Late Night

Did you ever notice how soft mineral hot springs make your skin feel? Neither did I until just now.

First of all, these things reek of sulfur, meaning that in some small capacity they have something in common with feces, but really the comparisons end there. Whereas jumping into a pool of feces would probably make you want to die if the toxins didn't kill you first, on a cold night such as tonight, jumping into mineral hot springs was like heaven incarnate.

You're probably asking, "I thought this buffoon was on a hike?" And you'd be right, I am. But every hiker needs a break now and then, so here I am taking one. But that doesn't really explain it adequately. Yesterday, there was a cold front coming in off the Pacific (at this point I'd like to mention that Pocketmail - the device that I'm using to send emails from the trail when I don't have Internet access - doesn't work through Verizon. And of course I have Verizon, so any posts I make must be made from a land line and the resort that I'm at has neither room phones or televisions, so I'm still trying to work that out. So if I mention anything here and then again in a subsequent post, now you know why. Anyway, back to the story) and it brought to the PCT cold ass high speed winds. This is quite the change from slight breezes and oppressive heat, so without sweating your *insert dirty body part* off for 10 hours per day, you have a lot more energy to devote to walking. Thus, I got to where I expected to camp for the night at 3:30pm.

I got to talking with some people and the possibility of hiking to Warner Springs (the town I expected to reach the next day) came up. And so I decided not to waste the daylight and get my ass there. So me and three other guys hauled ourselves eight miles in three hours and got ourselves rooms for the night.

Let me tell you that after not showering for four days and sleeping in a tent for six, getting a hotel room is slightly more than enticing.

I get into the bathroom and I turn on the water, dreaming of a hot shower and all that it could possibly be, but the water keeps getting colder and colder, and I keep opening up the Hot knob more and more, but nothing's happening. Quickly I begin cursing my luck as the worst in the world, blaming God for having me hike 28 miles in one day only to be greeted by an arctic shower, and then I decide to just open up the Cold knob and wouldn't you know out comes the Hot water. Oh those jokers over at the Warner Springs Ranch. They got me.

Orgasmic. Hot water and soap never felt so good. I honestly could have died at that moment and I would not have cared. No kids, no fame or fortune, no execution of the soon-to-be-infamous bank heist that I've been planning...nothing. I would not have cared. It was a beautiful thing.

So anyway, this pornography has gone on for to long. So fast forward to 4:00pm today. Warner Springs lets you do an extended check out, which basically means that if you ask to stay past the 10:00am checkout, they'll let you stay until 4:00pm for free. Fine by me.

But the problem with that is that staying in this lovely place with its beer and food and bed and hot showers and pools and hot springs is just so tempting. I hung around and waited for the cleaning ladies to come and kick me out, but 4:00pm became 5:00pm and one beer became another and then I just said, "Fuck it!" and enjoyed the camaraderie of all of the other hikers pouring into the resort to avoid the forest fire.

Oh yeah. Sorry, forgot to mention that one. A burning stump started a forest fire that closed down the PCT for quite a ways and messed up more than a few hikers' plans, myself included. So it was either leave town this afternoon and hike a few miles, haul ass to get a 25+ mile day in Friday so that I have enough time to make it into Idyllwild on Saturday between 1:00pm and 3:00pm when their post office is open (I'm expecting packages there). Also, there's no outgoing mail from that post office on Saturday so I would also have to hike two miles to the next town to mail food ahead to myself at the next town stop. That or I could stay another night and take some easy days on the trail and get to Idyllwild on Sunday night or Monday morning.

So here I sit, having just taken a shower to wash the sulfur smell of the mineral hot springs off of me, blogging to you, my minions. I didn't even use soap because I had my shorts in there to clean them off as well, and I was smelling them, you know to do a check as to the effectiveness of my work, and the smell was out. So I smelled myself, and aside from my right armpit which is like genetically predisposed to stink for no reason and before any other part of my body even begins the process of starting to emit pungent odors, I didn't smell either.

Now, it's could be the 1/4 Black portion of my blood, it could be the part of me that descends from the British Isles, but whatever it is, my skin gets dry as hell. So it's nothing new to me to get out of the shower and immediately reach for the lotion (By the way, Warner Springs Ranch has soap, lotion and shampoo made exclusively for it and the stuff smells pretty good. I don't know if you can order it, but you should try to get some. I'm not stealing any for anyone you bunch of dirtbags so don't ask). But as I'm drying off, I notice that my skin is as smooth as if I already put some lotion on. Then I look in the mirror, because the face is the real test, and wouldn't you know, instead of crusty whiteness around my nose and on my forehead, I'm just a baby's behind all over.

So I thought to myself, I've got to blog about it. So I walked over to the computer room wearing a towel, a yellow short sleeve dry fit shirt and my red St. Joe's winter hat. No shoes. I look stunning. But I did it for you my minions, so that you would know the hardships that I go through for you.

Right now, I'm going back to my room, going to grab Pocketmail and try to use one of the resort's phones now that the restaurant desk is unattended. So you'll have my blogs from the 27th and 28th. I swore I had more, but that's all that are in there. Maybe I accidentally deleted them.

Alright, I'm off to send the Pocketmails, then sleep, then back to making the magic happen so I can report it for your entertainment.

And don't forget - Don't get high off your own supply.