The next day we all had a leisurely breakfast at the ranger station and then the owner of the Anderson’s Trail Angel location drives up and asks if we want a ride to her place. The Anderson’s is a legendary stop on the trail. We all say yes and most of the crew is going to take the whole day off and begin the next day. I decide to go to the Anderson’s and rest for the day and then hike that night. It was a good decision as the Anderson’s was really not the place for me to be. It was a good enough place to rest and I used to nearby store to gorge myself with sandwiches and GatorAde but most of the crowd at the Anderson’s were having a little too much fun for me. A really nice Canadian lady who was being a trail angel for her daughter was waiting for her daughter to show up and was giving rides while wait. She was a really sweet lady and gave me a ride back to the trail. You may notice I skipped miles 478 to 493. This section of the trail is closed due to fire and the alternate trail is along a road and I did not feel safe. I walked a little on this road to get to the ranger station and heard traffic on this road all during the night and it was just a bit too busy for me. So the trail angel gave me a ride to where the trail opened up again at mile 493. Starting walking about 5 in the evening and walked until just past midnight. There was 1 water source along the way which they called which was called a “guzzler”. Had no idea what that meant but it turns out to be a structure built about 2 feet off the ground that collects rain water which runs from a pipe down into a tank. So you have to crawl under this structure on your belly and get to the tank and reach down to get the water. It was a good water source and the water was cold and clean but a bit hard to get to. There were 3 other people there getting water and me and the other guy crawled under while the girls above kept throwing bottles down to us to fill. As we filled them we threw them back up and they filtered them. It went pretty fast and after all of us got water they decided to camp right there and I continued on about another 5 miles and set up camp. Figured with all the water I had I would finish the walk into HikerTown the next day. I must say that while I was walking in light I was surprised by the landscape. I was figuring a desert landscape and I was basically in a forest as you can see by the pictures. The real desert comes tomorrow.

Lenora’s Note: With Don back on the trail I’m getting ready to be his personal “camp follower” so today I have a dentist appointment to get started on my next set of dental implants and I am leaving him to fend for himself on the trail for the weekend. Lots to do before I leave home for the rest of the adventure.