Our day started early, in order to get walking at six in the morning to pound out the last 18 miles before Burney. Even with trying to get ahead, the heat was already beginning. The trail underfoot was rough and volcanic, cutting through fields of tall, dry, yellow grass until Tinkle and I reached mile 1400. We descended into a valley and passed a huge metal pipe, with water audibly gushing through. What a cruel irony to us thirsty, weary travelers!

Despite my complaining, it was a pretty good day of hiking. We passed a large lake, with lots of people swimming, floating on inner tubes, and fishing. When Tinkle and I got to the road and stuck out our thumbs, the first car stopped! The driver was a young woman, taking her 26 day old baby to a doctor’s appointment. Tinkle and I sat on either side of this tiny baby, who started fussing pretty soon after we set off again. Shaylee, the mom/driver asked us to try the bottle with him. I hurriedly used some hand sanitizer, but still didn’t feel like my hands should be anywhere near this fragile human. It worked, though, and he calmed down. Shaylee dropped us off in Burney, where we ate, checked into our motel, and found the best resupply store of the whole trail: Dollar General. A four day resupply cost $25! Unheard of.

 

We did laundry, made calls, and I worked on the ol’ blog for a bit, until I got hungry. I crossed the street to McDonalds. They had just closed the inside restaurant, so I tried to walk through the drive through. After a few minutes of yelling, “HELLO, EXCUSE ME” into the speaker and waving, which they clearly saw and ignored, a car came up behind me and I saw the manager wave to a younger employee, who came out and asked me to move. I asked if I could pleeease order some food, but she, apologetically, said no. The car behind me rolled the window down and asked what I wanted. This unexpected angel ordered me food and gave back the $20 I’d given her to pay for it. I wanted to cry. I went back and shared my prize with Tinkle while we watched TV.

 

 

 

The next day, we got breakfast at the Blackberry Patch, then the lady from the hotel gave us a ride back to trail. It wasn’t too long before we reached Burney Falls and its wonderfully cool general store, where we got ice cream and soda before heading down to the actual falls. We sat by the water and stuck our feet in. It was a brisk 48 degrees Fahrenheit and the air felt refrigerated by it. We dawdled there so it took us until 8:30 to get to our campsite that night, after everyone had already gotten into their tents (remember, hiker midnight is 8:00 pm). We had dinner in the dark and went to bed for a 3:45 wakeup call, trying to be as silent as possible. We were not messing around with the heat anymore. We did 17 miles before lunch, when I had an amazing nap. Lunch became a strategic game of figuring out where the best shade was and where it would move to in the next hour. I lost every day on this stretch and had to scoot over once the shade moved off of me. On one of the afternoons, Tinkle became the first of our party to faceplant on trail! I heard her fall and turned around to see her, face in the dirt. She looked like a badass after that, with a scrape on her cheek. We caught up to Samuel/Shadow on this stretch, who we’d shared a tent with at Scout and Frodo’s, the day before we started the trail! We camped with him once, and talked for a good while, reflecting on our reasons for starting the trail as a blood red sun set through the smoky atmosphere.