miles: 22 into Shasta City
I try to leave as few miles as possible for the days we hike into town. I despise having a full hiking day the day I arrive in a town because it cuts into my down time, puts us in at dark, and makes finding arrangements/dinner difficult. Usually, Ben and I aim to have less than 20 miles to do on a typical "get-into-town" day and we have been successful in planning our days this way...
Today I was disappointed in our planning and wished we had less to do than 22, mostly because my feet hurt so bad. The foot pain was sure to be a huge impediment in getting to town in a timely fashion and I dreaded the hobbling that would occur somewhere around mile 15. This would be sure to slow me down...
On the brighter side of things - we reached mile 1,500 today!
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| A very distant Shasta. |
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| Castle Crags. |
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| Strange to see Interstate Five on a wooden sign. |
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| !!!! |
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| Look at him! |
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| Just in time for a train to roll through and hold us up. Like we need to more time on our feet! |
The hiking today was fairly easy, except for the exposed, hot climb in the middle of the morning. However, the last 10 miles were brutal for me. My feet were zinging with nerve pain every step, every step... Wincing my way downhill (which is usually worse for me, pain-wise) I tried every trick in the book to keep myself preoccupied.
Dr. Slosh ran up ahead after we reached the 1,500 mile marker and rejoiced together. He was on a strict schedule and had to make it to Castella ASAP in order to meet up with Smiles and her family the next day.
At this point in the trail, hikers have three options in terms of towns:
1) Castella, CA - the wee baby town that has mostly nothing going on but close to the trail
2) Dunsmuir, CA - the sightly bigger town, slightly further hitch from trail
3) Shasta City, CA - the large town that is awesome and full-service but quite a hitch on I-5
We chose to hitch into Shasta City. We'd all heard good things about this town, that it was hiker friendly, similar to Eugene, Oregon and really.... just.... cool. When I arrived at the road, Manchurian was sitting down, analyzing his maps and Ben was just behind me. We knew it would be a difficult hitch into town and we weren't exactly sure how we were going to make this happen so late in the evening, on a Sunday.
Wandering around for a bit, we attempted to chat up every person we saw leaving the area, but with no success. Eventually we retreated to a shady spot near the I-5 on/off ramps near a series of strange intersections under the freeway... just hoping someone would come by.
But it was getting late, and we were exhausted, starving, and out of food. I had little energy in me at this point and did not feel like trying to hitch on I-5, which was looking like more of an option at this point. Well... not so much an option as an imperative. And me being the female of the group - I would be the one nominated to duty.
Suddenly there was a vehicle and a tentative woman (who honestly looked like she would never give us a ride in a million years) pulled over and agreed to give us a ride! She was going to Shasta City herself and would take the three of us with her, despite our rotten stench in her clean car.
Her car was so clean.
Soon we were being dropped off at Berryvale Grocery Store, an organic, co-op sort of food place in the center of town that reminded me a lot of the co-op's in Portland. In fact, the whole town had a sort of earthy/"hippy"/all-natural/environmental/whatever feel more similar to Eugene than Portland, and we were entertained by this. It felt oddly like home... at least more like "home" than any of the other trail towns we've been to on this trip.
At Berryvale we were overwhelmed and I proceeded to make hotel arrangements while Manchurian and Rocky took straight to eating.
Once I had a hotel room on lock down, I joined the two of them at Billy Goat's Tavern and we Cheers'd to making it 1,500 miles, ate greasy food, wound down, and finally relaxed. This is when Cuddles and his wife showed up!
Cuddles is a cellist that is playing shows along the trail (at various locations, for example: Timberline Lodge) in order to keep in skillful cellist shape. It's a great concept and fabulous that he has gigs along the way. Unfortunately we haven't seen any of his concerts yet, but plan to once we catch up to him a bit. He's always so far ahead of us!
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| Rocky on the left / Cuddles on the right |
We had quite the time with that pinata that night...
It was so wonderful to be in such a nice town, eating good food, sleeping a real bed, and... just relaxing. The three of us shared a room at the Travel Inn (which I do not recommend) and slept very well.
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