Day 23 - Friday, June 15

Me and Carl hiked on Thursday night under nice temperatures. We came on this skunk on the trail that decided to hike in front of us for about a half mile. It didn't seem to mind us so we weren't too afraid of it spraying us. We slept for a couple of hours next to the trail in a ditch and got an early start to avoid the heat. In the morning we came to this Leona Divide 50 mile sign that lists all the winners since 1992. I was surprised that the markings are still up from the race in April and there was still fresh flour arrows in places.

Carl complained about his trail name so he's going to use his climbing name from Tahoe, litsl ( life in the slow lane!) because he is such a slow climber.

We hiked for about 3 hours on this lame trail but finally came upon a water cache with pink flamingoes, skeletons, and a hanging dummy. This cache is maintained by the Andersons.

We took a break from the trail for two hours to head down to Joe and Terry Anderson's place. It is really wacky, pretty much like what the Hippie communes in the 60's probably were like. There is a wall with all the names and drawing on it. Normally, Terry surprises every hiker by mooning them but their daughter was having a baby so she was gone. So Joe said he would take her place while she was gone.

You can probably guess now why their place is called Casa De Luna! LOL! Like Green Day sings in American Idiot, this place is a "subliminal mind f--k"!

I met this hiker, Rambo who has been waiting to meet me. He has a friend who runs ultras who has wanted to meet me for a couple of years. Rambo has giardiasis and is taking a few days off to recover. He may get to Kennedy Meadows and then go north to Washington and do the upper section so he doesn't get caught in snow later.

Joe said each hiker has to put on a costume so he can take their picture. I looked around and found a hula skirt and decided that I would be a Tahitian hula dancer. Joe said he didn't have one of those pictures so he snapped this one of me and Rambo with his eyes bugging out. He said his friend is going to be SO jealous!. LOL!

We got back on trail and reached mile 490 before setting up camp. About 9 pm a hiker we had passed earlier, the French Guy (not Julien!) showed up and is camping by us. So I'm talking on the phone and litsl gets up and moves away... then I realize why... he left me smelling his "scent" - must have got that from our friendly little skunk last night - ppeewww! ;-)