Day 19 - Trail Birthday
Date: Mon May 6
Start Mile: CDT Mile 414.5
End Mile: CDT Mile 430.3
Total Trail Mileage: 15.8 mi
Highlights: birthday breakfast, windy road walk
This morning we woke in the Toaster House once again. If I didn’t know any better, the cozy image I’d conjure up when I say this is the two of us all tucked in, snug in our sleeping bags inside the warmth of a toaster shaped house, little heating coils glowing orange along the walls.
While the reality was not quite so fantastical, we were indeed tucked into our sleeping bags inside four walls, which was certainly much warmer than being in our tent. And we’d even managed to nab one of the tiny rooms to ourselves, which was a bit nicer than the open living room.
Hot Mess rolled over and wished me a happy birthday. My watch also wished me a happy birthday. What a time to be alive.
We slowly rose and packed up our things, everyone else in the house doing the same. The post office would open at 8am, but the comments we’d seen noted that the lady was a little cranky if people showed up before 9am, since she needed some time to organize all the boxes coming in. The Gathering Place, where we’d eat breakfast, also didn’t open until 9am. And so, until about 8:30a or so, we all sat around chatting, some of us eating a small snack size bag of chips as a little brekkie appetizer. I had Cheetos.
Clockwise from bottom left: Seven, Willy Wah, Owl, Johnny Cash, Buck Fifty
Around 8:30am, Pesky came into the house carrying three large boxes. It seemed the post office was open and the postal worker in good enough spirits to head that way. And so everyone was soon out the door and in line at the post office.
Hot Mess and I had each sent ourselves a box of food for the next section though since we’d hitched ahead on the last section, we no longer needed our boxes. As long as you don’t open the boxes, post offices will ship them forward somewhere else for you for free, which is great. We had them sent on to Grants, which would be our next stop.
I was also picking up one additional box. I had ordered myself a new cook pot from REI after mine had some issues with charring along the bottom. I couldn’t seem to get the char out of it and worse, it was difficult to cook anything without it sticking to the bottom of the pot… like maybe some sort of coating had worn off. Rather than deal with this, I had decided to order a new pot, which I’d done back at Doc Campbell’s.
The box from REI had been marked as delivered, however the woman at the post office couldn’t find it anywhere. “Have you checked at the Toaster House?” she asked. We had not specifically looked for it there, having addressed it to the post office… and we would have noticed if there was a box there with my name on it. Wouldn’t we? While the woman continued to dig through the boxes, Shawn ran back down the street to the Toaster House where, voila, the box had been sitting the entire time we were there. Wow.
Anyway, now I had a shiny new pot. Happy birthday to me. Our postal chores taken care of, we made our way to The Gathering Place, where one table of hikers had already posted up and we started a second.
While Pie Town is not exactly a place where anyone might hope to have their birthday, it was nice to have a warm breakfast and hot coffee. The best I could have wished for here. If we hadn’t gotten off trail a couple days ago, we’d still be on the way to Pie Town and I would be having cold PB crackers for breakfast. Coffee and eggs seemed preferable. Everything happens for a reason. At least that’s what they say.
And, while Hot Mess was unable to procure a birthday candle, he did ask the entire restaurant - mostly about 12 hikers and a few unfortunate locals - to join him in singing me happy birthday. For someone who very much does not like to be the center of attention, I can’t think of anything more awkward. What does one do with their face when an entire room of people is singing happy birthday to them? I shall never know. As a child, I believe I just buried my face in my hands and cried until it was over. As an adult, I played along, did my best attempt of smiling (something square shaped, I’m sure) and thanked everyone. It was a nice gesture and a birthday I am sure to never forget.
After breakfast most of the other hikers went back to the Toaster House to organize their resupply, while Shawn and I finished our coffees and hit the “trail”.
I put “trail” in quotes because today the trail was not so much trail as road walk. All road walk, actually. In fact, almost this entire section would be a road walk. Partly dirt road and partly paved road, but almost entirely road with the exception of a few small trail bits we’ll sneak onto for fleeting moments at some point. In other words, super exciting.
And so, we walked down the highway, turned onto a dirt road and, other than one turn - onto a different dirt road, simply continued down the road all day long.
The road went from flat to rolling hills and back to flat again. While road walking can often be super boring, it is at least fairly easy to keep up a good clip. We hiked around 3 to 3.25 mph all day.
Sometimes the best scenery is behind you.
It was a very windy day. Someone would read later that today - along with the next several days - would have sustained winds of 20-35 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. I believed it. Sometimes a gust would very efficiently relocate my position in the road. With a high of only 59°F today, it was a bit chilly with the wind and I hiked with my gloves on for much of the day.
With the wind and fairly easy walking, there wasn’t much point in stopping. Hot Mess and I simply kept walking, stopping only briefly when nature called, at which point we would deftly angle ourselves in the wind so as to not make a mess of ourselves. Otherwise, we just kept walking for sixteen miles, eating the snacks we’d stashed in our hip belt pockets. I keep my snacks in the right pocket, which I affectionately refer to as the feed bag.
The scenery for the day was fairly unchanging. Mostly scrub grasses, tall green bushes, and short trees bordering the road the entire way. The occasional fence. Pick ups, trucks, or other vehicles would drive by from time to time, most of the drivers giving the friendly two-fingered steering wheel wave. Otherwise it was just us and the road.
A little before 4pm, we arrived at our destination for the day, our feet tired from the long road walk. Our home for the night was the TLC Ranch, which was an area we were allowed to camp. The owners of the land had also set up a small covered area attached to a supply building. Here there was a picnic table with some plastic lawn chairs, a couple large jugs of water (the large kind often used by sports teams, with the small nozzles at the bottom), and a cooler labeled “Fruit”, which had several apples and a single clementine sitting at the bottom.
The first to arrive, Hot Mess and I went about scouting the property for a good place to set up our tent. With high winds from the west, we were looking for a good spot where trees or large bushes could break the wind. This actually proved somewhat tricky to find, as most of the flattest camping spaces were actually on the west side of the trees. We definitely needed something on the east. Finally we found something that would do, set up the tent and our sleep stuffs, and then made our way back to the little common space.
Eventually other hikers began to trickle in. Seven from Germany hiked in with Greta, also from Germany, who we had met at the Lordsburg McDonald’s. Since the last time we had seen her outside of Silver City she had acquired the trail name Steel. She was hiking with another girl named Saved It. Then came Kez, Owl, Buck Fifty, and Pork Rind. And then a couple from London - Chris and Suzanne - who we had seen at the restaurants in Pie Town the last couple days, but only officially met this afternoon. Later, one other hiker - HP (High Profile) - showed up, having hiked 30 miles from Davila Ranch (south of Pie Town) that morning. Nuts.
Someday I will remember to take pics with people in them.
This was by far the most hikers we had ever camped around. Other than when we were at resupply stops or towns like Doc Campbell’s, we were almost always on our own. There had been a few nights around Monkey Man and Recharge back at the beginning of the trail, but that was about it. It was nice to have people to chat with as we made dinner and ate the crisp apples from the cooler. Everyone would filter in and out of the table area as they braved the wind to find a space to set up their tent for the night.
It grew cold pretty quickly with the wind, so it wasn’t long before everyone had dispersed to the warmth of their sleeping bags.
While it hadn’t been the most exciting of hiking days, it was nice to start the day with coffee and end with plenty of hikers to chat with. And, now that the sun has set, the wind seems to have died down which should be great for sleeping. Gotta rest up, tomorrow is another road walk.