Tentsite (124.9) - Tentsite (144.0) | Mileage: 19.1 + 1.3 (Detours for water at Mike’s Place and Tule Spring)

This is how we planned for today to go:

• Wake up super early to get a bunch of miles done in the cool early morning temperature
• Start hiking speedy fast to close the 2.5 mile distance between us and our friends and catch up with them mid-morning
• Feel super awesome and get 10+ miles done before 11am so that we can take a long break in the shade during the hot afternoon hours to journal and do to-dos and still be on track for a high mileage day
• Cruise into a campsite late afternoon after having done 22-24 miles to make up for our prior short mileage days
• Overall have a leisurely, comfortable day filled with a sense of accomplishment at having done lots of miles, gotten our journal up to date, and still rolled into camp during daylight hours with plenty of time to set up camp, cook, chat with friends, and watch the sunset before going to bed early

This is how today actually went:

• Slept in because it was actually warm and cozy and comfy, finally rolled out of our quilts at 8:00
• Packed up in a demoralized stressy hurry, comfy feeling gone as we remembered that 1) we were now going to have to seriously move to catch our friends who definitely left their site hours earlier, 2) it was already really hot out, and 3) definitely no afternoon chill session for us unless we wanted to do significantly fewer miles than planned and get farther behind
• Got to Mike’s Place in about 40 minutes to find everyone gone (obviously) except a few guys in the process of using the SOS button on their Garmin to call for medical help because one of them (a sweet 22 year old bigger guy named Dylan from our Airbnb) had picked up a golf club lying on the ground (why was there a golf club), swung it, and messed up his knee in the process. Between spending some time being friendly and supportive, filtering our water from the huge weird metal barrels, wandering around Mike’s Place (think disused rusted objects lying around everywhere like in Pajama Sam), we effectively used another hour or so and finally started our day of hiking around 10
• Slogged through the heat and got through 10 miles at 2:30 (not quite that 11am goal)
• Terrain became VERY uphill and I walked behind a very sad, very tired, very slow-moving Maddie at a painfully sloth-like pace and watched the miles pass agonizingly slowly
• Did a long detour for water from a rust colored stream that tasted like iron (i.e blood)
• Sat eating cold soaked refried beans and quinoa feeling tired and depressed as Julia zipped by, enthusiastically sharing that she was having a great day filled with excellent music and lengthy detours to several peaks
• Realized we weren’t going to get to the campsite we goaled on so we stopped at the egregiously late time of 6:30 when we saw Julia sitting on top of a rock at a closer site
• Julia asked why are you rushing so much this site is beautiful
• And then we remembered that actually we did not have anywhere to be and we would definitely see our friends tomorrow at Paradise Valley Cafe and it was indeed a really beautiful site and Maddie felt better after some raspberry salt flavored electrolyte drink and we sat and watched the sunset on a big boulder and ate some perfectly proportioned mix of dehydrated chili, pea protein crumbles, and quinoa that I cooked on our little stove and remembered that we were happy and contented and doing what we wanted to do and did not need rigid expectations to have a successful thru-hike