June 6
Being underslept and beat up by a 36-mile day cleared out any celestial rapture lingering from the night before. Now it was day, in the desert, sun already beating down the door. I had a big fat ridge to get up and over before meeting with Lily and resupplying in Tehachapi. Time to, as my friend Amber would say, put on my big boy pants.
I can remember a time when I loved the sound of wind. The CDT pretty well cured me of that, with its endless exposed ridge walks. I was always being deafened and shoved around by the wind; it never augered well, only potentially bringing cold or harder hiking.
So imagine how I felt hiking through an immense wind farm. Miles and miles of windmills, dunn-colored grasses thinly covering reddish dirt and rocks, and always the wind. It drowned out the podcasts I was trying to use to drown it out. It shoved me around and blew my pee back at me when I relieved myself. I was momentarily charmed by a sheepherder watering his flock, but then the wind shoved me like a high school bully in the hallway between classes. The trail went up, it went over. It took its sweet time descending to the road crossing. There was an idyll of river and trees and road just off to my left, but that was not that trail's plan; it wanted to keep me right up there where I could get some more fresh fucking air. I tied my hat to.my head with my bandana, looking like a Beverley Hillbillies Babushka.
And then finally, there was the road. Lily picked me up, and we drove into Tehachapi. We had BBQ and marveled at how the town's main street is quaint and one block off it got very seedy. It was so delightful to be in her company again, catching up on her career felt like catching up on calories. I am pretty sure that solo, Tehachapi's lasting impression would have been of the homeless addicts trading barbs a block off Main Street; with her it was all smoked ribs and joy.
Being underslept and beat up by a 36-mile day cleared out any celestial rapture lingering from the night before. Now it was day, in the desert, sun already beating down the door. I had a big fat ridge to get up and over before meeting with Lily and resupplying in Tehachapi. Time to, as my friend Amber would say, put on my big boy pants.
I can remember a time when I loved the sound of wind. The CDT pretty well cured me of that, with its endless exposed ridge walks. I was always being deafened and shoved around by the wind; it never augered well, only potentially bringing cold or harder hiking.
So imagine how I felt hiking through an immense wind farm. Miles and miles of windmills, dunn-colored grasses thinly covering reddish dirt and rocks, and always the wind. It drowned out the podcasts I was trying to use to drown it out. It shoved me around and blew my pee back at me when I relieved myself. I was momentarily charmed by a sheepherder watering his flock, but then the wind shoved me like a high school bully in the hallway between classes. The trail went up, it went over. It took its sweet time descending to the road crossing. There was an idyll of river and trees and road just off to my left, but that was not that trail's plan; it wanted to keep me right up there where I could get some more fresh fucking air. I tied my hat to.my head with my bandana, looking like a Beverley Hillbillies Babushka.
And then finally, there was the road. Lily picked me up, and we drove into Tehachapi. We had BBQ and marveled at how the town's main street is quaint and one block off it got very seedy. It was so delightful to be in her company again, catching up on her career felt like catching up on calories. I am pretty sure that solo, Tehachapi's lasting impression would have been of the homeless addicts trading barbs a block off Main Street; with her it was all smoked ribs and joy.
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| A shepherd, a water truck, a wind tunnel |
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