May 14: Paradise Cafe

Saturday, May 14:
Burgerville (aka Paradise Cafe Grille)

Got into town with a pretty easy 14 mile walk, where I met up with Sweep & Trip, a really nice couple who I had met at Tule Spring, as well as the rest of the “Thats What She Said” gang. Met “Night Moves” at the last water cache before Paradise Cafe, & joked that one of us was going to be the one to get the last burger available at the cafe, so the race was on. . Well, at a little over 2 miles an hour. Is that even a race? Night Moves is a good guy, from San Diego by way of Texas, and looks a little like Patrick Swayze. The resemblance was so striking I had to mention it, and he smiled & said yes, he gets that a LOT…but mostly by older Asian tourists in San Diego.

The burgers were great, and many in the group decided to “slack pack” into Idyllwild. (Slack packing is usually done by leaving all or most of your bag/contents with someone, then hiking the distance involved without the extra weight. Usually requires an outside party to transport/watch the gear while you go, or give rides to or from a trail head). Orbit, who had already done about 10-14 miles that day, ended up slack-packing the rest of the 28 miles into Idylwild, arriving at 1:30 the next morning, bagging 38-42 very tough miles. Crazy. She’s also sporting a nicely scraped nose & a couple black eyes from a nighttime run in with a couple large boulders. Tough girl all the way around. I’d pick her for my Dodgeball team any day. Anyway, I camped about 4 miles up from Paradise Cafe, making a nice 18 mile day. Again, not planning to hike that far, but the trail was dictating…I’m wondering when I’ll start dictating more to the trail…?

An unfortunate 2010 thru-hiker?

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