The Unpolished Princess

Start: 2192.4

Stop: 2215

Today’s miles: 22.6

Total PCT miles: 1931.6

Today was-overall-a good day! The laughing with Marquis in our misery is really what my soul needed to finish this thing out. We didn’t make it as far as we planned, but we did get breakfast in town and take several long breaks.. so, who cares. I’ll get to Mexico when I get to Mexico. Even if I am on a “deadline” I created for myself. Ha!

We woke up at 5:45 again and left just before 6:30. Apparently, when I get out of my tent to pee first thing, before packing, I end up packing slower than when I force myself to hold it until my stuff is all packed.. but this morning there was no waiting until my stuff was packed.

The moon was still full and bright in the sky as we got up and got our stuff together. The first light starting to creep up from the opposite horizon by 6:15. The valley below, where we could see the lights of town before bed last night were blanketed by clouds that didn’t quite reach us up on the high above hillside. It looked incredible. As we started hiking, the trail wound its way down into those clouds, as the sun was lifting into the sky, creating the most beautiful of sunrises.

We switchbacked down into the valley and the clouds covering it.. my hair got damp by misty rain drops that never really fell. It was a really cool experience, and really nice to not be already sweating. It was chilly and there were no bugs. I was happy! The trail had some overgrown bushes to contend with, but I made myself push through without too much complaining.

We hit the main road and started our trail walk through the town of Agua Dolce. I loved it. It looks like a wealthier town than the previous one we walked through, with each home on a lot more land, and more like ranches with the big gates and horses everywhere. It felt like a western cowboy town with modern homes. Really beautiful homes, and plenty of horses.

The “downtown” was a bit sad though. They didn’t have much. Only a liquor/convenient store, that Marquis resupplied his snacks from, a hardware store, that I got my fuel canister from, and 3 small restaurants. Two were open for breakfast, and the pizza place didn’t open until 11am. It was only 9:30, so we settled on second breakfast, since we both had already eaten our trail breakfast.. aka: a Poptart.

There’s no humanly possible way to pass up restaurant food on trail when you are literally walking right past it.. seriously impossible. Plus I make it my personal mission to boost whatever local economy I’m in.. my budget be damned. After breakfast we continued the road walk the rest of the way through town. The trail turned off the road and in through Vasques Rocks State Park. This place was seriously neat. The rocks jutted out of the ground in odd angles that were really fascinating to see. I wish they showed up on camera better.. you know I have a trillion pictures of them.

The trail went through the main parts of the park and then continued on through the backside, around a nasty looking creek and through a tunnel under a main highway-Antelope Valley Freeway. I was happy we weren’t playing chicken trying to cross that thing. Coming out of the other side was gross and overgrown, requiring a bit of phone navigation to find the trail again.

Then, the trail seemed well maintained and twisted and winded up and through many smaller mountains. We crossed a train track and a very nasty creek that smelled of raw sewage-and even looked a little like it too, and came up to another two lane highway with the road going down to a KOA.. that I almost convinced Marquis to go to. We could have done laundry, ate ice cream, showered.. but thankfully he has his head on straight and even when he isn’t loving the trail, he knew we needed to push on.

We crossed that road and immediately got to an area with a pit toilet, that we both happily took advantage of. Then, we pushed the last 4 miles to camp. We were going to continue on, but there wouldn’t be water for awhile, so it made sense to camp here with a clean and flowing creek so we could adequately fill up and not have to tote a ton of extra water farther up this big climb we’ll have first thing in the morning.

We set up camp, one on either side of the small creek. We can talk to and see each other, but the water is flowing between us. After we unpacked I went to his side to eat dinner with him before coming to lay down. I saw a tiny mouse, so we made sure our food is well tucked away, and we’re both a little nervous they might chew through our tents during the night. I really hope not!

The water sounds nice and it’s a little chilly, so something tells me I’ll probably still sleep pretty good tonight, with or without tiny mice coming to visit. And with that, I think I’ll get to it. Goodnight!

Start: 2157

Stop: 2192.4

Today’s miles: 35.4

Total PCT miles: 1909

Today was long, but I don’t think I’ve laughed this much in awhile!

