I wake up to a chilly morning and a horrible sore throat. I drag on through the morning until I cave and beg Brian for some of his instant coffee. Miracle! I then fly up and down the trail, revived. Walking faster seems to help me ignore my sore throat. I may have also been motivated by visions of soda and cheeseburgers with a stop in Mt. Laguna. I bump into several of the people we began hiking with when I take a break. Complete 10 miles by noon but am then running on empty towards the end. The cafe located past the outfitters has incredible food and I eat the most wonderful cheeseburger and parmesan and garlic fries. There is a row of bikers at the newly completed bar in the cafe and I secretly wish I had a photo with them, but am too sick to really care. Brian and I both collapse in the shade across the road for several hours after broadly hinting to the guy at the outfitter that we would like to nap uninterrupted for as long as possible, without walking back to the trail. Resupply at the Mt. Laguna campground store in incredibly overpriced, with mozzarella sticks retailing for over a dollar each, when usually they are roughly 60 cents. I have enough food to keep going and don't buy much. The owner of the gear shop was really nice and suggests a stealth campspot about a mile off trail... with another half mile of road walking. So we leave Mt Laguna and stupidly take him up on this suggestion in hopes of water spigots. They are off. I vow to never walk this far off trail for camping again. Still no sign of Cameron and Tim. They are behind us somewhere.
As I walked today I admired trailwork in the hardened red clay soil and decided that I have the utmost respect for anyone doing trail work in the desert.
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