Day 97 - Monday, August 2

At the Cedarwood Inn in Ashland, Oregon (left trail at mile 1717.7).  Walked 9.5 miles today.

Nobody set an alarm for this morning as we were close to town and didn't have to do a ton of miles.  As a result, we all slept in a bit.  Frank had to throw another shoe at me last night to get me to stop snoring.  We all packed up and I headed out while the others were still eating breakfast.  I walked through a couple of meadows with flowers and a Disney-like effect of birds fluttering away as I approached.

The trail entered a forest and except for a couple of views, stayed like that the rest of the way.

Finally, I reached a cutoff trail and took that out to the road.  Here, 3 hikers (Double Stuff, Wick, and Pokey) were waiting by the road.  They had been attempting to hitch when a trail angel told them she was going to drop off the hikers she had in her car and then could give them a ride to town.  I sat down with them in hopes that there would be enough room for me as well.  After 10 minutes, she rolled up and we all squeezed in.

Her name was Samantha and she does a lot of trail angeling in the Ashland area.  She dropped us all off in town.  The others went to Wendy's and I went to a pizza place.  I ordered and had just gotten my pizza when Hocus Pocus and Lenore came in.  They ordered and 20 minutes later, Frank turned up.

Hocus Pocus and Lenore had no trouble hitching in and had one of the laziest hitches ever.  They were sitting in the shade snacking and stuck out their thumb to the first car which pulled over for them.  Frank had gotten a hitch from a gentleman who smelled like he had never showered and even better, she got to put her pack on top of a rat cage.

We all stuffed ourselves with pizza and then went to the dollar tree for some items before walking to the hotel.  As we left the dollar tree, the sky turned an apocalyptic orange/gray as smoke from one of the nearby fires made its way over town.  Keep in mind, this is mid-afternoon

When we arrived at the hotel, there was nobody there, the private residence behind the check in desk was open and empty, there was an open moving van outside, and baby carriages and other similar items everywhere.  After 15 minutes of nobody answering calls, Frank phoned the police, worried that something was really wrong; however, while she was on the phone with them, a man turned up who was able to check us in.  When we went to our room however, the door was wide open with sheets on the floor.  We finally found some housekeeping staff and they started cleaning it immediately for us.

While we waited, we went swimming in the pool which looked like it had been a while since it had been vacuumed.  After an hour the room was ready and we went in to a nicely sized suite.  There will be six of us in here tonight (Hocus Pocus, Lenore, Dirty Knuckles, Prime, Frank, and myself) and even better everyone will have a bed!  We also have two bathrooms.

We showered and I walked to the laundromat to do everyone's laundry.  After it was finished, I went back to the room and sewed a now massive (8-ish inch) hole in my shirt.  It only has to last me another hundred miles or so before I get a new one so it's not the best sewing job ever.

Prime turned up after two days of 30+ miles to get to town.  We all then took the local bus downtown to get Indian food for dinner.  It was really good and afterwards, Hocus Pocus and Lenore went to go to a bar while the rest of us went to take the bus back.  However, after 20 minutes of waiting, we realized that the bus had stopped running for the night and we had misread the time (we had initially read it as 8:39 pm but the next bus was actually for 8:39 am the next day...).  We managed to get a hitch with a local nursing student after only 5 minutes of trying.  Once at the hotel, we immediately went to bed and passed out in an effort to catch up on missed sleep.