Day 31- Friday, May 28

Cowboy camping at a small campsite (mile 580.6).  Walked 22.1 miles today.

We all got up early compared to recent mornings (6:30 am) and slowly packed up.  Katie announced this morning that she was accepting the trail name that I had picked out for her yesterday.  She's a  pretty blunt, tell-it-like-it-is person, and we've been trying to find a word or phrase that encompasses that.  Closest we've come is far is "Less than Subtle", but that's a little wordy.  Yesterday I spent some time with a thesaurus and as a result, Katie will now be known as "Frank".  It fits her blunt, no-BS style and has the added fun of confusing people whenever she introduced herself.  She might go by Frankie sometimes too.

We said goodbye to Old Dubs who was getting picked up at 9.  It was really hard for her and Frank as they've known each other since the very beginning. Jedi figures knowing someone for one day on the trail is equivalent to knowing someone for about 6 months in the "real" world.

We went outside and Jedi, Frankie, and I got a hitch after about 5 minutes from Nathaniel, a local project manager who took us to the trailhead.  Once there, we continued our journey from the other day through the wind farm.

Our packs are so heavy with about 7 days of food plus enough water to make it 24 miles to the next source.  I'm definitely pushing the limits of how much my pack can carry.  This will (hopefully) be the heaviest my pack will be on all of the trail.

Once through the wind farm we were at highway 58.

For those of you who have read "Wild" or seen the movie, this is where Cheryl Strayed's journey on the PCT began.  We hiked along the highway for a bit before climbing up, up, up.

We found a nice shady spot under a grove of Joshua Trees.  It's pretty hot out today and we're definitely sweating a lot as we kept climbing up.  Got to a great view of the wind farm and then went into a pine forest.

Walked along a road for a really long time.  I stopped to filter water and Frank caught up with me.  She really hit a wall so I told her stories to help her take her mind off things while we walked.  We finally caught up to Jedi and he walked the last mile with us.

We set up camp and cooked dinner.  Apparently in Tehachapi, I promised Frank that I'd eat her leftovers.  I don't remember making that promise, but I was happy to oblige.  Jedi always does push-ups in the morning and at night, so we joined him in that tonight.  Jedi did 100, I did 25, and Frank did 1.  Jedi also introduced us to a tradition that he does each night called "Rose, Bud, Thorn" where you say something you liked about the day, something you didn't like, and something that you're looking forward to.  It was a cool concept.  Turned in for the night low on water, but the spring is only 3 miles away in the morning.