March 13: I ended up getting a pretty late start. Gracie, my girlfriend drove my buddy Andrew and I out to tiger mine trailhead, a little north of Oracle. We didn't start until about noon and the sun was already red hot. We set off and quickly ran into a few bikers and one of them had a broken rib. We asked if we could help in any way but there wasn't much we could do. Generally, while I'm hiking I like to listen to music and podcasts but today was just not stop talking between the 2 of us. We hadn't seen each other in a long time and had a lot of catching up to do. It was great that we talked for so long because the hike wasn't the most exciting. The wildflowers were beautiful and everywhere but not a lot of sights. We passed some friendly trail workers and hiker named "White Owl" zoomed past us, going a heck of a lot faster than us. I realized Andrew was going to have a rough time, his feet were liking him he was already blistering. He was in ROTC and I knew he could handle it, but it would still be rough. We made it to a large cow tank and after a few ranchers left decided to take a swim. It was a very large metal cylinder with an open top and a ladder going up into it, there were very small fish in the tank. We climbed on in and it was a wonderfully cold temperature, the little fish nibbled on our toes and body and it tickled quite a bit. We got out and made dinner, Andrew was astounded by the deliciousness that is freeze dried food. to be fair I did give hike some of my best meals. After dinner, we both took turns calling out girlfriends off of my phone. Andrew had no service because he uses cricket, what loser right? After a cup of hot chocolate, we went to bed. We slept in my 2 man tent and Andrew took up the room of about a man and a half. Andrew isn't a huge dude but when he sleeps you could mistake him for a sumo. Despite that, I slept well enough, I've gotten used to sleeping in weird places by now.
March 14: Andrew and I woke up and got breakfast, White Owl came hiking in when we were just packing up. He was very friendly and told us he was mostly night hiking and sleeping during the day, so he was actually going to go sleep in the shade as we started our long and hot day. He gave us a day old hot dog he had picked up in Oracle, which we scarfed down despite its less than appealing appearance. "It's what's on the inside that counts," I told myself and anything non-freeze dried is more than amazing in my book. We left the sleeping owl and headed out. The day was good enough, pretty warm but not unbearable for two rough and ready boys like us *sarcasm*. We made it to another large tank and were overjoyed to find we could hop in and take another swim, boy was that heaven. We filled up our water and ate a few snacks. The day wasn't that long and there was a lot of little breaks we took. Probably every few miles we would take another break but we were in no hurry. It was a hot day and we didn't have far to go. We walked along a nice flat dirt road for a few miles which are always a blessing but when the sun started setting we still had 4 miles to go, I guess we took a few breaks too many. Andrews' feet were shaping up to be something from a horror movie and despite my astounding knowledge and medical practices (putting in moleskins and trail toes and hoping it would do the trick), our attempts were fruitless. We got to the freeman road trailhead a bit past dark and used some of the public water at the sight (thank you trail angels!). We Set up shop near a ramada there and had a really good night of sleep.
March 15: We woke up early and to our surprise, it was about overcast that day, the only day we would see any cloud cover, which was perfect because it was our longest day. This day wasn't that eventful, we hiked along very flat land and talked all day. It was very nice to have someone to talk to. The miles flew by because of how flat the land was and soon enough we were finding ourselves in far off hills. Later that day we met a woman hiking the Grand Enchantment Trail, a trail that goes from Phoenix to Albuquerque and overlaps the AZT in portions. Long before dark, we made it to a small cow tank infested with flys. In order to get water, I wrapped a bandana around my face to prevent myself from becoming the next "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly". As I did that Andrew started on building a fire, we hadn't made one the whole trip and It sounded very nice. We camped in a wash which meant we could take our shoes off and walk around in the sand. After a lot of deliberation, we gave Andrew the trail name "Chicken Legs", on account of his little legs. We also determined that on days his legs got a nice burn he could go by "Fried Chicken" We had a pretty good last night and got to lay around the fire and sip hot chocolate.
March 16(aka the day I met Santa): I can't remember a thing about this morning other than Andrew realizing he lost his tailed hat and seeing a guy go past us with a tailed hat and joking how he stole it from Andrew. That day was a short day and the only trouble was a mountain properly named "the big hill". It was a hot day and mountain more than lived up to its name. We had a huge sigh of relief once we got to the top because it was mostly downhill after that. We met up with another Grand Enchantment hiker named Blackout, for the fact she was hiking in an all black dress. We ran into the man we had seen that morning, a hiker I met a week before named Ninja Tortoise and to our surprise, he had the exact same hat Andrew had lost a few days earlier. Ninja Tortoise swore that it was his hat and we let it slide. As we hiked more I remembered the last time I saw him he had no hat at all. It was after all the same exact hat and Andrew had paid 40$ for it. We made it to the kelvin trailhead and after we took a small break Ninja Tortoise caught up with us, Andrew again went and asked for his hat back, showing him the proof of purchase tag he had from the hat. "My hat has the tag!" exclaimed Ninja Tortoise almost angry at Andrew. When Andrew asked to see it the tag had mysteriously disappeared. After some bickering Andrew stepped down, he was not going to get his hat back. In a rage, Andrew and I headed down to the little town of Kelvin, where we waited for a pick up from the General Kearny Inn, who graciously picks up hikers from the Kelvin trailhead. The owner himself came and picked us up. The ride was short and we got to the town of Kearny early in the afternoon. We made it to the inn where my Mom met us to pick up Andrew and get me a resupply. We got our room and took showers, where we used as many little shampoo bottles as the inn could offer. While starting to resupply my pack I realized there was a mix up at home and my resupply box only had vegetarian food in it. When I ordered all of my food in bulk around half of them were vegetarian options that I would eat for breakfast because I don't like eggs much. Now I'm Totally fine with someone choice to become a vegetarian but these freeze dried meals tasted like someone has tried to pass cat poop Off as chocolate mudslide. They are horrid and I can hardly bare to eat one of these a day, much less two. But, that's all I would be eating for 5 days... 5 long, hard vegetarian days. The thought still makes me shudder even now. After that little letdown, we went over to Old Time Pizza, a little Pizza shop that had great reviews from other hikers. Right off the bat, we could tell this place was well worth the reviews, the huge banner that trail users had all signed was a dead give away. The second we said I was a thru-hiker both the owner's eyes lit up like we had just told them they had won the lotto. Before we even ordered our pizza we had gotten tangled in conversation with the owners. After many tails had been told we ordered our meal. Dinner was amazing. It was the triple threat of the food industry, cheap, big and yummy. In addition to that, the best-iced tea in all of Kearny. During dinner, we met an Alaskan man who was hiking the Grand Enchantment Trail. He was a little overweight so he was hiking the trail to lose weight. He had a large white beard and his nose was red from the sun. He said he was from the North Pole, Alaska. I had just met Santa....apparently Santa went by the name Jim and cursed like a sailor. Chicken Legs, my mom and I took a very short drive over to the local store, where I got some munchies and a nice big Dr. Pepper. I made sure to pick up a nice bottle of Tabasco, I needed something to make those vegetarian meals edible and enough hot sauce can make cardboard taste good. We went back to the hotel and I said goodbye to my mom and Chicken Legs, watched some of the classic movie Hot Chicks and went to bed.
