PCT: Days 25-27

What was originally planned as a zero turned into a triple zero that none of us have any regrets about. We got up in the morning to what might have been the largest breakfast I’ve ever consumed.  I’m not even sure where to start, but there was a giant fruit salad, breakfast potatoes, sausage, eggs, french toast, juice, coffee and something else I know I’m forgetting.  The fruit salad was assembled by Professor (not the one from Julian) and Gandalf the Green.  The fruit salad prep has now become a competition which Bat Boy and I would enter before we left.

After gorging ourselves on breakfast we planned our day while the kids got guitar lessons from Professor.  Most of the other hikers headed back to the trail except for Gandalf the Green and Larissa.  Based on Kenny’s recommendation we took the kids to the zoo before doing our resupply shopping. Kenny dropped us off at the zoo and we took the free trolleys to get to stores for resupply.  We got back late in the day and had a laid back evening eating dinner with the much smaller crowd and repacking.

The next day, after another enormous, delicious breakfast, Kenny drove us back to the trail.  As we pulled into the parking lot we saw a familiar face in Mom Cut as she had just made it in and was trying to hitch into town.  We hooked her up with Kenny for a ride back into town.

Once we got back on trail we ran into issues almost immediately as Bat Boy had slimmed down just enough that it was impossible to tighten his waistbelt enough to keep the load on his hips.  It had been a looming issue we thought we could manage, but after several adjustments in the first quarter mile it was obvious that it wasn’t going to work.  We headed back to the parking lot and texted Kenny to see if he could come back for us and give us another night’s stay while we ordered a new pack. 

Blue Lizard called ULA, who makes a kids version of Waterboy’s pack, to see if they had any in stock we could have shipped to us quickly.  We gave them our color preferences (Bat Boy’s favorite color is orange) and waited for them to check inventory.  Orange is not a stock color so we figured we’d end up with something else.  Somewhere in this process trail magic showed up in the form of a fruit tray.  We got a call back from ULA and it turned out they had a returned custom pack in orange. What are the odds, right? We bought it while sitting in the parking lot and had it shipped next day to Kenny’s even though we hadn’t yet heard back from him.  We knew it wouldn’t be a problem.

Next up we did what Bat Boy has wanted to do since we started the trail and hitchhiked into town.  While waiting for a hitch more trail magic showed up in the form of cold beer which Waterboy quickly grabbed in violation of his namesake.  We caught a ride with a Fred and Liv who were headed into town for ice cream.  We somehow managed to fit all four of us with packs on our laps into the backseat.

Since we were all hungry and had heard about ice cream we went straight to it.  While eating we heard back from Kenny that he was on his way to get us.  He showed up with Mom Cut still with him.  She had decided to stay at his place too which was a nice turn of events as we had enjoyed hanging out with her previously.  Back at Kenny’s we went back to relaxing and visiting.  The kids both did archery and Bat Boy enjoyed the hot tub.  Kenny and Mom Cut went to the grocery store in the evening and came back with another hiker, Han Solo, who they ran into at the store and convinced to skip Motel 6 and come back with them.  He didn’t regret it.

The following day was spent relaxing and waiting for the new pack to come in.  We had another delicious and enormous breakfast.  Waterboy and Bat Boy assembled their fruit salad entry for the competition.  We decided that we’d head back to trail if the pack arrived by noon.  It didn’t, so we were staying another night.  Other hikers rolled in throughout the day including Honey who we hadn’t seen in almost two weeks.  We learned that Cuz and AKA were also coming in tomorrow, but knew that if we waited to see them we’d get sucked further into the vortex of zeros.