We left the car at the agreed upon spot at the pass, but not before we took a loop through the parking lot where fellow hikers, camping at the pass, did a double-take at the sight of us driving! Best of all was that the car enabled us to procure and deliver a box of doughnuts with birthday candles and a six-pack of RC Cola to celebrate Rascal's 57th birthday! Rascal really likes doughnuts!

Well, that seems more entertaining. Hope you enjoyed it more than the last message.

Best to all,

Cruiser

PCT: FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN

Truckee, CA

Dear all-

I hope you all enjoyed the 4th! Reason and I were in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe, and rather than becoming embroiled in the hectic energy of town we decided to hike to the top of Mt. Tallac, the highest point on the Tahoe rim, and watch the fireworks over the lake. Though the pyrotechnics were in miniature from our vantage point, we saw three shows around the lake!

We are now in Truckee, CA, at Pooh Corner. Pooh hiked the AT and PCT and opens his home near Donner Pass to hikers each summer. (No, we did not have to resort to cannibalism at Donner Pass. We had enough candy bars to make it through!)

Since I last wrote, Reason and I have hiked about 400 miles. We are at about mile 1156. We are nearly halfway to Canada, but even at the halfway point we will still be in California! As you may be aware, there are something like 1200 fires in California at the moment. A one hundred mile section of the trail north of us is closed, so we are working on a way around. Some hikers are hitching around, others are walking on roads. We will likely road-walk so that we won't have to return to this section to complete it. It would be easy to hop up to the Oregon line and hike north, but the heavy snow conditions in Washington and Oregon this year make that impractical. We still need a few weeks for the snow in those states to melt.

Otherwise, all is well. We easily passed through the High Sierra. This is a "low snow" year for the Sierra: great for hikers, bad for Southern California which depends on ALL of the Sierran snow melt for water. I learned that Los Angeles (county?) began buying land and water rights over a hundred years ago in the Owens Valley that lies parallel to the east of the Sierra Nevada. Huge Owens Lake was quickly drained and is now called Owens Dry Lake.

The PCT through the High Sierra coincides with the John Muir Trail for about 250 miles. The optimum time to hike this section is early August after the snow has melted and the mosquitoes have waned. Most JMT hikers walk southbound as this allows them to start at about 8,000 feet and end at Mt. Whitney at over 14,000 feet, acclimatizing along the way. We PCT hikers do the complete opposite. Lucky for us, we had little difficulty with snow or the altitude. According to an article I recently read on Mt. Everest, the human body has about 75% of the capacity to take in oxygen at 9,000 feet above sea level. This capacity diminishes as the elevation increases, and some people experience headache, nausea and sometimes life-threatening pulmonary edema. Resting at altitude helps the body adjust, though I'm unclear on the science. At any rate, Reason and I were able to camp at 10,000 and 11,000 feet for three days in a row before summiting 14,000 foot Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower 48 states. Apart from feeling breathless during ascents above 10,000 feet, we were lucky not to have any problems with the altitude.

Hiking in the snow was a new experience for me. At about 10,500 feet and above, there was still much snow. This often meant that the trail was buried for several miles before and after each mountain pass, or high point, on the trail. Since the PCT is rarely marked or blazed, Reason and I relied on our topographic maps to find our way. Reason dubbed such route finding "choose your own adventure hiking". Since we couldn't always find the exact location of the trail, it just didn't matter! Often we just hiked straight up a snowy mountainside, switchbacks be damned! Coming down the north side of each pass was even more fun: depending on how steep and rocky the terrain, we could often glissade down the mountain, simply sitting down and sliding down the snow! I did strap my crampons on my shoes twice, but the ice axes turned out not to be necessary.

The most difficult part of the snow was walking across fields of sun cups. No, sun cups are not pretty flowers! Sun cups are a natural dimpling of the snow, a phenomenon of the way snow melts that results in crenelations that can be shallow or up to several feet deep. My guess is that this has something to do with the changing angle of the sun throughout the day. Regardless, walking across sun cups is annoyingly tedious. If the dimples are shallow, the walking is slippery but easy. If the dimples are a foot deep, walking becomes increasingly difficult because one must balance on the high, sometimes narrow, rims of each cup. As the day advances, the snow warms and becomes increasingly slippery. At that point, walking across a mile or more of sun cups is exhausting. Which brings me to post-holing: if the snow was very soft, it was not unusual to step deep into the snow at any given moment. One time one of my legs post-holed up to the thigh! There was nothing for me to do but sit down and dig out my own leg because my shoe, being perpendicular to my leg, was wedged under the snow! Such snow conditions required us to strategize our approach to each mountain pass. We always tried to position ourselves so that we hiked up and down each pass before the snow became to soft to navigate.