We actually woke up at 5:45 like we said we would, and we were on trail by 6:30 somehow instead of 6:15-but I think it was the sunrise that kept stalling me. It was beautiful, coming up over the horizon with the tiny town lights down below in the valley. This spot up above on the mountain really made for some great views.

We hiked for about 2 miles before getting to the cistern for water. It was tricky, and if Marquis hadn’t been there, once again, I wouldn’t have been drinking any water! He used the string and trekking pole situation again to get his bottle to fill and then used that bottle to fill up the rest. Those cisterns are creepy, I keep expecting to see a dead body floating in it-and we kind of did-a lizard. Poor dude. Anywho-heebeejeebees for certain.. I almost don’t know if I’d stick my arm down in those things in general if I was alone. Ha.. actually, I know I wouldn’t.

We kept hiking. The desert brush and bushes are all pokey, spiky, prickly, or in someway painful to walk by. Poodle Dog Bush leaves a rash where it touches your skin, so when it popped up all over the dang place, Marquis and I walked over to the dirt road adjacent to the trail. At least the road is wide enough to avoid the nasty rash giving bush.

It was hot and the gnats were out in full force-their entire army’s lining up to take turns diving into my eyes and up my nose. I was technically in my headnet before the sun actually broke over the horizon. We were sweating like pigs! When we eventually made it to a road crossing, we decided to try to hitch into Green Valley to get a snack and a soda. When one didn’t stop-we just walked to the gas station in town anyway. We had already got ourselves excited about a cold treat, ya know?

Once there, basking in the air conditioning and picking out drinks-and ice cream for Marquis, the girl working told us about a new restaurant that just opened a month or so ago called “Smoke House” that’s only a mile down the road. So. That felt like a sign, especially since we had to walk down there already. I looked at our app, and if we walked the mile to the restaurant, we could continue to road walk through town, past a lake, make a turn, and then get back on trail. It didn’t seem to be much, if any, shorter than the piece of trail between the road crossings-so, we decided to go with the road walk and avoid the bush attacks and snakes. No regrets.

The food was incredible! And the restaurant was so nicely decorated! I was in love with the atmosphere, maybe even more than the food. Our waitress told us she hand made from scratch the biscuits, Jalapeño cornbread, and a cinnamon bake.. how on earth do you choose from that?! I got a little of everything: biscuits and gravy, pulled pork sandwich, Coleslaw, Mac and cheese, green chili corn, and cornbread.

I am ashamed to say I couldn’t finish it all. I saved my pulled pork sandwich for last and was absolutely dying by the time I got to it-so after a few bites I got a small to go box and stuck it in my pack. It just now ended up being my dinner. We finished up and started our long road walk to get back to trail, and the road through town was super cute. Lots of houses, all different in shape, size, color. All with fences and almost all with dogs. I loved it!

Then, the road went up and started winding around the mountains, went down and around a lake, and then continued on for forever it felt like, especially with overly full bellies and the hot sun beating on us and the pavement. Nothing scratched my legs though, and we saw no snakes. We did see some kind of big cat, Marquis thinks it could have been a lynx or a bobcat, maybe. It wasn’t huge, but it was way bigger than a house cat. I got him on camera.. so, I’m considering it all a win!

By the time we got to trail, after some sketchy two lane highway walking, it was close to 6pm. The trail climbed from the road, and when we stopped to fill up water at the last available water spot for a while, we also got out headlamps. We got to watch the sunset over the mountains and we could see the lake we walked around down in the distance. The deep oranges of the sky mixed with the rusty reds and forest greens of the shrubs we were walking through was absolutely beautiful. All of the colors just seemed so much more vibrant and vivid.

We set up camp on the top of the mountain we climbed up-it’s more like a big hill.. nothing too dramatic. It was dark when we did so, but a faint orange glow was shining behind the city lights below, and the moon is completely full-occasionally making one of us think the other has their headlamp shining for no reason.. lol.

We unpacked and ate our dinners, my pulled pork sandwich was maybe even better tonight after that climb. Now it’s almost 9pm, crickets are singing and I’m about ready to put in my earplugs and use my headband as an eye mask to get some shut eye, 5:45 comes real fast. Goodnight!

