Day 23

We had the most stunning wildflowers today through massive burn areas—new growth greens contrasted with the purples and indigos of lupine and other small flowers made for incredible scenery.

We walked past fields of Poodle Dog Bush (PDB) as well, which flourishes in burn areas. It’s a well known poisonous plant that causes welt-like itchy rashes, similarly but far worse than poison oak.

We had to take an “Alt Route” today and road walk for 3 miles due to a four mile closure of the PCT to save an endangered species of yellow frog. While we are glad we did our duty saving the frogs, the road walk was terrible for my shin splints, and not great for morale in the heat of the day.

All in all though we had a lovely walk through the woods.

Reading Journey Summaey: I have recently started books 6 and 7 on my reading journey on trail. Every night I make time for at least a half hour of reading, and will spend 1-2 hours per day listening to audiobooks which makes me quite happy. So far on trail, I’ve read some great and some mediocre novels. For all my readers who also love to read, my recommendations are as follows:

Book 1: Guest List (2.5/5) this was a somewhat trashy murder-mystery-Esque novel where the author tries to make multiple characters out to be the murderer in a rather annoying way. Don’t recommend. Book 2: The Tattooist of Auschwitz (5/5) I loved this book. It’s a true story, as I found out at the end, and it’s told incredibly well. I highly recommend listening to this book as an audiobook as the narration is spot on. Book 3: The Golden State (3.5/5) I appreciated the prose but struggled with the plot on this one. The concept was interesting but I was quite frustrated by the main character for most of the book and she didn’t grow on me. I appreciated the California Book 4: Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (4.5/5) This nonfiction gave me a ton to think about, but I wish that I had not read it as an audiobook as some of the content I needed more time to process to fully understand. I came to love octopuses by reading this book! Book 5: The Secret History (5/5) I loved the winding plot, prose, miscellaneous classical references, and the general dark tone of this book. The characters were rich, if un-relatable. If you like dark books this one is lovely and takes you to places you definitely won’t expect.