But I hope we've had the last of the snow for several hundred miles. We've entered a wonderfully beautiful volcanic area. According to some ladies volunteering at one of the ranger stations we've passed, the abundant wild flowers are at their peak. We've crossed mountainside after mountainside full of purple lupine, yellow mule-ear daisies, red and orange Indian paintbrush, fragrant mint, and many others I can't identify.

So much more to tell, but I'll save some tales for this winter!

Best to all,

Cruiser

PCT: MOVIN' ON UP TO THE HIGH SIERRA

Kennedy Meadows, CA (Inyokern, CA)

Dear all-

Greetings from Kennedy Meadows, the gateway to the High Sierra! We're about 702 miles north of Mexico, just over a quarter of the way to Canada. This is the place PCT hikers look forward to: the end of the desert and the beginning of the big mountains! Soon we'll climb Mt. Whitney at 14,000 ft. We will stay above 8,000 ft for much of the next 500 miles or so.

There isn't much here in Kennedy Meadows. It is a community of about 35 residents, all off the grid. The hikers are gathered at the general store and camped in the adjacent property. The store is open from 9 until 6. Since hikers tend to wake with the sun, there is quite a line at the store doors in the morning! We'd all been up since about 6am! The store generator is turned off at 6pm when the store closes, which is fine since we are all generally in our sleeping bags by 9. Thru-hiker season is the crowded season in Kennedy Meadows -- the general store received over 200 hiker packages of food, ice axes and crampons, new shoes, bear canisters, etc the day before we arrived! We all spent a good part of the afternoon employing various methods of cramming our food into the bear canisters that we are required to have to enter the High Sierra. Layering, as opposed to stacking, seems to work best. Also a good idea is layering breakfasts, lunches and dinners to as to avoid the repacking process again and again.

A bear canister, by the way, is a big shatter-proof plastic jar. It is designed such that it is too large for a bear to bite. The canisters require fine-tuned dexterity to open, so the bears can only bat them around. I had to practice opening mine so that it was not Cruiser-proof as well! Bears in this neck of the woods have become habituated to humans and their attendant food to the point that they teach their cubs to jump from tree limbs onto hanging food bags. Consequently, the practice of bear-bagging (hanging a food bag on a strong limb 15 ft above the ground and away from the tree trunk is no longer allowed. Though the canister makes our life a bit easier, the canister itself weighs just over two pounds. Luckily, we will not have to carry as much water once we leave the desert. We will have to be careful not to keep any food or toothpaste, etc, with us when we sleep. We will also plan to cook dinner before we reach our camping spot so as not to permeate our sleeping quarters with the smell of food.

Other obstacles in the High Sierra are early, swollen stream crossings and snow. However, this year seems to be a low snow year. Hopefully we will not have too much trouble, though I am a bit nervous. I'm also a little concerned about the cold. The PCT has been quite cold at night. Already I have spent many nights in all of my clothing, including my rain coat and pants, inside my 15 degree down sleeping bag. Reason and I acquired a full tent not too long ago, which will add about 8 degrees of warmth, not to mention the benefit of bug netting!

We've had a few adventures since my last email. We left the Saufley's in Agua Dulce and found ourselves in Green Valley at the Anderson's Casa de Luna 25 miles later. Terrie and Joe Anderson have for the last nine years opened their home to hikers. While the Saufley's have just about every amenity a hiker could need, the Anderson's always have a cooler full of cold beer and cokes, taco salad dinners and pancake breakfasts, not to mention excellent company and great stories. Joe works in props on the set of a television show and takes advantage of the TV season hiatus to hang with hikers. The recent Hollywood writers' strike has changed his schedule a bit this year, but we were lucky to get to meet him and spend some time in the Lunatic Lounge, a congregation of chairs and sofas around the cooler under the shade of oak trees. Again, there is no charge for this hospitality. Reason and I shared the love by contributing some beer and leaving some green in the donation jar.

