Tehachapi Willow Springs Road (558.5) - Tentsite (569.4) | Mileage: 10.9 + 2.3 (Grocery shopping and food in Tehachapi)

We don’t get outside til 9:00 because we didn’t sleep much overnight because it was too hot but finally at like 5:00 somehow the AC magically started working and then we could sleep.

And also we got out late because when we woke up we somehow started crying in a confusingly both happy and sad way which was primarily because we were discussing the music videos we watched last night and also maybe because we didn’t get enough sleep. The videos obviously led to us revisiting our ongoing trail conversation about relationships changing over time and how time passes so fast and it’s hard to remember how you felt in the beginning or at different notable points and that maybe it would’ve been nice to have a journal or videos or something that could’ve captured that time/feelings and also how dramatic relationships and breakups and the associated strong rollercoaster emotions get glorified in the media and make you want that for experiences even though it would probably suck.

But also the videos made us think that maybe it would be cool to be a celebrity, not a super famous one, but like a mid-tier one because you have important parts of your life recorded that probably bring back really strong memories of specific points in time rather than just getting lost in the past. And also because other people, even random people, are really invested in you and what is going on in your life and thus it feels like everything, even the bad things are valid and matter and have value in some way. And also it would be cool to have fans.

But finally we do wrap up our conversation and our crying and our speculating about celebrity-ness and get moving and go outside because it is 9:00 and we really have a lot to do before we head out back to the trail.

Not two seconds after we exit our room and start walking up the alley to drop our key another motel room door opens and an older man starts talking. We take another couple steps before realizing he is actually trying to talk to us so we stop an awkward distance away and have a equally awkward conversation that goes something like:

MAN: you all thru-hiking? US: mumbled yesses, shuffling like do we go closer or keep going, we are hungry and don’t want to chat MAN: me too. Well, until now, I messed up my back and I’m getting off trail now cause of it, think I’m done US: ohhh man, uhh yikes, uhhh so sorry, um

And we share awkward compassion grimaces and then that is the end of the conversation and we zoom around the corner and wonder if there was something better we should’ve said.

We arrive at the same coffee shop we hung out in yesterday because it is just such an excellent vibe. And the plan is to eat and then sit and have some quiet focus time for dedicated journaling. And that works super well for approximately ten minutes until I glance up and happen to make fleeting eye contact with the man sitting behind me. Which apparently is his invitation to draw his chair closer and start chatting at us along the lines of:

MAN: you must be hiking the PCT US: yeah, signaling end to conversation MAN: ignoring signal, yeah that’s such an experience, I’ve wanted to do it myself forever but never gotten around to it, California really has everything, sand dunes, ocean, forest, desert, mountains, ya know, it has it all. US: yeeess MAN: [a lot more rambling I cannot remember] well let me know if you need a ride anywhere, [long list of places we could go in town]

So we turn back to our journaling that we desperately need to catch up on but obviously that is a futile endeavor because that short conversation opens the floodgates and within seconds the older woman on the other side of us leans over and asks if we mind if she pulls up a chair. And we do, kinda, because we are in fact trying to do our journal, but we are polite and friendly and in fact she has already pulled up the chair and is already sitting in it and already chatting at us so really we have no choice here anyway. And she launches right into it:

WOMAN: I see you’re hiking the PCT US: now verrry over-familiar with this question, mmmhmmm WOMAN: well I used to be a nutritionist and what are you eating on the trail because it’s very important to have whole foods, etc etc etc some stuff about some protein supplement she used to sell and more nutrition facts and how processed food is bad has a lot of random shit in it which you cannot digest or get nutrients from which is also what Maddie tells me on the daily so I am in fact very aware of this MADDIE: very excited to be talking about food, usual commentary we hear from women is to eat less, detail about our protein powder and 700 calorie Range bars, and fact that we bring produce on the trail (the woman is duly impressed) WOMAN: asks where we are from learns it’s NYC, goes ohhh I was just there visiting friends a little while ago, and there was this lovely multi floor market with the best ice cream that wasn’t really ice cream ME: lmao Chelsea Market and the halva ice cream? And of course we bond over how great that place is which is in fact a very random coincidence, and I think that is the end of the conversation when WOMAN: and on the trail you must have so much time to think, about life’s biiig questions, right? And they are just so hard to answer right? And she pulls out a card and we think it will be something about nutrition but it is in fact a Jehovah Witnesses card and really we should’ve expected this because there are always religious people talking to PCTers but really how could we predict that major conversation pivot?

And then we finally have peace and quiet.

TOTALLY KIDDING. Obviously another person comes up to us because we are celebrities and that’s how it goes. But at least this man doesn’t only chat at us, he ALSO gives us a free smoothie (our favorite green one).

