June 26th - Kennedy Meadows

Right now I'm in Kennedy Meadows where a guy has set up an old gutted trailer, off the grid with solar power, and converted it to an Internet cafe.  It has four computers on the Internet and an Internet telephone in the non-working bathroom - kind of like a phone booth.  Pretty cool for the wilderness.

Sunday I passed an empty soda/beer cache in a cold stream.  Of course all there was were empty cans and a log thanking the trail angel for the cold beer and soda.  No problem - my notes say the Chimney Creek Campground may have a concession stand with burgers - WRONG!  I had bad info.  No sign of ever having such a thing.  The campground didn't even have water.  Toward the end of the day I caught up with one of two brothers hiking the trail together.  Brian?  They hiked on heading all the way into Kennedy but I thought 26 miles was plenty and saved the last nine or ten miles for the next morning.  Nice camp spot on the river and I'll catch them at Kennedy on Monday.

On Monday morning I tried my new batch of plain oatmeal - boring.  What to do?  I added dried pineapple.  Not bad, the sugar sweetened it and the pineapple rehydrate a little. A new food invention or am I just suffering the hiker hunger and it really isn't any good?  Does it matter?  On to Kennedy Meadows!  Arriving at about 11am and first order of business is raiding cold breakfast leftovers of sausage, bacon, hash browns, eggs, pancakes, and a meat hash.  Even ice cold they were very good.  Then a shower, laundry and picking up my bear canister and first and only planned mail drop.  Picked up a six pack of local micro-brew beer, Mojave Red, and spent the afternoon sitting on the porch of the general store, drinking my beer and charging my gadgets.

Monday night I got to spend in a bunk in an old trailer at Trail Angel Tom's Internet Cafe.  It's cool camp right near the Kennedy Meadows General Store with trailers, a camp kitchen, and places to hang out in old chairs and such.  There was a big group of thru-hikers here but most left late afternoon.  Four of us spent the night: Gonzo, Legs and her boyfriend, and myself.  And Jason came by but spent the night elsewhere, returning on Tuesday morning.  I helped make spaghetti dinner then last night we watched a movie outside where he has a small theater setup.  A wooden screen and speakers in the trees with it surrounded by old sofas and chairs like an amphitheater. We watched a comedy about bowling called Kingpin I think.   In the morning I spent a couple hours cleaning up the mess in the kitchen as a favor to our trail host.  It looked like no one had cleaned the kitchen in days.   Took me few hours as you had to boil water and move it from the well.  I'm taking today, Tuesday, as a zero day then heading back into the next section of the High Sierra's in the morning. Looking forward to what this next exciting section has to bring.  It should be fantastic!