Day 11: Warner Springs Nearo to mile 115

4.26.18. 5.5 miles.

Today was a very lazy day resting in Warner Springs. I slept in until 6 and didn’t get out of my tent until 7:30! Luxury! When the center opened, I got down to business and took my bucket shower and did ALL of my laundry, including sleep clothes and my pee rag. I changed into some ridiculous loaner clothes that were very much “Dad vacation” clothes that didn’t fit well. After that, I hung all my clothes to dry and went inside to charge my battery bank. I basically just loitered around all day: bought some ramen, bars, caved and got some camp flip flops (we’ll see how long they last), chatted with fellow hikers, looked at Instagram, etc. I checked on the status of my clothes drying every now & then.

Once lunch rolled around we looked for a ride to take us to the golf course, and got one with a little waiting. I had a 10 inch pizza for lunch which was pretty great. After that we walked back to the resource center, I paid for another foot soak & talked to some new hiker friends & finished charging stuff, packed up my dry clothes & tent, tended to my blister on my left foot, and then we took off!

I’m hiking out today with Flip-flop (aka Jandal aka Tyler), Ann, Sydney, Kristie, and Florian. We covered our original mileage plan in under an hour, so kept going. We ended up doing 5.5 miles, which was actually pretty fine even though there was a bit of elevation gain towards the end. We are camped near a creek, a rarity in the desert! I got to soak my feet again which was nice. I noticed that my left ankle looks much more swollen than my right one but I can’t think of a time when I really twisted it. I’ll have to keep an eye on it. We all ate dinner around some rocks chatting about our food and chafe and blisters - the usual!