Day 138
September 3
mile 2381.5-2402
20.5 miles

It started raining in the morning. Great… Soon, it was going to be time to get up! I lied back down and waited. At six, it was still raining. I tried to sleep a little more and then sat up and ate my breakfast. By the time I started packing everything up, it was only a light drizzle.

I passed under the spooky power lines in the fog and was relieved I didn’t have to sleep near them.

In two miles, I reached a road and found a woman in a bathrobe standing near a car. It took me a bit of time to process this sight. Did she camp here and bring a robe? As I walked past the car, a man was preparing his backpack. He asked me where I had started from today. We both were headed into Snoqualmie. We talked about the PCT and where I was from and I soon found out that he had been a professor at a Harvard biochemistry lab and knew one of the professors that used to work on the same floor that I worked on! Small world! He now lived in Washington. He asked me what was in my pack. “What’s in it?” I started listing things. He said he weighed his pack, and with one day of food, it weighed twenty-eight pounds. I said I would help him go through it during a break. He kissed his wife goodbye, and we started up the climb. I soon got hot in my rain layers and had to take them off. The professor told me to go on ahead, as he had to get his body warmed up and used to climbing.
About six and a half miles later, I saw a nice place to have a lunch break just off the trail, in what turned out to be a campsite. These days, I was largely subsisting on candy, as I couldn’t stand any of my other food. I made an ice coffee from the water I had collected at a nice cascading stream earlier, and ate my Snickers and almond butter with it. Just as I was finishing, the professor walked by. I thought he might stop so we could look through his pack, but he kept walking!
I soon overtook him again and decided that I wanted to listen to some music. I had been feeling tired and needed a boost. A little Christina Aguilera helped me along! Soon, I came across two men who were working on the trail. I stopped my singing as I neared them. “Did you see two guys pass through today?” I asked. I had been wondering why I hadn’t seen Craig or Texas Poo. They said they saw three guys. “Did one of them have a gray backpack with a bandana on the outside?”.
He said there was no bandana, but words that read “Golite, Go F… Yourself!” Yup. That was Texas Poo. He said that he had read the words aloud when he passed, and his buddy further up the trail thought he was telling the hiker to go f… himself! I found that extremely funny. Now that I knew they were at least an hour in front of me (maybe they did get up at 3:45!), I felt I could resume my singing. Then, I ran into someone else. “Nice singing,” he said. (That was just a little Rihanna). He had a bandana on his head so I asked him which way he was hiking. He said he was doing surveying work for the trail crew. I felt relieved that I wasn’t going to see him again!

I headed on, finishing the climb, and then descending to Twilight Lake before I started climbing again. I was getting so tired! I sat down in the woods and dug out my food bag for another snack. Then, I grabbed a couple of huckleberries from a bush nearby for dessert and headed onward.

After several miles, I crossed a road and saw a parked car. The driver waved to me and I went over to say hi after struggling to shut off my music several times. She asked me where I was hiking from and was blown away when I said Mexico! She asked me what the hardest part of the journey had been and I told her, for me, it was my stomach and intestinal illnesses and that I didn’t really know how I was doing this. She said that she would also like to hike the trail. I gave her my blog address and she took out her book to write it down. Then, she asked if I would like some cookies! Yes, please! She had driven her friend, who she caretakes for, up here to look at the mountains. She said she didn’t want to hold me up, so I headed on my way with the cookies in my hand. I still had over four miles to hike. One part of the trail was confusing, but I managed to find my way through it. I was feeling more and more tired, however. I had to sit down on some rocks and eat the cookies, which were delicious! I couldn’t stand anything in my food bag at that point, and none of it seemed to be giving me energy anymore. The cookies were different and being homemade, really helped get me through that last stretch.

I could see the road down below, but it was taking forever to get there. I still had to climb through the forest.
At last, I looked down and saw the red roof of the Summit Inn!

It was time to cut down the ski slopes! I was excited, but the gravel on parts of the slope was very slippery, and I had to take my time. Getting to the bottom of that hill was also taking forever!

Then, when I reached a road, I still had to loop all the way around a row of houses and then walk back along the highway to get to the Chevron and Inn. It was killing me!

When I was on that road, a car drove by and the woman driving called out my name. How did anyone driving a car around here know my name? I was very confused. It turned out that there were a bunch of hikers in the car! The only one I knew was Story Time. The driver was Kara, who operated “The Mostel”. She said she could come back and take me there. I had been planning on getting my own room at the Summit Inn, but she said that a couple had just cancelled their reservation on one of her private rooms and I could have that if I wanted it. Meanwhile, Story Time was telling me that there was a sign hanging up at the post office telling me that it needed my signature before I could pick up my package, which was being held in North Bend. “What?”. I was so confused! Why was my package in a faraway town?! Kara said she would come back and help me.
I headed across the street to the Chevron and was directed to the walk in cooler at the back of the store to look for my packages. There were tons of them in there all piled up and strewn about in no order at all. And every one of them looked the same! This was a nightmare! I found a package for UB, packages for other hikers I knew, but none for me! Finally, I found one. Allyson’s boyfriend had dropped off one of the extra ones that I had packed in Bend here as well. At last, I found the two, but still couldn’t find the care package from John. I asked where the post office was and was directed to the back of the store where I found the note and a signature form. The note said that the package would be available to pick up here at 11am. Otherwise, I would have to go to North Bend. The man at the counter checked my ID and I went to sit outside and wait for Kara. Since she wasn’t coming, I headed over to the Aardvark, which was a tiny take-out place in a trailer outside the gas station. They served a lot of ginger chicken wraps and variations on that, but when I saw that they had a burger, I decided that is what I wanted. Unfortunately, she had just cleaned the juice machine, so I had a Pepsi (they were out of rootbeers). I was nervous that Kara was going to come by and not see me, but the girl who served me kept reassuring me that she would find me here. When she did arrive, she hung out and chatted with her friend for awhile. It was fun to listen to them. Then, we loaded up her car and headed back to The Mostel. Braveheart, Halfway, Dora, Let it Be, Squeaks and Happy Hour, Story Time, Texas Poo, and OTC were all there. One of them had told Kara that I would likely be coming in tomorrow. I wondered who thought that I couldn’t hike 20 miles in a day! Someone mentioned the old cheerleading outfits that Kara had out as loaner clothes. “Where?” I asked. Craig said they were in my room (along with the washer and dryer) and brought out one of the shirts. I decided to try it on. It was definitely not made for my proportions, but I went out to the porch to show the guys anyway. Later, when I was back in my room, I found the skirt that went with it and put that on, as well. When I went back out to the living room, everyone started taking pictures. Braveheart put one of Kara’s vests on and Happy Hour put on one of her old T-shirts. We posed together and then I told the guys to lift me up. They did not hesitate for a second and lowered their hands down so I could step on them as a base. It was so much fun! And I hadn’t even showered yet! Within seconds, the pictures were all over the internet. (What happens in hostels on the PCT does not stay…).

I later found out that both of those guys had attended my yoga class at kick-off! Loads of laundry were being done in my room, so it wasn’t exactly private.

I socialized a bit and then headed to sleep after receiving a very nice note from Cathy, who was the woman who had given me the cookies. She had found my blog and even gave me a donation! How sweet!