Mile 240 - 260.5 Mission Springs Trail Camp to North of Deadmans Ridge

Left camp by 6:30am. Cold and damp. After about 10 miles we passed by animal cages. Apparently the animals are trained there and used in Hollywood movies. We saw a tiger, a lioness and 2 bears. The cages were small, we didn't spend any time there. Tracy was upset. It was hard to see wild animals caged in the wild.

More of the bizarre was to follow a few miles later. To the side of the trail was a recliner sofa, and coolers containing sodas and cookies. They were supplied by the hostel at Big Bear Lake. There was also water and other goodies supplied by other hotels... bit of a competition in the old trail angel world.  We only saw one person on the trail today, a guy called Noah the Prophet. He said the others we camped with last night wouldn't be following us as they were planning on "slack-packing". This means you hitch hike out early, get a room and then return to the trail without your pack to complete the miles.
Hiked  enough so that we only had 5 miles to do in the morning to highway 18 where we would hitch to our next resupply stop, Big bear Lake. We found a place off trail under a fir tree somewhat sheltered from the wind.
We only had the tent up for about 10 minutes when the grey clouds that had been looming above us for a few hours let loose their burden of agua. We quickly ran to bring in sleeping bags that we had airing in the sun and huddled. Then KAkakABABOOMBA! A thunder and lightening show above our heads. I've always been pretty blazé about thunderstorms, until the chimney of our Edinburgh flat was hit, bricks went flying and it took out all the electrical appliances in the building. So I was huddled in child's pose on my sleeping pad, whipping off my underwire bra while avoiding the metallic tent poles. I then spotted the solar umbrella next to me and reached to toss it outside. As I touched it a streak of lightening lit up the sky. Frightening. I counted 6 lightening streaks in total but finally, as it got dark, the storm moved on.
While I was in serious concern mode re being fried, Tracy was preoccupied with our tent getting wet. She went out and readjusted the ground sheet in a lull in the downpour. We had already scooped out a big v shape in the ground upslope of the tent for water to channel into. It kind of paid off. Next morning the tent was soaking but the ground underneath was bone dry.