June 5, 2017
Mile 549 to Willow Springs
Willow Springs to Tehachapi
Pacific Crest Trail Thru-Hike: Day 31

Last stop before hitching into Tehachapi is a roadside parking area next to Willow Springs where Legend and Coppertone are camped out, making Nutella Banana pancakes. I walked into Willow Springs with Sam and Alex, talking about Slow Food and the ideas behind a sustainable, fair, equitable food system and what that would look like compared to what our screwed-up food system looks like now. Sam has been working in the food industry for some time and has a lot of questions on the subject, questions I find I'm well-equipped to answer.

Legend gave us a ride into town, to the Tehachapi post office. He introduced us to his truck—Gypsy—with an admirable 300,000 miles on the odometer. Nearly everything about the truck is just a little bit 'off', from the gear shift that is once-removed from displaying the true gear setting, to the towering pickup bed strapped together with bungee cords.

At the post office, Legend hands Alex the keys, tells us he has a meeting, and asks if Alex can't just drop it off at the Best Western once we're done with our errands. Sonya had expressed a humored interest in driving, so she was handed the keys and we were off! As a thanks, we put $20 in the gas tank, but the gas meter is broken so Legend probably won't notice.

We checked into the Santa Fe and headed to the thrift store for town clothes. Got beer and humanely-raised local ostrich burgers (!), then spent the afternoon with our trail family in the grassy town park, Alex and Ben trying to devise a hands-free method for drinking a soda from a straw whilst holding the cup with one's feet. The verdict: unsuccessful.

For dinner, our group of fifteen headed to TK Pizza + Pasta (good, but expensive). After, we tried to stop by the VFW for a beer, but it's closed on Mondays so we squeezed all of us into a tiny hotel room, sat on beds/windowsills/floor/doorway until it was time to go to bed.

We have a zero-day tomorrow for resupplying, mailing things to Kennedy Meadows, and hopefully a bit of leisure time. We have to sort out everything between our new Sierra gear and current Desert gear so we're not doubling up, then mail the excess home or throw it away.