A real nice evening. I am getting fond of camping out and sleeping under the stars. Listening to the sounds of the night. So far it has been chilly but not cold at night and the tent and the sleeping bag keep me real comfortable. So today I have about a 12 mile journey to the famous Paradise Cafe. Everyone stops here to have a meal or two. Sometimes two different meals like lunch and dinner and sometimes just two meals at one sitting. Even at this early stage in the PCT trail, when you get to a place that will fix you something to eat, you eat, and eat, and eat as much as you can. Paradise Cafe is at the corner of Hwy 371 and Hwy 74. Great food. You should try and eat there when you have a chance. It is about a mile off the PCT itself. One of the other features of Paradise Cafe is that MOST hikers (all but 3 that I talked to) hitch a ride from Paradise to Idyllwild. You can hike about 10 miles on the PCT from Paradise but then you reach a section where the trail is closed because of a wild fire in 2013. After hiking those 10 miles you are at about 7000 feet and have nowhere to go because of the closure but straight down and back to Hwy 74 and then along Hwy 74 to Idyllwild. So, it is just skipped by many because walking along Hwy 74 is dangerous. Lots of traffic. High speed. Narrow shoulder. Not worth it to me and so I was shuttled by Lenora, after taking Sunday off, to Idyllwild to continue. There are people I talked to that did the complete walk along the highway. There are those that went the 10 miles along the trail then back to 74 and along the highway. It was not worth it to me but then I am not on the same quest as some of them. Anyway the 12 mile walk to Paradise is a nice hike. You wander up and up and up and then do a deep descent to the desert floor and then a steep ascent back up again and for awhile you walk along the edge of a mesa and have incredible views down into the desert. Beautiful, BUT for reasons explained no photos. When you get to the desert floor you have about 2 miles to go to get to Paradise and I have to say that it was the longest 2 miles of the hike so far. Could be because it was hot, could be I was looking forward to seeing Lenora, could be because it is really longer than 2 miles!! I demand an accounting 🙂