After a great time at Casa de Luna, on we hiked. The weather was becoming extremely hot, and the hiking seemed hard. Poor Reason felt terrible and ended up being sick all night with something that seemed like giardia, a water borne protozoa. It was clear that he needed to get off the trail. Looking at our maps, we figured out how to hike down to a road. We happened to have the Anderson's number, so I called to say that we needed help. Not long afterwards, Terrie Anderson arrived with a smile on her face. "The Lunatic Lounge is always open," she said, "that's what we're here for!"

And so, we spent four days at Casa de Luna. I can't tell you how wonderful it was to be able to call on the Andersons when we needed help so far from home! I was worried that Terrie would not be so keen to have a sick person at her house, but she told us right away that that very morning she had also picked up Frankosaurus who was also ill. Reason and Frankosaurus slept on parallel couches in the living room for an entire day. The next day, they seemed to sit up more than they slept. The third day, they were both ambulatory again, pitching in with chores for the Lunatic Lounge. For my part, I did as many dishes as I could and helped put the food away each night.

As the temperatures under the Anderson's oak trees neared 100 degrees, Terrie asked me and Rapunzel if we'd like to go to the store with her. Of course! So off we drove down San Fracisquito Canyon Road towards Santa Clarita. Terrie told us the history of this canyon where LA water superintendent Mulholland found his ruin when the dam that had been erected here broke in the 1920's. On we drove, arriving at the set of the television show to meet Joe just in time for a delicious catered lunch of mahi-mahi tacos! Just as Joe had described, there was a table full of food - anything a regular person might want - and a hiker's dream come true! Rapunzel and I managed to maintain our composure in the face of all of that delicious, fresh food, however! After lunch, Joe took us on a tour of the set. We checked out the TV forensics lab and the autopsy room. Rapunzel climbed up on the autopsy table for a picture, but we both declined to try the sliding cold-storage drawers - too creepy! Next, we headed to the store where we loaded three giant shopping carts full of taco salad fixings and beer and water for the cache the Andersons stock 15 miles south of their house. Just to make the others jealous, we of course treated ourselves to extra-large smoothies for the drive home!

By the time Reason was ready for a second round of frisbee golf in Green Valley, I knew it was time to hike on. Wonderful Terrie drove us back to the road where she picked us up so that we did not have to hike the same 15 miles over again. What Trail Magic!

Our next stop was Hiker Town, a curious collection of trailers with Old West themed facades. We planned to stop there to wait out the hot mid-day, but caretaker Bob informed us that 45 mph winds with 60 mph gusts were expected for that afternoon. Since our next 16 miles were through the Mojave desert along the top of the enclosed LA aqueduct, we decided to stay put. By 5pm, we couldn't see anything in the surrounding landscape, and the delightful LA news was full of stories about the wind in our vicinity accompanied by some very wind-blown reporters. The next day, what is usually a horridly hot 16 miles through the desert was a balmy, breezy 60 degree stroll! What luck!

Our luck was not to last, though, as the next day we found ourselves in a 30 degree hail storm! The pea-sized hail was an inch thick on the trail by the time we reached the road to the town of Mojave. And to prove the kindness of strangers, a very nice special education teacher picked us up unsolicited - and in spite of our sopping wet packs and clothes - to take us to town! Motel 6 may lack amenities, but the tap never seemed to run out of hot water!

On to higher elevations! I don't know when we'll next have internet access, but we'll send updates as we can. Now that we have left the clutches of Los Angeles, I think our tales will relate a bit more to nature in the future.

Our love to all,

Cruiser

PCT: ONWARDS

Idyllwild, CA

Dear all-

Reason and I have really been enjoying the comforts of Idyllwild. This is a wonderful little mountain town with enough of a new age bent to provide the raw food blended shakes that Reason so craves! Fortunately, there is a Park Service campground just a block from the action where we have been sleeping for three dollars a night!

