Today’s Miles: ZERO
Total CDT miles: 920.7
I never sleep that great in dorm style rooms, I think I’m just too old for that these days. Although, I will say the bed itself was comfortable.
I was awake around 8am and Pebbles made us breakfast.. chorizo and egg burritos with cheese, so very yummy. And coffee. Since he did the cooking, I washed the dishes. It’s really not a bad gig.
A little before 10am, we walked downtown to the Melanzana store. Right when they opened, we were greeted and shown to the appointments side of their storefront. Melanzana makes all of their own outdoor wear-like hoodies and such, right there in the same building. They’ve built up a reputation for quality and exclusivity, only letting you purchase a certain amount of products at a time (2) and by appointment only-which is booked six months out.. unless.. you’re a thru hiker!
They will still let you walk in and shop their overstock without an appointment, sizes and colors not guaranteed. We walked up to the appointments side, had to give our trail names and show pictures of us at the New Mexico and Mexico border, and then we were allowed to shop. I found a teal hoodie I liked, Pebbles found a dark orange one he liked, and we called it good. I wore mine out of the store.. it was a little chilly in the shade.
We walked around the downtown area, in and out of stores, basically just killing time until this popular pizza spot that Tina and Larry raved about opened. I wasn’t quite hungry for lunch yet, but the place apparently packs out fast and waits can be over an hour sometimes.
We walked into a gear store, just looking around, when I hear a “PBS?!?” I kid you not, MashedPotato, from the AT, was standing there! He was working at the store, and now lives in Leadville with his girlfriend! It was so wild seeing him, in this cute city of all places, but the more we talked the more it made perfect sense.. he was living in Denver before, so Leadville isn’t a stretch by any means.
We caught up and he showed Pebbles and I some spots coming up on trail, and we eventually said our goodbyes. I had such a crush on him when I was hiking the AT, it was nice to see him happy and doing so well, to see him in “normal life” even if it did kind of suck to have him see me sunburnt and full on hiker trash. Thankfully, he’s used to hiker life, with Leadville being such an active and cool city.
From the store, we headed to High Mountain Pies. We placed our orders and went to the back patio to anxiously wait for the pizza everyone has been raving about. I got an olive oil based pizza with basil, roasted grapes, feta cheese.. balsamic somewhere in there, too. So good. Pebbles got the carnivore and it looked delicious! I also ordered the focaccia bread, and it was to die for! So damn good. The dough was perfection in every way!
After eating, we made our way over to the Mining Museum, a must stop for Pebbles-with him being a geologist and all. It was four stories of mining and drama. I enjoyed the stories and videos, I think he liked all of it! Ha. I ended up sitting outside when I had seen enough. I like museums, but I tend to be very quick when it’s not something I’m in love with. Pebbles took his time and I think he got a lot of out it.
We walked back to the hostel and I ended up taking a nap, that was sadly ruined by new people checking into our bunk room. Why am I never allowed to have uninterrupted sleep? Eh, when I realized the time, I reminded Pebbles about the bingo night sign we saw earlier-and we ended up walking back downtown to play.
Pebbles one a round, a whole $5, and out of the trillion games we played, I only came close like twice. It was still a fun time though. I might need to look into bingo at home! Ha! Probably not. Anyway, it was dark when we made it back to the hostel. At 9:30 I finished off my left over pizza and headed to bed. Let’s hope for some decent sleep tonight!