Day 7, Mike Marker 43, Zero Day at Mt. Laguna

May 1, 2013 (Wednesday)

Post from Nick:
Given the condition of Melissa's feet after the previous day's 16 miles, we decided to take a zero day (zero miles hiked) at Mt. Laguna. We left the campground that morning and walked to the local diner to have breakfast with "Tubby", "Buffy", and Royce. Mel's ham and Swiss frittata was way overcooked but my eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy was great. After breakfast, "Buffy" gave us a lift a mile up the road to the lodge, store, and post office (It's all in one location).

We went to the store (lodge headquarters) to secure accommodations and was informed we would be able to have a room later in the day once vacated and cleaned. The post office was not opening for another hour so Mel and I started planning our food&resupply. We had heard that the store was well stocked so only requested Miranda to send us the key toiletries. We walked around the aisles filling our basket for the estimated four days to Warner Springs....pop tarts, tuna packets, Cliff bars, Snickers bars, small jar of peanut butter, jerky, instant mashed potatoes, ramen, etc. We then hung out in the shade of the front porch awaiting our room.  Mel rested her feet and I  recharged my phone via solar charger and chatted with the other hikers.  "Tubby" & Royce were doing some serious bandaging of their feet in preparation of pushing on.

We eventually picked up our resupply box from the post office and got our room.  Before getting too comfortable we walked down the street to the Laguna Mountain Sports Supply shop to see what they had for Mel...we found gel insoles and padded moleskin.  Mel had new larger shoes, superfeet insoles, and toe socks ordered for her and waiting at Warner Springs...if she could just make it that far.

We got back to the room and Mel promptly took a bath and attended to her feminine needs....I attended to mine and made a run to the store for a 6-pack and frozen dinners for that night's meal.  Once done with her primping and preening, I threw all of our dirty clothes into the tub and started repeatedly soaking and rinsing them while agitating with my feet.  Mel and I were amazed at how filthy the water was even after several rinses.  Once the rinses were cleaner we added detergent, washed, rinsed, and hung the clothes all around the cabin to dry. We strung a piece of rope on our front porch secured to 2 pillars and hung some clothes out there also. We were worried people might complain about our ghetto laundry techniques but luckily no one did.

I eventually got my shower and Mel was soaking her feet in an Epson salt bath. We plugged in our electronics to charge, watched the news about the fires near San Diego (on the smallest TV I've ever seen), updated our blog, and then quickly fell asleep...