The ranks of thru-hikers in residence have thinned. Suntan, Waffles and black lab Mac headed out yesterday after procuring full point crampons and aggressive ice axes from the local outfitter. (While Mac has some cool red doggie boots with Vibram soles to protect his paws in the hot desert, his own claws serve him well on the ice!) Mike and Malani, salmon fishermen from Alaska, are taking an alternate trail and will do their best. They've contacted some of the ranger stations up the trail and figure their chances are good. Zeke, Kate and Leah also took an alternate trail to connect with the PCT later. None of them returned yesterday, so they must be doing alright. Jan, a Purple Heart veteran of two tours in Iraq, was needed at home by his family.

Suntan and Waffles's big talk about five-mile long north-facing 8000 ft plus Fuller Ridge has Reason very excited, and me shaking in my non-Gortex, high-ventilation desert trail shoes. But Suntan and Waffles have lots of winter experience climbing Mt. Shasta, etc., and even they set out with very aggressive equipment. I think they are also only 22! Suntan keeps talking about exercises involving dropping 150 pound duffel bags over ice cliffs and hauling them back up to practice rescue techniques, for example, and has dreams of climbing Everest in three years. I know that I am cramping my husband's sense of adventure, but the truth is that neither one of us has relevant experience. My final argument, that Reason will have to emotionally carry a very apprehensive and frightened Cruiser over that five mile ridge along with his sore knees and his own backpack full of water and six days of food, finally hit home. That would be horrible for both of us!

We have ordered some six-point crampons that should arrive on Saturday. Finding a place to accept UPS packages is quite a chore when you are homeless. We literally canvassed door-to-door until we found a willing participant! Regardless of the advantage that the crampons will give us, we still don't have experience using them. I look forward to gaining winter experience, but now does not seem like a good time to practice. We'll encounter more snow up ahead, but hopefully it will have some time to recede before we get there.

Tomorrow, after we pick up our package, we'll make a road walk to a jeep road that will lead us back to the PCT, bypassing Fuller Ridge. I'd rather walk the next 2,300 miles than take a shortcut 3,000 feet down an icy slope! The other crew of five is headed out today and will do the same.

much love,

Cruiser

PCT: IMPASSE

Idyllwild, CA

Dear all-

Well, my last email ended a bit abruptly and I apologize. Some rambunctious youngsters on the computer next to me accidentally kicked the power supply, leaving me with just enough time to reboot and press send.

I left off mentioning that we have been glad to have warm sleeping bags for the cold desert nights. In fact, our first night we camped cowboy-style under the stars and awoke under a layer of frost! We're still not sure where all of that dew came from in the dry desert, and we haven't experienced any since then. Other nights we have used our ultra-lightweight sail cloth tarp. It turns out to be quite windy in the desert, however. Something to do with those very hot days and cold nights... At any rate, one night after setting the foot of our tarp into the wind, we settled down to read about the next day's trail section when the wind suddenly changed directions and the tarp dramatically EXPLODED off of us. The wind and stars suddenly revealed to us made me think we had been catapulted into outer space. Sadly, three of our ultra-light titanium stakes were never to be seen again, rendering our ultra-light shelter even lighter. We've since learned to position large rocks on top of the stakes and sleep through the incessant flapping. In higher winds we've forgone the tarp, but I still dream that my gear is blowing away... and also, one night, that a fine restaurant served me a burger garnished with poison oak leaves!

Since then we've hiked through some very hot desert stretches. We find shade where we can, often cramming ourselves under bushes to wait out the hottest of the afternoon heat. Recently, we entered the San Jacinto Wilderness and higher, cooler elevations.

We arrived last night in Idyllwild, CA, which is nestled on the western side of the San Jacinto mountains. Palm Springs is on the east side. Yesterday was quite an exciting day.

We had camped at Apache Spring, overlooking the sprawling lights of Palm Springs, at about 7500 feet. (The highest point on the AT is Clingman's Dome in the Smoky Mtns at about 6500 feet.) We had heard reports of impassable snow in this area from April 9th. We received this info from the extremely useful PCT Water Report, a user-detailed account of water source and water cache conditions encountered along the trail. We make all of our decisions about how much water to carry from point to point based on this report. However, five days after the report of snow, we did not encounter any snow on our way to Apache Spring.

