Reunion - Saturday, May 31

We knew by jumping ahead that we would catch up or even get ahead of our original group. We have not heard from Crotalus, Far Out, Coyote, Backup or Event Horizon for over a week so we figured they must be north of Tehachapi where cell service is non existent. It is 140 trail miles from Tehachapi to Kennedy Meadows. That distance equates to a long silence as it takes about 7 to 10 days or more to traverse the distance, longer if one hitches into Ridgecrest or Lake Isabella for resupply from Walker Pass. So we hoped we might run into them at Kennedy, but realized they might have already passed through or were not there yet. We checked the log book that floats from table to table on the big deck at the Kennedy Store but did saw no signature of our friends. Did they forget to sign in and moved on? Or were they still on their way?

We has a breakfast from our food supply of granola and milk, then wandered over to the store in search of our resupply boxes and a chance to charge our devices. The store does not open until nine and neither does the electrical power. The store is beyond the power grid and runs a generator for power, which they only fire up during business hours. So we had some time to kill while waiting for the opening. It was warm, so we hung out and chatted.

At nine the store opened, but with only one person on duty, 50 some hikers to attend to and 2500 resupply boxes in the back they did not have time to search for our boxes. Our name went on a list and when additional help arrived at 11 they would begin to distribute resupply mail.

Walking back to our tent we spied Grasshopper sitting in one of the movie theatre junk row of chairs lying about and stopped to say hi. He had been here a few days and had "Yellow Striped" (PCT slang for hitch hiking up the road rather than hiking the trail) the same as we had to get here. Beer in hand he was relaxing in the morning sun.

After a brief visit to the tent we returned to the store deck in hopes of retrieving our food boxes. The hours passed and Sally kept busy meeting new people; Pendulum, Mr. President, Dr. Math, and visiting with old acquaintances Sunbeam, Arctic and more.

Finally about 1:00 our name was called and three boxes were produced. Yikes! Where were our two bear canisters? Without them we could go nowhere. We were not too keen on the idea of waiting until Monday for them to arrive.

We inquired inside the store and a quick search revealed they had not arrived via the USPS yet. We freighted our boxes back to our tent, grabbed iPad and iPhone and headed 100 yards down the road to Tom's Place. Tom is a trail angel that owns a place across the street and down the road a bit from the store. He put in satellite internet service for hikers and asks for a donation to cover the $30 a day use bill. With tracking numbers texted to us by Wendy we made a donation, were pass worded in and searched for the position of our canisters. We found they were enroute and should be delivered later today. We took the opportunity while online to upload a blog, cruise Facebook for the latest happenings and read texts and email, then back to the deck and waiting. We split a hamburger from the grill for lunch and were pleasantly surprised when they called our name and presented us with our bear cans about 2:30. We trundled back to the tent with our prizes and began sorting out the 9 days of food we would need to get us the 90 miles up the trail from here to Independence, a very small town on Hwy 395 8 trail miles over Kearsarge Pass and 15 road miles off the PCT.

It is amazing the faith one begins to develop in the ability to hitch rides and coordinated travel all without a car or other means other than relyIng on the good graces of other people you hope to meet. It is a 15 mile dead end road from the Kearsarge Pass trailhead at Onion Valley to Independence. Not heavily traveled. Yet, nearly everyone here at Kennedy is resupplying at Independence, including us, and is relying on some Good Samaritan to give us a ride down and back up. We have faith it will happen and with time of little issue we all are willing to wait out the process until it happens.

In packing our food for two for 9 days we found we could not get three of those days into a can and had to put them in a red stuff sack and lash them to the outside of my already overloaded pack. Food is required to be in bear cans in Sequoia National Park, but luckily we are three trail days away and will consume it before we cross the border.

We returned to the store for cheese and tortillas to round out our menu when we ran into Event Horizon and Backup. They had hiked in about the time we had received our bear cans and were visiting on the deck and back flushing their water filter. We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up and comparing stories. We had not seen them since April 25th when I had hiked the San Jacinto to Hwy 10 section with them. They both were doing great and congratulated us on skipping the 180 miles. In fact, Backup said she wished she had cell service on that stretch so she could call to tell us to skip it and get to the Sierra.

We retired to our tents about 7 and prepared for the next day. Grasshopper had organized rides and PCT musicians to meet at Guffy's bar a mile up the road. Upon their return about midnight the partiers made their presence known by waking everyone with loud talk, cussing and choking and coughing as they loudly employed a bong to extend their high. We finally got back to sleep about 1.