Jammin' with Jameson

9.9 miles. I woke up to a 1000 people saying good morning as we were waking up at 5:30 in the morning. I was confused as shit, obviously annoyed, and had no idea what was happening. Obviously I didn’t let it force me out of the comfort of my smelly sleeping bag though. Once I finally got up, I asked everyone what the hell was happening. I asked the first person I saw and it was a fundraiser where the San Diego chapter of Make a Wish foundation was doing a 28 mile hike. They had even raised 600,000 dollars. Ultimately, I felt like we were blessed to have this fundraiser on the same day we were heading into Big Bear even though they rudely spoke to us before we were fully awake (all hikers know that’s again the social code) because they had set up two water (no water filtering today!) and snack stations along the way. We just had 10 miles of downhill to hike to get into town and it felt like a breeze. My body was also feeling much better. I hiked most of it with Cowabunga who I had discovered the night before used to live in Avon and Minturn working for Walking Mountains and the Forest Service. She’s currently a guide for a tour company in Olympic and Rainier so we talked a lot about the Washington wilderness and her outdoors experience out there. We eventually joined up with everyone and had a dance party at the 10% marker to “Do You Remember”. As we approached the highway, the foundation started cheering and ringing bells. Everyone else in the group started running to the trailhead while Ian and I stayed back and kept hiking like the responsible adults we are. I was greeted by Pitch and my true love Birch and some good PB&J snacks. Pitch, Swell, Flo, and I headed into town to get stuff from the post office, coffee, and groceries for our many cooking plans for the weekend. Swell had a family friend with a tiny A frame cabin that allowed us to stay for the weekend and it was a perfect setup for a bunch of stinky hikers. The even tinier kitchen and dining table become host to one of the best weekends of cooking and mass eating of my life. We started off with Tikka masala that Pitch brought that was bomb and we quickly devoured homemade crepes with Nutella and ice cream that Flo made. I couldn’t believe how much we were eating on a mostly non hiking day but hey it felt good. I took a good shower for the first time and it took me 3 tries to get my legs as close to clean as possible. Swell, Dom, and I went to do the laundry while Flo and Pitch stayed back to make dinner. We saw Maddie and Hailey again at the laundromat and chatted with them for a while. They told me about movies at the Dollar Store which I thought would be great for a movie marathon the next day. Unfortunately, the selection was just horrendously atrocious as they warned me with the only 3 movies I recognized (Minions, Spanish version of despicable me 3, and OG star trek) coming in Blu ray. We ended up renting from red box like the good old days but SWELL refused to let me get the newest Sponge Bob movie and I’m not sure I can ever forgive her. We came home to simmering schnitzel and Flo being dinner Meat Tenderizer due to his amazing performance beating his meat shirtless in front of Pitch. The dinner was incredible and a lovely time together. Glowstick had looked up earlier that there was a local bar with karaoke so we headed there after dinner. Again, our group was a major hit with performances of Dancing Queen, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, Mr. Brightside, and a killer performance of Drop It Like It’s Hot from yours truly. After a mega drunk dude fell for the second and broke his nose, we decided to call it quits and head home for some sleep.