Since we were so close to town, we woke up a little later than normal and had pancakes at Legend’s trailer. After enjoying the pancakes and meeting some new hikers I left to start the short 8 miles before e would hitch into town.
Not long after I started one of the guys I was hiking with showed up. He wasn’t wearing his pack. It turns out that Legend had offered to drive everyone’s packs to the next highway so they could slackpack the 8 miles. If only I had waited a little longer. At least I didn’t have any food and almost no water, so my pack was really light.
Soon enough we made it to the highway where we attempted to hitchhike. Turns out, hitching on an interstate off ramp doesn’t work very well. Lucky for us, Legend showed up with everyone’s packs and offered us a ride into town too.
We stayed at one of two Best Westerns in town. (They’re also next door to each other) We couldn’t check in yet, so we went to The Burger Spot for an early (10:30 am) lunch. A burger, fries, mozzarella sticks, Pepsi, and a milkshake later we headed back to the hotel. Our check in was a few hours away, but they gave us a room key to access the pool. We went back and forth between pool and hot tub until our room was ready.
Later on, we hitched to Little Caesar’s where I had a whole pizza and crazy bread for dinner. I’m losing weight fast, so I’m trying to eat as much as possible. I went in the pool again, this time to find a hole in my sleeping pad. I was able to find it and patch it before heading back to the room to watch tv and fall asleep.
In the morning, we slept in. Well, we slept until about 7:30 am, which is sleeping in for most thru hikers. Then we enjoyed a continental breakfast before heading into town to buy food for the upcoming days of hiking. Of course, we stopped by Taco Bell for lunch and Baskin Robbins for dessert.
We were waiting until the afternoon to leave and I was also waiting for a package to be delivered at the post office. It looked like it might not make it in time and I would have to bump the package ahead to another post office. On our ride back out to the trail, we stopped by the post office and miraculously my package was there. Now I had fresh socks and new trail gaiters!
We got to the highway and started hiking. Thankfully, the heat had mostly gone away and was replaced with wind. Sometimes my trekking poles were the only thing keeping me on the trail.
We hiked into the night, making it to a water source 17 miles in. Not a bad day for starting hiking at 4 pm.
I also want to mention how awesome the people of Tehachapi were. Everyone from the hotel workers to the random drivers who gave us rides were incredibly nice. It really made our day in town easier and more relaxing.