Mile 77.6 - Julian, CA

I wrote this in response to a message from my mom, but its such a good summary, I decided it would do double duty:

Walking straight downhill for long distances, I've learned, is extremely difficult! I've been doing a lot of that and my poor little knees are tired. After the very first day, I had Jon order me some poles and he's sending them overnight to Warner Springs. I bet you wished you had brought yours to Carlsbad!

I'm in Julian today. I hitchhiked with two guys, and we got picked up by a British ex-pat in a luxury SUV! His son is looking at colleges in nor cal and I talked to him about UCD. It was a pretty good first experience with hitch hiking.

I got off the trail because I was feeling tired and discouraged by the news that all of the water for the next 25 miles is dried up. The first 13 of those miles are straight up out of a canyon! But I came here, got a room, showered, ate. After I talked with a lot of other hikers and townies and read the Facebook messages of encouragement I decided to rest here today and get back at it tomorrow. I met a lovely couple at dinner last night who took a great interest in me and gave me their phone number so I won't have to hitch back to the trail.

Fantastic breakfast at the
Julian Gold Rush Hotel

The b&b where I'm staying is full of hikers; they have a special rate for us: $70 for a private room with a bathroom, free WiFi, afternoon tea at 4, full breakfast in the morning and they do our laundry! it's extremely quaint, like everything else in Julian. Downstairs they have sitting areas with beautifully carved rocking chairs, board games, and a library. My favorite part is the bed! It's covered by gorgeous quilt upon gorgeous quilt and it's extremely comfortable! I closed the curtains so I could sleep past sunrise, but I only made it to 645 (I've been sleeping with the sun).

Speaking of sleeping, the night before last I cowboy camped for the first time. That is, I slept without a tent under the stars. My tent kept whipping around in the wind while I was trying to set it up and I finally said "screw it!". I laid out my groundsheet, sleeping mat, and sleeping bag. I got inside and started to cook my dinner when these yellow-jacket looking things started to hover around the edges of my sleeping bag. They weren't agressive, but they worried me. Finally I thought "crap, maybe they are ground nesting bees and I'm on top of their nest." So I rolled up my stuff in my ground cloth and moved away. Sure enough, they all landed and crawled into teeny holes in the ground. So I slept about two feet to the side and watched all of the bees come home as the sun set. It was so cool.

I haven't camped alone yet so far, and I've kindof fallen in with a group that travels about the same number of miles as me. Gipcgirl (gypsy girl) is a retired lady from Australia, near the city of Perth. Hamburger is a retired man from Hamburg, Germany. LavaGoat is a young married woman from San Diego. Lunchbox is a guy about my age from Placerville. OnlyATest is in her 30s and from southern California, I don't remember exactly where. Bolts (has bolt earrings in his ears) is from Sunnyvale and reminds me of Matt DeGroot. Jason is a nice kid about my age but I don't remember where he's from. Everyone is hiking solo. But it's worth mentioning the group of four 20something Israelis who are always nearby, but stick to themselves (in fact, they have the room just down the hall from me). There were also two brothers from NOLA, but they pulled ahead of us the night before last and I haven't seen them since then. [Edit: I just ran into them in town.]