And when all of this socializing is over we of course have no more time to journal because it’s already mid-afternoon and we need to walk 1.5 miles to the grocery store and get groceries and eat lunch and then get a hitch back to the trail where we are optimally going to hike 10 miles, and we are, as always, running late.

So we hit up the Dollar General Market to get our first round of groceries and we plan to be highly efficient and we make a list in advance to be successful at being highly efficient. And we are highly efficient, for about five minutes, until our new celebrity status kicks in yet again. This man short and stubby and balding and wearing a dark green t-shirt over his potbelly and has a really friendly smile from behind his giant shopping cart.

MAN: ohhh oh you must be hiking the PCT! US: [is a response even necessary at this point when it is so evident (we are literally wearing our stuff and have our packs) MAN: well now, I used to live with a really conservative landlady and she always used to think the PCT hikers were homeless and yell at them and put up signs saying no trespassing. But I know you all are different. US: [very unsure what the appropriate response is here…] um yeahhh?

And I should note that this is the second time this man went out of his way to talk to us in the Dollar General, I think the first time he couldn’t think of what to say so he just said hi and noted that we are PCT hikers but then it seems he finally thought of something to say to us and that is why he was back.

And finally we are in the checkout line and we think we are home free but then the woman checking us out ALSO wants to chat with us. She asks what our favorite part of the trail is so far and where we are from and when we started and then the mom behind us in line overhears and joins in the conversation and we chat and chat and chat.

But finally we are out on the sidewalk headed to the Albertson’s ie our second and final grocery stop.

And guess what!!? MORE PEOPLE want to talk to us. On the sidewalk! We are walking and existing in totally our own world when we realize the couple chatting to each other behind us is actually trying to chat TO us.

COUPLE: you’re the fast girls who passed us in the windmills, right? US: [thinking, remembering, realizing these middle-aged people in street clothes are thru-hikers and apparently we’ve seen them before oops] ohh yep lol COUPLE: damn you zoomed by so fast in that wind, I don’t know how it didn’t blow you over with your tiny packs you must be not even half our weights. And you were just smiling and cruising and it was so windy and miserable!

Wow ngl that was so many lovely compliments all bundled up in kinda a critique about how we passed so aggressively?

Anyway we finally make it into the Albertsons and mercifully revert to normal person status for a hot sec because no one tries to talk to us and we peruse the aisles in peace. Which is lovely because I forgot how wonderful big grocery stores are. The selection is extensive they have everything you could ever want and we buy vegan bacon bits and arugula and avocados and jalapeños and apples and oranges and fun instant potato flavors and a whole variety of Indian and Mexican food packs like saag paneer and veggie korma and some chana masala thing and they’re all veggie and there are so many options (basically think like meal pouches that are already wet but don’t need to be refrigerated and are intended to basically be microwaveable instant meals). And obviously you can probably tell by the food items listed that all of these things are way heavier than what you should in theory buy to backpack but it all looks so good that we overbuy in both quantity and weight but oh well.

So we check out and head outside and our celebrity status is once again immediately apparent. We’re standing to the side of the grocery entrance with our cart full of groceries, repacking the food into different ziploc baggies and tearing off excess plastic bits (there is actually recycling here for once which is a win) when shocker, another man comes up to us with the now irritatingly familiar line:

MAN: ah I see you must be hiking the PCT MADDIE: (sarcastic) how did you know? MAN: well did you know, I used to hike around some and did you know, really, there US is really just New York and Canada, nothing really in between US: … MAN: [a lot more jabbering that I also cannot remember]

We’re finally packed and done chatting and we check the time and it’s already like 2:00 but we figure we can squeeze in a really quick lunch across the street at a Thai place and if we can schedule a pickup at 3:30 with one of the trail angels we will still be back on trail early enough to cruise our 10 miles before dark.

And of course in the restaurant another man chats us up about being on the PCT and is very impressed and horrified that we are walking to Canada.

And we struggle to find a trail angel available to take us which makes sense because it is Memorial Day weekend and probably people have fun things to be doing. But we find an Uber driver who takes hikers on Saturdays and we head over to stand outside the grocery because that’s where we set the pickup spot.

And of course another man comes to chat with us and offer to take us anywhere we want but we do not want that and we politely tell him that in fact we already have a ride thank you very much.

And of course pretty much all the people who chat at us are men (except the Jehovahs Witness and the grocery store ladies), what a surprise. And also I meant to give brief descriptions of the people for context and the vibe but I’m writing this late and honestly I forgot what they all look like so oh well.

And it’s maybe kind of annoying to be a celebrity after all because how could you possibly get anything done ever if every time you go outside you always have people disrupting you with inane comments because they just want to talk to you because they think you’re cool but they don’t really know what to say. But also, I must say, it was kind of flattering to be hyped up by that many people in one day. So maybe it would be okay, jury’s still out. Or maybe it just depends on how cool your fans are.