Start: 2137.6

Stop: 2157

Today’s miles: 19.4

Total PCT miles: 1873.6

I slept amazingly well in that motel bed.. even if I did wake up a couple times and tossed and turned. Since I’ve been hiking, when I sleep in a bed it always looks like I’ve been fighting people in my sleep by the time I wake up. I’m always sideways and the covers are twisted and knotted and half on the floor.. but I swear it was restful! Ha

I packed quickly and walked to the McDonald’s from yesterday. I got a biscuit, ate it quickly, and then walked across the main highway to start hitching. I still had my sign, and the road was busy with tractor trailers and tons of cars flying past. I was out there for 40 minutes before a man stopped for me. He is a retired military man from Tehachapi, but he coaches boxing certain days of the week in Palmdale.. where he’s headed today.

We talked while he drove, and he got me to the intersection of 138 before letting me out. I only had 20 more minutes to get to Hikertown now! I stood on this smaller road for less than 10 minutes before a man in a convertible BMW pulled over. It was comical trying to fit my pack in his pristine trunk, but we got it in there. The two of us chit-chatted about hiking and camping the rest of the way to Hikertown. His car looked too nice to be an avid hiker’s car, but what do I know?

When he dropped me off, I all but ran to Marquis! I had missed him so much! We walked inside the house at the back, where the older man, Richard was and introduced me. We ate breakfast (second breakfast in my case) and caught up a bit before getting our shoes on to hike out. Richard brought cake and we had steak and egg sandwiches. Talk about luxury-it put the McDonald’s biscuit to shame.

Hikertown is really just a property along this two lane road out in the middle of nowhere. The trail goes right by it, so Richard made it for hikers. He’s got it set up like an old western town, super cute, and there’s places for hikers to camp and shower and eat.. really neat.

We started hiking around 10am. It was already hot, both of us sweating within the first few minutes. The trail was overgrown and every single plant or bush that we walked past was sharp and scratchy. I was frustrated pretty quick, and if I had been alone I know I would have been much worse. But, Marquis has a way to make you laugh, even when you’re beyond irritated with the surroundings. He was just as miserable as me, and we cackled and complained for close to that whole 20 miles we hiked!

We had some pretty views after a big climb. The desert feels very open, with the views going and going for miles upon miles. That makes the heat and bushes bearable I think. Water was a pain to get, out of a concrete cistern that required a Marquis. He’s 6’3” tall, and if I had been alone, I would still be thirsty. He tied string around his smart water bottle and we had to put my trekking pole in the bottle, hold the string, and shove the bottle under the water.. the thing is, the water was so far down that I wouldn’t have been able to reach it with my trekking pole! It’s a little nuts, and beyond creepy.

He filled his bottle several times, pouring it into my dirty water cnoc bag and into his other water bottle until we both had 3 liters of drinking water. What a mess. It took for damn ever. We finally started hiking again, just after 5:30pm. It gets dark so early now.. it’s real annoying.. BUT Marquis gave me the new headlamp he ordered for me, so I was excited to get to use it soon. We walked until sunset, and then camped in an empty campground.

All of the campsites were covered in broken glass. Like people had been shooting beer bottles or something. It was absolutely everywhere, and both Marquis and I have expensive tents that we didn’t want to get ripped.. so, we cleared us spots in the middle of the dirt road loop that all of the campsites surround. We were the only people out here, so, hopefully it stays that way tonight and we don’t get any late night visitors driving around. We set up and watched the end of the sunset-glowing hot orange over the city lights in the town below. It’s pretty gorgeous.

We both ate our dinners from inside our tents, thanks to being too lazy to walk over to a glass covered picnic table. I’m really not trying to tear my feet up, and although my shoes are practically still new, I don’t want to put them back on. Something tells me that glass will slice right through my crocs-so-tent dinners are A ok with me!

Y’all. I’m really so damn happy to have my friend back. I didn’t realize how lonely I was on the few days where I’d hike by myself all day, even if I did catch up to camp with people most nights. It just didn’t feel like this-that knowing someone well enough to cut up and crack jokes and just laugh. Even if I’m currently not a fan of the desert terrain, I’m happy as hell to be walking through it with Marquis.

Ok, that’s enough of all that. Time to get some sleep and see what tomorrow has in store for us! Goodnight y’all.