Day 17-20, Mile Marker 151, Idyllwild (4 Zero Days)

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Post By Melissa:
It's an official zero day! It's time for me to take a few rest days and really let all of my blisters heal up once and for all. We wake up and I hobble after Nick to the Red Kettle for breakfast. We had heard from our hitchhike driver the day before that this was the best breakfast place around. I order an omelet and Nick gets the waffle with some eggs. I really liked the decor in the place...they had lots of old metal antique signs with funny slogans on them. The service is great too.

After breakfast we head back towards our cabin at the Idyllwild Inn. Across the street is a pharmacy and we stop in there so I can grab Epsom salt. I was super excited they actually had some in stock! The two grocery stores we had stopped at the night before were fresh out. I grab the last large container of salt and we head back to the cabin so I can begin the foot soaks (3x day).

The rest of the day I spend in bed attending to my feet, elevating them, soaking them, and letting them heal. I had stopped taking ibuprofen the night before and now I was feeling the raw pain 100%. And boy was it unpleasant. I'm really glad Nick made the call for us to take a few zero days so I could get my blisters healed.

Nick spent several hours researching hiking poles, socks, and a few other pieces of gear on his mobile phone. His parents were coming to visit us the following day and his Mom made a quick trip to REI to pick up some essentials for Nick. What a great Mom!

Nick grabbed pizza take-out from across the street and rented The Hobbit DVD. It was a fun low key night in our cabin chilling with the ants. LOL. I want to thank Nick for taking good care of me :-)

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Post By Melissa:
Happy Mother's Day! It's another zero day for us. Nick's parents join us in Idyllwild for the day. They deliver some new supplies for Nick consisting of a new platypus hydration bladder (a sharp branch popped the old one), a few pairs of wool socks, hiking poles, and gummi bears (Nick's favorite).

We head over to Cafe Aroma for lunch. It had good reviews from locals so we thought we'd check it out. Nicks Mom tries the lavender soda and they bring it in a glass with fresh flower petals in it (A+ for presentation). Very interesting flavor too! I had a delicious bacon & scallop caesar salad for lunch and boy was it good. Very nice lunch and the service was good too and they gave us ladies carnations! I didn't realize carnations smell so good.

After lunch we head over to Nomads (outdoor clothing and supplies). I'm looking for a long sleeve hiking shirt with no seams in the armpit area. My old shirt is chafing me and I need some relief. I'm having trouble finding what I need because the selection is very limited. I end up in a men's Patagonia shirt. We'll see how it works out soon enough! I tossed my old shirt in the trash...no turning back now!

Next we do some sightseeing and then stop at JoAnn's restaurant as they have an outdoor beer garden area and live music. We hang out for a bit and then Nick and his parents take off to do some more window shopping and touristy stuff. My feet are recovering still so I hang out at JoAnn's and then Tubby joins me for a bit too. Tubby had arrived in town earlier that day and was waiting for his girl Buffy to arrive.

A little while later Nick and his parents return and we say goodbye to Tubby and head over to the Gastronome for a nice Mother's day dinner. I ordered the bacon wrapped scallops and prawns and Nick orders the filet. It was great spending time with the P's and very nice of them to drive all the way to see us <3

Monday, May 13, 2013

Post By Melissa:
This was another zero day as my feet need more time to heal. We had made plans to have lunch with Tubby and Buffy at La Casita. They served wine based Margaritas here which were actually pretty tasty. We had a great lunch and learned that Buffy will be joining us on the trail starting in Big Bear! Yippee. She has showered us with lots of trail magic and now she will be roughing it with us on the trail. I hope I can surprise her with some trail magic in the future.

They also extend us an invite to join then later that night at their cabin for a BBQ and they even offered to come pick my crippled butt up. We gladly accepted! We parted ways and returned to our room at the Idyllwild Inn. We took this opportunity to get caught up on our blog and relax. About an hour into resting we hear the Talker outside our room and I walk to our front window and verify with a visual. He was staying 2 doors down...we quickly closed the blinds to our room and continued resting.

Around 6pm, Tubby came to collect us and we were happy to see that Royce was riding shotgun. Royce and Tank had arrived in town a few hours earlier and joined Tubby and Buffy at their cabin. We arrive at Tubby's cabin and have a fabulous evening! Buffy spoiled us with stuffed burgers, tortellini salad with bacon, grilled veggies, and risotto. It was so good!

After dinner, Nick and I help clean the dishes and then we head outside in the backyard by the campfire and share some good laughs for a few hours. A raccoon comes to hang out too and tries to run up the stairs into the house, but Tubby beats it to the door and closes it. LOL.

We are all lightweights...shortly after 10pm we are all exhausted and yawning. We get a lift home from Tubby and promptly dive into bed and fall asleep. Thanks again Tubby and Buffy for the hospitality and fun times!

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Post By Melissa:
Today we are preparing to get back on the trail tomorrow. We went through our backpacks and take out everything we are not currently using or have too much of.  We make a trip over to the post office to mail some gear and supplies back home. The postal worker was super cool and we signed their hiker log before we left.

Nick also leaves another fuel canister in the hiker box at our hotel since we just received a new canister in our resupply box. Nick finds a really nice compass in the hiker box. Sweet! Give a little, take a little. I didn't think I would ever find anything in a hiker box I needed but I was wrong. I really needed alcohol prep pads and found a box of them in the hiker box yesterday...so cool!

We take some time to work on the blog today and I also do 3 Epsom salt foot soaks. My feet are looking much better. I'm down to 2 blisters that are still sore but the other 13 are nearly healed. I'm making some good progress on the healing and our goal is to get back on the trail tomorrow.

We take a quick dinner break and walk over to JoAnn's restaurant. While eating we make our plan for tomorrow including mileage targets and where to get water. We also discuss my feet and how my readiness again to continue our hike.

After dinner we go back to our room and we go through our food supply and make sure we have enough to last us 6-7 days to get us to Big Bear Lake. We think we are in pretty good shape and Nick just ran across the street to pick up some extra pop tarts and some gatorades. Nick also stopped at the video store on the way back and rented a movie for us (Taken 2).

That's it! We are current on our blog now. I'm going to sign off so we can enjoy our movie now. Goodnight friends! Tomorrow we hike...xoxo