guilt-free

Day 107 ~ miles 1735.9 - 1759

One of the best things about long-distance hiking is the food.  When's the last time you sat down to eat an entire pizza?  Maybe never?  Even better, we can eat an entire pizza without feeling bad about it, and follow it up with a pint of ice cream if we'd like.  And of course it would be accompanied by a soda.  Other town staple foods include burgers, milkshakes, fries, potato chips. 

Town stops are so highly anticipated, mostly due to food.  Leading up to town stops, much conversation is centered around food.  What are you craving? Where are you going to eat in town?  Having a smart phone affords us the luxury of scoping out reviews and menus online, so we can be sure to go to the best restaurant and get the best value.  But then often times, there's only one or two restaurants in town, which mAkes it easy.  We usually don't complain about food; our standards are lowered by extreme hunger and we are mostly pretty easy to please.

We eat as many candy bars as we want every day.  And Little Debbies and cheap breakfast pastries and chips and soo many M&M's, all varieties.  We just have to remember to brush our teeth.  It will be a sad, sad day when our guilt free eating comes to an end.

regrettin' it

Day 20  ~ miles 329 - 347

So it's the big day!  We did it, we traveled to the Golden Arches in search of hot, fatty, greasy goodness, and boy did we get it. 

I drank a Starbucks Via instant iced coffee first thing this morning - my first coffee on the trail (now accepting donations of Via instant coffee and iced coffee :D).  The caffeine helped me power up the trail to the destination. 

We arrived to the McDonald's around 11am, and hikers had already partially filled the place.  During our extended dining experience, many more hikers trickled in, taking over almost the entire restaurant.

Here's the lowdown on food ingested:

Sideways D:
Big Mac
2 medium french fries
Grilled onion and cheddar burger
Large chocolate shake
2 cups of Coke

(Ugh, before the trail I wasn't really even eating meat at all.  Now my body screams protein, so I have caved to my carnivorous cravings...but never again at McD's.)

Moonshine:
3 McDoubles
Large french fry
Medium iced coffee
Large chocolate shake

(We also each carried out a quarter pounder to eat for dinner)

Why?!?!?!  After all of that food...we felt HORRIBLE.  We ended up hanging around in McD's until around 2:00.  It was so difficult to hike, feeling so disgustingly overstuffed.  Iur pqxks were also ridiculously heavy, with the next water source not for 22 miles. We hiked off with Joker and Kelsey and made a new slogan....ba da ba ba baaa, regrettin' it ( instead of "I'm lovin it", get it?)

Luckily Joker thought to check the weather, and informed us that on the ridge where we were headed, the forecast called for potential rain/snow/high winds.  We decided to play it safe and stay the night down in the valley, so we only did about 5 miles after leaving McD's and got to camp really early, with lots of time to relax.  The entire cabin crew camped there also.  We basically had to force the quarter pounders down.  May have been my first and last McDonald's experience on the trail.

And a couple of fun facts: 
We walked along the San Andreas fault today.
(For Jimmy and Le) We walked along a section of historic Route 66!

whatcha gettin' at McDonald's?

Day 19 ~ miles 309 to 329ish

Food is a frequent topic of coversation on the trail, and today was definitely no exception.  Tomorrow, the trail will pass within less than half a mile of a McDonald's.  We don't really eat Mickey D's in normal life, but on the trail, we can make an exception.

All of the hikers that we encountered all day long were talking about the Golden Arches:  are you going? (what kind of question is that?), do you think we can make it in time for breakfast?  dude, we can get breakfast AND lunch!  whatcha gonna order? 

Amidst all the McD's excitement, there was little mention of the lake that we would walk around today.  Our day was about 3/4 of the way done mileage-wise, when we arrived at Silverwood Lake, which we would walk nearly all the way around.  The water was crystal clear and oh-so inviting on this pretty warm day.  Every potential swimming area we passed was occupied, until finally we rounded the bend to see Joker swimming and Kelsey pondering doing the same.  Without hesitation, we threw our packs down to prepare for a swim. The rest of the cabin crew joined us quickly, and we all got in.   Moonshine wore all of his clothes in so he could rinse them out a little.  He was easing in to the super chilly water when he slipped on a rock and fell in.  He looked hilarious, like a (fully clothed) wet dog treading water to pull himself back up onto the rocks.  I eased in much more gracefully.  We guessed that the water was about 60 degrees.  It was cold, but mighty invigorating and refreshing after hiking all day under the desert sun.

We hiked on to a group campsite, complete with a clean and stocked port-o-john, where we are camping with Joker and Kelsey.  Onward to McDonalds!