North fork ranger station to acton - 8 miles

Total - 444.3 miles

Wild day let’s just start there. Said we were going to go later in the day but I couldn’t sleep and woke up around 4ish so I was like fuck it imma get up and left by 6ish. The scenery was great but again it was hot so around 7ish I was still sweating my ass off. The bard, Marc, and I hiked together pretty much the entire day and towards the end Caleb caught up as he left later than us. You could tell spirits were down a lil despite it being a town day. We got to the road that would take us to acton but we still needed to get a hitch. It was 8:30am so it seemed less likely it would happen. Went into the RV park and got a Gatorade and sat for maybe 15 minutes before we said fuck it we are going to go try to get a hitch and get breakfast in town. Got all set up on the side of the road, maybe like two cars passed us going the opposite direction before we stuck our thumbs out before a white car pulled over. Marc walks up to the car and describes where we are going but it seems like there was a communication issue. Turns out the guy is mute but he was going to the same breakfast place as us so we hopped in! The entire way we are making conversation and he’s communicating through iPad. He’s driving while writing, we are swerving all around. Truly an impeccable experience. Such a sweet guy though as he was cracking up at our jokes in a mute way and trying to make conversation. Got to the breakfast place and he gave us his name which was don and he went to meet his family as well in the establishment. Breakfast was delicious as I got a chicken salad sandwich and we stuffed our faces. The waitresses were nice and kept talking to us. I don’t mean to insult one but she asked us her age and I was about to say 30 and it turns out she was 21. Everyone guessed like 27 bc it seemed like a trick question. Before we left we stopped by don’s family table and said hi and thanked him again. He had apparently wrote that we were his new friends on his iPad. That’s probably one of the coolest things is the generosity of people as well as I would never meet some of these people outside of the pct because we come from different walks of life. Cheesy to say but with all the chaos going on in the world there are still kind people. After the breakfast we stuck our thumbs out once again but as we were walking and not paying attention. 2 seconds later we have a hitch from a nice couple who drove us to the 49er saloon where we planned to stay for the night around 11am. Amazing couple as well, super nice and wished us luck on our journey. Walked it to the 49er saloon and pct crowd galor. We got to meet up with some of the ppl we have been bunny hopping and the Aussie girl Ella which was fun to see her again and hang with! The poor waitress since it was Mother’s Day was the only one working so she was sprinting a marathon around the bar. Caleb and the bard being the find gentleman they are aka have worked service before hopped in to help. They were serving wine, taking orders, chatting up the folks, cleaning tables, bunching in orders to the computer, and overall just helping out. I cleared half a table and that’s all I got. The funniest part was the waitress was chirping them. When they took an order she asked if he asked if the costumers wanted cheese and how could he forget to not ask for cheese. He don’t work there, how was he supposed to know. They tipped out even at the end of their shift. Truly phenomenal to watch honestly. Worked for at least two hours before the other waitres got there from celebrating Mother’s Day. They ended up getting a free beer and lunch for their service. The belt was a double decker and I was drooling, wishing I got it but I couldn’t justify two town meals in one day. The cook was hilarious too, basically crashing out and cursing up a storm. He came out to thank Caleb and the bard which was also hilarious. After that fiasco we decided to booze, so it was a round of shots of their cheapest tequila they got (wasn’t cheap enough). Then we hit up the market for tall boys and boozed outside. Think of a light weight and make it lighter because that’s me at the moment. Tipsy after a beer and a shot. Another thing is I haven’t lost weight on trail. After weighing myself I gained two pounds and I’m blaming that on the breakfast we had. I think it’s muscle though so I’ll take it. Cant wait to be ripped after five months on trail. We listened to music outside praying for a speaker to fall out of the sky so we could be teenage dirtbags causing a commotion and bother everyone in the vicinity. Thats basically how we killed the next 5 hours, talking and boozing and snacking. Truly a great day. Orginally we were gonna hang around acton until trey comes but I think we will hike the next 10-12 miles to agua dulce which the trail goes right through downtown and wait for him there. Trey is bringing Marc’s new MacBook Air for him to do his PhD on. Another thing is we got to know kit more who is from the UK and he was super cool. We hope to see more of him but he’s having Achilles problems. It supposed to cool down tomorrow but we have been avoiding the heat pretty well just in general in the afternoons so I’m not too worried. Super excited for a zero and hanging with everyone in town.