DAY 42: ZERO DONE RIGHT

miles: 0

Tehachapi is wonderful.

Ben and I (along with plenty of other thru-hikers) stayed in the Best Western - which is luxury! Continental breakfast, free wi-fi (that actually works) and computers down in the lobby to use for free and for however long we want.

Usually when I'm used to waking up at 5:00am everyday, it is hard to sleep in past 6 or 7 but today we woke up at 9:00. WONDERS.

The main event today was shopping. Grocery shopping. The goal: to plan out how many days of food we need between each of the next 4 sections of trail coming up and shop shop shop. There is an Albertson's in town AND a K-Mart which made this task easier, however, Tehachapi is extraordinarily stretched out which makes walking everywhere to do our chores very difficult.

We marched to the Albertson's and spent a good hour and a half (or 2) there deliberating, shopping, and generally being stressed out. The task of shopping for 24 days worth of food was DAUNTING but we managed to do it without anyone having a mental breakdown. In fact, we all stayed in good humor...

Sour Cream and Chik Chak (A.J.)

Almost overflowing cart full of junk.

We shopped with our backpacks on, knowing we'd likely have to walk the mile + back to the hotel room with all of our food.

Chik Chak with the jelly.

Hadn't been to an Albertson's in forever! This photo features my backpack full of groceries along with the 6 bags of food extra just hangin' outside of the store. Waiting to see if someone might offer us a ride back to the hotel.

There were plenty of people in the store who recognized us as thru-hikers and inquired about our journey and were overall VERY FRIENDLY! I chatted with a few women in line while checking out who had a lot of questions and it was a lot of fun to talk about what we're doing.

Eventually we gave up trying to yogi a ride to our hotel room and settled on walking along the Boulevard, Ben with his shopping cart. Here is Sour Cream, Rocky, Chik Chak, and Starfox along Tehachapi Blvd.

The next hour was spent frantically organizing our days of food in our respective hotel rooms, on the floor. The Post Office was the next stop and we had one hour to divide our meals, bag 'em up and lug them downstairs to our ride (JANE! A local Trail Angel who drives hikers to and from the trail and the Post Office in town!!) in 1 hour. We had one hour to complete this monumental task.

But we made it. Jane arrived and we loaded into her vehicle and she kindly drove us to the Post Office and waited for us outside while we packaged everything into Priority Mail boxes, labeled them, taped them up, and waited in line to send them. This was HUGE! THANK YOU JANE! I don't know how we would have done it without Jane. The P.O. was WAY on the other side of town, and we had probably 70lbs worth of food each...

Here is Ben frantically scribbling addresses on boxes on the P.O. floor.

Once this task was done, we got to relax and have some down time at the hotel: more jacuzzi time, beers, and bed.

Tomorrow we head back out onto the dusty trail.