Coming around the bend and onto a north facing slope in the shade of conifers at about 8000 feet was a different story. Suddenly it did not seem so silly to have lugged our ice axes all the way through the desert! Cutting steps into the icy snow, we safely crossed this section. Unfortunately, there were a few more such sections on shady northern slopes where the sun has less chance of melting the snow. A few miles later, we came to a several-mile section of trail on a northern slope packed with several feet of icy snow. Rarely is the PCT blazed, and this made it nearly impossible to follow the trail here. Using our tiny topo map and our very rudimentary compass skills, we bailed out of the trail and followed a drainage (where water would flow down the mountain) to a saddle where we picked up another trail that reconnected with the PCT. I give my wonderful husband ALL of the credit for making this work. Hacking steps in icy snow without crampons and while balanced on one leg is scary. And brutal on the quadriceps!

We plan to spend a few days in Idyllwild resting and thinking. We've stopped in at the Forest Service station to get more info on alternative trails, jeep roads and what else lies ahead. I am most anxious to skip Fuller Ridge, a several-mile long north-facing knife-edge slope above 8000 feet. We'll have good company with the other ten or so thru-hikers also in town. We'll all be at the in-town campground mulling over what to do, and eating town food!

Best to all,

Cruiser

PCT: Desert in Bloom

Dear all-

Though there is little water in the desert, there appear to be computers! Reason (aka Todd) and I are currently in Warner Springs, CA. We've just hiked about 110 miles, so only 2555 to go!

I just spent an hour sitting in the pool heated with natural sulfur springs. Though my Canada-bound mind thinks this is cheating, my husband and feet beg to differ. Reason repeatedly reminds me that all professional athletes take at least one scheduled day of rest every week.

We have just hiked through the San Felipe Hills, which border the Anza-Borrego Desert Park. The desert is in bloom, and we could barely make our miles for the many photos we took of the hundreds of blooming flowers. Even the barrel cactus and prickly-pears are blooming. The yuccas have huge white and/or pink plumes, and the agave are just budding with giant central stalks that look quite a bit like asparagus.

Our last section was virtually waterless. However, generous souls known as Trail Angels have hiked scores of gallon bottles of water to two strategic positions along the trail, and this has helped keep us hydrated. We are now in the habit of carrying at least five liters of water at any given time. For you civilians, a liter of water weighs two pounds.

We actually started our first day from the Mexican border with nine liters each! This was a bit too much, but we were not sure exactly what we were in for. It turned out that there was no water from mile five to about mile twenty.

The Mexican border was quite something. Physically, it is a huge metal fence paralleled by a dirt road and another barbed wire fence. The surrounding land is strewn with the detritus of immigrants: drink bottles and food wrappers, discarded clothing and backpacks, and small pieces of woven Mexican blankets which we discovered are used as booties to disguise footprints. Border Patrol guards, trucks, and helicopters are everywhere. Reason and I did not see any immigrants on the trail, but our fellow hikers did. In the town of Campo, 1.4 miles north of the border on the trail, we passed a holding cell full of immigrants being loaded onto a bus - I assume bound for deportation. I made eye contact with one person before realizing what was going on. I then thought quite a bit about the contrast between the indulgent romp I am on and the ordeals of the people in that cell. We saw a number of men being arrested by Border Patrol on our third day, and continued to see evidence of immigrants for over forty miles. I can only say that our first forty miles were not that easy, and that we had relative leisure, plenty of water, sun protection, and warm sleeping bags for the below freezing nights.

So, on towards Canada tomorrow. Our best to all,

Cruiser

Counting Down!

Dear friends and family-

Todd and I are in San Diego for one last night. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for yet another bus, this time to Campo, CA, about 1.4 miles from the Mexican border.

We arrived by bus on Saturday night. Though we were extremely grumpy and tired, not to mention suffering hideously swollen legs, we very much enjoyed watching the beautiful scenery change over the hours and hours, and hours and hours, and hours and hours...

We have enjoyed being in sunny SoCal, where endless miles of strip malls under blue skies and surrounded by flowers actually had me saying, "isn't it beautiful!" Had a last supper of fish tacos, one last shower, and one last night in a bed.

We hope we will be able to make updates every now and then, but if you don't hear from us please know that we miss you and are thinking of you.

With much love,

Cruiser
--
"If you rest, you rust." Helen Hayes