Jammin' with Jameson

20.8 miles. Woke up at 9:30 after everyone got back from hotel breakfast. I was still sleepy so I tried rolling over and getting more z’s with no luck. Instead I bolted down to the breakfast and devoured eggs, a bagel, and a waffle. After slowly packing up, I called turbine and got a hitch to the highway. I didn’t start hiking until ~11:30 so it was hot out. I ran into a section hiker named Steven (I later recommended the trail name Hopper) who had 2 young kids so he would do 24-48 hour trips for the past 5 years and is almost done with the entire desert section. We walked together for the first 2 hours and shared stories from our two different experiences thru vs section hiking. I climbed the hot steep mountain alone and was determined to keep pushing without many breaks. I ran into Melon Man chilling in some shade and stopped for some stretching. Later, we had a boring and non-descript roadwalk and I met a Canadian couple from Winnipeg. I ran into Verizon, Slay, Kidney, Mihai, and a woman and her dog (ewok) and took a lunch break with them. It was the first trail dog I had run into and a very surprising one to see. Ewok was tiny and couldn’t have weighed more than 8 pounds. His owner said that he had been killing it and could walk around 15 miles a day and she would carry him the rest. The best part is he was much better at relaxing than the rest of us. He was currently conked out and cuddled up on Mihai’s ground sheet. Before I left, I went and gave him a tummy rub to get my dog fix. The last few miles were really pretty with views of the sierras starting to show up but it also was strenuous and stressful as I had to really ration out my water. It was the first time I felt extremely thirsty and had to be more conscious of not drinking it too early. I passed by the Canadian couple again who offered me a little water which I refused out if practice at first and then realized that my pride be damned, I should have some. I made it to the algae filled water source and caught up with Madeline (Firefly) and Baby Sinclair. There was so many people there that I had never seen before so we were definitely crossing paths with many different groups. Firefly walked the last 4 miles together to the campsite that it seemed like everyone was heading to. When we got there, it turned out to be true that there was tons of sites but they all were taken by single tents occupying all the space! It was hard to find just a wee bit of flat ground for lowly cowboy campers like myself. I set up camp and did some yoga with Firefly and an Australian named Locky. As I was going to sleep, many more people were walking in with their headlamps and I silently wished them luck with their search for a spot.