Jammin' with Jameson

28.4 miles. Woke up at 5:30 to Glowstick and Payless already standing up and ready to go. The day was filled with dubious comments about all the water sources so I thought of Josh and his hatred of fear mongering. The morning to the first little stream that was warned to be a trickle was totally fine and I met two woman that shared my love of sleeping in late. We spent the rest of the day going through a burn area that many people later told me they thought was haunted but I enjoyed the change of scenery. The burned trees were jagged and serene. The next water source was supposed to be surrounded by poodle dog bush which has the same allergen as poison oak. It indeed was infested with PDB but it was easy to get around it, more unwarranted fear mongering! After a snack break with Payless and Baby Sinclair, I checked out the water source which was a rain filled cistern and decided to skip it after seeing how yellow and mucky the water was. I kept pushing another 10 miles to get to the next water source: two more cisterns, one of which that reportedly had many dead creatures in it. To get to the cistern, I had to crawl underneath a metal water collector, lay on top of the plastic tube, and scoop my water bottle as far as I could. There had been bugs swarming all day and eating lunch infested with flies broke me. After being in a great mood, I felt exhausted just trying to eat my meal in peace while swatting away dozens of flies. I couldn’t relax at all so I got up unhappily and kept hiking. Eventually I found another spot that seemed well shaded with less flies and set up my ground sheet determined to nap the flies be damned. I covered my entire body in clothes and covered my face with my hat and got an hour and a half of shitty sleep. Eventually I woke up and saw two people pass by that I had seen napping in their hammock before the water, lucky bastards. This was finally the price I was paying for shipping my tent ahead. I chatted with them, Sticky and Breezy, and hiked quickly to try to catch up after packing up my stuff. We walked together for the next few miles and snacked on my tropical jelly beans from Evan. I got to my intended campsite around 6 and was thinking on pushing on because my body felt great but more importantly I knew I’d be more frustrated hanging out in all the flies for 2 hours. I hiked down to the water source while they left and found my least water source to date – a 2 foot puddle swarming with bees and flies and filled with dead bugs. After unhappily spending 30 minutes scooping up bit by bit, I ate dinner and kept going. Once I got to my campsite, Baby Sinclair arrived and I asked her if she wanted to join me for yoga. As soon as I laid down, I smelled something funky but was able to dim it out enough to get some sleep.