Hello Everyone,

I am laying in my tent as usual writing my blog but can’t send it out tonight since there is no service. Hopefully I’ll find a spot tomorrow to send it out late, and then will update for tomorrow too.

I made it 15.63 miles today and I am camped at the USFS Shingle Mill Day Use area. I was ready to stop earlier and kept walking in hopes of getting cell service. I saw this spot and it looked once, though it’s not a campground. I saw the picnic benches and thought it would be a nice change from cooking on the ground, which it was. It’s right next to the Walker River and I can hear it as I write.

Started my day fairly early, though it still takes me almost two hours to eat, cleanup, and pack. It was around 46 degrees this morning and I had to force myself to get out of my warm sleeping bag. It’s cozy in there in the morning.

I was out of water, other than what I had in my drink bottles, and didn’t want to fill up from the creek at the camp site because it was real murky and I didn’t want to clog up the filter. That almost came back to haunt me because I didn’t find another creek until after noon and I had gone through all of my water. The temp was already 76 at nine and then stayed in the high eighties all day.

I started the trek feeling optimistic, after hitting that wall yesterday, and then immediately started uphill for about three miles. I have to be careful of what I wish because after those uphill miles it was all downhill, and downhills are usually harder on your body. I made it a point to walk slow to keep from getting shin splints, blisters, and irritating my plantar fasciitis. Well, I jinked myself by posting those wonderful toes socks pictures that are suppose to keep me from getting blisters between my toes, but, and that is a big but, I still got a blister on the tip and bottom of my little toe on my right foot.

I should know better and stop immediately when I feel anything funny in my feet or toes. It wasn’t until I stopped for lunch that I took off my shoes and noticed it. Out came the needle, mole skin and duct tape, but I left the toe socks on since I hope at least I won’t get blister between my toes like last time. So now I’ll probably attract even more attention as I waddle and limp with both my left foot, and now with my right. After lunch much of the trek was downhill and that’s when I really noticed the pain in the little toe.

Once I hit the Sonora Pass, where I had lunch, the road follows the West Walker River and the scenery is really picturesque. It also allows me to get water.

Two bites of trivia. Since I started my trek I have noticed many, I mean many, cars carrying beach cruisers bikes. Now most people up here have mountain bikes or road bikes, but why beach cruisers? Then too, the bikes and many of the cars, were almost completely white from talc type dust. Many of the bikes looked like they were painted wild colors, streamers, and even fuzzy wrappings around the frame and seats. A lot of the people waved or honked at me as though they were coming back from a party. This has been almost none stop, but a lot less today. Being by yourself your mind starts to wander, and it drove me to the point that I wanted to flag one of them down. It was driving me crazy. Then I realized what it was! I had spoken to a CHP officer in Northern California about directions and he had told me it was going on. Burning Man! The festival is north of Reno and everyone is coming home. That took me three days to figure out. Well it at least it kept my mind busy.

Ok, the next bit of trivia. Just as I started my trek this morning I notice a historical maker that I probably have driven by many times and never stopped to read. That’s what I like about trekking, you notice everything you don’t driving by at 70 mph. It was plaque marking the spot where General John Fremont, and his scout, Kit Carson, got caught in a bad winter storm in May 1844. They were looking for a pass over the Sierras to Sutter’s Fort. They eventually found a passage, which may be part of the Sonora Pass. To me it is amazing to think of walking along a paved highway, which is rather unusual now, but to stop and think what these men were doing in their everyday lives. Back then most people walked everywhere. They actually crossed over, then went back to Missouri, and then came back across again that same year. Now that’s trekking.

Sorry for that trivia, that was my Huel Hauser (Howser?) moment.

Hopefully I can send this to you tomorrow or whenever I find service.

As always, please feel free to send me your positive thoughts and prayers.

Ted

And, excuse the typos, grammar, spelling, etc.