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| What the Peacock?! |
It’s finally day 2. A lot has happened since day 1... not to me, but for others a lot has happened I’m sure. I was just being lazy and not wanting to write anything. But here we go, anyway.
Look at us, we made it through the night! I'm just as shocked as you are!
And yet, we never made it to our pre-designed camp. We only made it to Jay Camp at Big Basin Headquarters. We broke camp at Waterman Gap and were on the trail by 8:30-9:00am. A lot of this was uphill. Chaos, who’s name is now Hot Topic (not after the store in the mall, just wait, you’ll see), said it was hot. It was not hot, maybe got up to 73? Maybe.
Both of us were already sore. Hot Topic’s calves and for me it was my shoulders and upper back. Repacking the backpack seemed to help. But only for the first 2 hours or so. I thought we could make it to Big Basin Headquarters by noon. That was a somewhat miscalculation. Then we recalculated once we realized how far we had actually not gone by our first break to 2 pm. We hobbled in at 2:30pm. And I mean hobbled. Backpacks went onto a picnic table and we hobbled into the camp store for its-it’s and drinks. But in between the its-it’s and breaking camp, Hot Topic got a blister. Complained about the heat. Thought that we must have gone miles when in fact we had only gone 0.8 miles. We got eaten by mosquitoes. Went over a giant sandstone batholith. Hot Topic said it was hot again. While on the batholith, she kept saying she was going to push me over the edge.
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| She's smiling, but what she is really saying is, "I hate you right now, and I am so throwing you over the edge!" |
I kept telling her, she volunteered for this and that once we get to Headquarters, there’s ice cream. ICE CREAM!! She was dragging and hurting. I was a bit too, but I kept thinking we’d make it to Sunset Camp and I didn’t want to admit failure. A few hours before hitting Big Basin Headquarters, Hot Topic informed me, she would not be able to do another 5 miles to Sunset Camp. Quitter! Ok, not really, because, honestly, I wouldn't have made it either, or I would have and have turned into a swearing angry cranky worse than PMS woman child by the end and left Hot Topic on the trail to fend for herself. We'll not go there, okay?
We had caught up with Little IT Guy about 3 miles outside of Big Basin Headquarters. We walked with him for a while. We stopped so I could get a water bottle out of my pack and so Hot Topic could pee about 1.3 miles from Headquarters. We were soooooooo close!! But there was a park bench!! During this time Little IT Guy passed us. He was staying at Jay Camp in Big Basin Headquarters.
So, when we hobbled into Headquarters who did we see eating an ice cream cone? Little IT Guy of course. He had said he had checked in with the ranger and said that there was room at Jay Camp. So after our its-it’s, Hot Topic laid down on the picnic table and I hobbled over the the Ranger Station. I asked if we could stay at Jay Camp instead of Sunset Camp, because we were not going to make it. The Ranger said no problem. I gave her our permit and I asked if we could pay here. She said, “You didn’t pay already?” Nope. Sorry. I didn’t know we were suppose to pay our camp fees at Castle Rock Headquarters before we began the adventure the day before. That was 3 miles in the other direction of where we were dropped off. I didn’t know. But I do now. The Ranger was cool about it, and I told her I now do not feel any guilt about not paying yet.
We did 10.5 miles today. And because we didn’t make it to Sunset Camp, tomorrow will now be close to 13 miles. Sure hope it will be easier and that Hot Topic will be okay. (She informed me that she took 3 vicadin and 2 aleves today)
We put the packs back on for the last time... today and hobbled over to Jay Camp. Oooh actual flush toilets and sinks and showers! Big Basin Headquarters is awesome.
I was shocked and slightly amused by the fact that although Hot Topic has lived in Santa Cruz her entire life, she has never been to Big Basin before. I came here almost every summer with my dad and brother when I was a kid. Creek walking, jiffy pop, campfire with the rangers, and roasting marshmallows, hiking with dad, scary showers with the spiders, some of my fondest memories of my childhood are here. So anyway, we set up camp, said hi to Little IT Guy, and set off on the Redwood Trail to introduce Hot Topic to the wonders of Big Basin and Mother and Father of the Forest. We also stopped in at the Sempervirens Room and the Nature Museum. Walking without the packs was nice. And Hot Topic loved seeing the trees. Not that we didn’t see trees all day, but she kept saying “look how big this one is”, and I kept saying, “there are bigger ones, just wait”.
Tomorrow we will need to get up early so that we can actually get some beach time! We saw several banana slugs and three deer and only four day hikers on the trail before we got near Headquarters. I asked Hot Topic if she wanted to add anything: It was cool going in and out of different vegetation zones all day (Chapperal/ redwood forest/ oak woodland), and although the sandstone batholith was hot, it was cool. Did I mention it was hot? And the penis and vagina tree were really cool (aka Father and Mother of the forest). Here is her proof:
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| In Mother of the Forests vagina |
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| pointing out Father of the Forest's penis |
Oh and we only almost got lost twice. I’d say Day 3 will come shortly, but since it took me over a week to get to day 2, who really knows.
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| I'm just going to look up this tree for a while |
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