But I still make Maddie take photos of me in the grocery store parking lot like I am a celebrity and she is my papparazzi entourage or something like that. Well, to be clear actually what happened is we discussed how the way people wear a baseball cap impacts presentation. Specifically, when I wear it forward with my hair up I look like a very straight, outdoorsy type of woman. And when I wear it backwards with my hair down I suddenly look queerer (at least I think so, it is possible you may not agree, I hear I always look like a normy queer, alas). So I turned it back and forth like straight, gay! Straight, gay! Which was entertaining but I of course prefer it backwards so then I made Maddie take pictures of me whilst I modeled it the gay way because that is obviously better.

And finally our ride arrives to take us out of our town celebrity-ness and back to the anonymity of the trail where everyone is just like us. And our ride happens to actually be an Uber driver who wants the ride to go through the Uber app even though we know Uber takes a large percentage of the fee so we think he would want our cash instead for the full price but he does not and we have no clue what the trailhead is actually called on a map so we do a frantic phone Google and finally sort it out and finally are on our way back to the trail and it’s 4:00 and we want to do 10 miles so we need to move.

And we try to move, we really do. But it’s always a sluggish vibe after town days and there are more wind turbines aka more wind and this wind is absolutely blasting us full strength.

And it’s pretty miserable, honestly. And the first 5 miles drag by in the windy wind turbine fields. And then we pass a classic Eagle Scout project bench that wiggles when you sit on it (trust me I tried) complete with an inscription of the kid’s name even though he’s probably not dead and then we have 3 winding miles of downhill and then we are finally at the highway with the water cache. Where we also realize our campsite is still 3.2 miles away (oops I don’t know why I thought it was 10 from the trailhead I guess I did bad math and our eta is 8:00 so we gotta go).

The PCT starts following the highway, like literally walking right next to it on the other side of a fence. It’s honestly kinda cool to see the cars and trucks zooming at us and all I can think about is that these people definitely have no clue what the PCT is or that it’s paralleling the highway so they must be exceedingly confused to see people walking along the interstate.

But finally we turn off and start going uphill, and right away we see some really nice sites in the trees but there is no one else there and we feel sketched being so close to the interstate for no reason other than it seems weird and different so we carry on, even though these sites are nice and wind protected. But surely there will be other wind protected sites even if they’re higher up. So we go up and up and up and the wind picks up and it’s blowing us over and making loud whooshing and moaning sound and we start to feel like we maybe made a very big mistake carrying on and we think longingly of the nice protected highway sites below. But it would be sad to backtrack down the hill and we did want to get our miles in.

So we keep going and we see a somewhat protected site with two tents already filling the tiny space and then we see an empty site that is getting annihilated by wind so we skip that one and hope the next is better and we go up and up and then we see the site that said it had some wind coverage. And given the next couple sites apparently all have no wind coverage this is going to have to be the site for us tonight.

But the wind coverage is just a few Joshua trees which are notably quite skinny and a scrappy wall of rocks and sticks and this site is also getting annihilated by wind. And there is someone set up whose tent is getting destroyed which makes us really feel great about our prospects. But there’s no other options so we pull out the tent and struggle to keep it from getting ripped out of our hands and struggle to get the stakes to stay in the ground and struggle to keep the ground sheet in place and struggle to find mega rocks to stack on the stakes and struggle to see with the sand getting whipped into our faces. And finally we are done struggling and the tent is up and we scooch in super quick, packs and all. But actually the struggling isn’t done because Maddie notices one of the side flaps isn’t super tight so I have to go back out there and struggle to restake it and pull it tight while getting smacked repeatedly by the little metal bit at the end which is seriously painful.

And then I zoom back in the tent, which already looks like a sandbox due to the large quantities of sand getting blown inside from the aggro wind.

And we eat the tofu we packed out and some mashed potatoes (which is a fire combo even if it sounds a bit odd) and we kinda want to eat more and we forgot all about the arugula but the sand is everywhere and the tent is getting pummeled by the wind so hard that it’s warping all around our heads and hitting us when we sit upright and it’s cold, so we instead just get in our sleeping bags and huddle close and listen to the wind make terrifying howling noises and wonder if our stakes will get pulled out and the tent will blow over or rip or if the guylines will scrape against the rocks so bad that they fray and snap and wonder if we will ever be able to fall asleep.

And the wind howls and howls and the tent warps and warps and the sand piles and piles in our tent and we just keep lying there thinking that we really should’ve picked the lower site or checked the weather ahead of time (we in fact have service now and can see that there is a wind advisory tonight), and this is just like the San Jacinto day minus the sleet and man I really wanted to sleep tonight.