The morning started out well. The fabulous people at the Ministries laid out a huge breakfast for and had arranged transportation for all of us to get back on at three different trailheads. We got on a bus with John from the church and about 15 hikers and drove the 18 miles there. I remarked on the bus that I felt something was missing. We got off at 10 am and hiked a mile or more and then I realized... I'd forgotten the tent!
We needed to get back to the bus before John left. I bombed it back down the trail, passing the other hikers on the way. Mudd and Dingo's group offered to share their tents/tarps and cowboy camp tonight and we could get a ride with them to town tomorrow to get our tent. Tracy didnt want to take a chance on it raining so we kept running. When we got to the trailhead the bus had gone. But, we had been told by another hiker that a lady jogger would be going back to Town. We decided to wait for her or try and hitch which ever was faster. We pulled out our mats to sit and wait, both crunching apples. I was waiting for the "you forgot the TENT?, I mean not a bag of gummy bears, or the zip lock bag for garbage, or perhaps your Chapstick, but the TENT! The entire thing?!" But Tracy merely raised an eyebrow and said with a smirk: "Today's blog should be interesting!"
And then, like a night in red shiny armour, Bryce, fellow hiker, arrives in his truck. He's was leaving it there for family to collect but he insisted we used it to go into town and back!
We hopped into the truck, drove the 40 mile round trip, collected the tent, grabbed a gift for Bryce at the store and some snacks/ice cream and got back on the trail by 1pm.
Our challenge was to try and catch up with Booboo and everyone. The fact that it wasn't raining and the terrain was easy really helped. We got to camp before 7:30 in time to have dinner. 21 miles in less than 6.5 hours. Neither of us wpuld have believed we could do that when we started out in the desert.
There are 18 of us at the campsite. Only negative today was ... ANOTHER hornet sting on the ankle. Can't work out why I'm being singled out for attack. Maybe the neon "N" on my fantastic, no-blister, very comfy trail runners?
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