I woke up in Oregon.
It’s hard to believe it.
Ketchup and I are planning a double zero to get a good resupply, some good rest, and put together a plan to get to Washington. Beth has a date to meet me for the end of the trail, September 1. And I need to be back in Tucson on September 11 to pick up Rye, because my dog sitter is going out of town then.
We started off getting breakfast, where I don’t remember. And put together a plan for the day. We were going to head up to Medford, a bus ride up, to get to Trader Joe’s, REI, and Costco. We’ll split a pizza at Costco and resupply protein bars there, then go to REI for some minor trail incidentals, then finish our resupply at Trader Joe’s. After that we can bus back or take a Lyft.
Over breakfast, we also put together the Oregon plan.
This gets me to Washington in time to get to Stehekin by September 1 to catch Beth.
We ran into the British Empire and they’re planning for karaoke tonight. I’m always in for that. They had a place to go, but I thought it seemed like they pulled from outdated data. No worries.
We took the bus from Ashland to Medford and had to run across a street to get to Costco. Worth it. Samples when you don’t need to worry about calories hit pretty great. And we got all the Clif Bars and some FitCrunch bars by Robert Irvine (don’t recommend).
After getting our wares, we got pizza, churros, and sundaes. Damn. Eating feels so good.
After that we grabbed an Uber to REI. They were kind enough to let us stash our Costco box behind the front while we shopped. I grabbed a few things for minor repairs: some cord, a carabiner, and maybe a couple other things.
After REI it was off to Trader Joe’s. Oh I’ve missed this store. Good food, okay prices. And their Dunkers cookies for my infinite cookie bag! My only bummer is their turkey summer sausage, their non-pork option, is pretty low in calories and fat. Oh well. I’ll survive.
We stocked up. And I’m ecstatic to have this quality food, even though it’s way too much.
We grabbed a Lyft back to the hostel and got situated with it all. There was a lot to coordinate with this massive resupply. We kind of just stashed it under the beds in the boxes to sort through later.
We wandered to downtown, by the park where they have their famous Shakespeare festival, went to a brewery and hung out with a couple people, then went to a fried chicken joint.
The chicken was good, but underwhelming for the price. Whatever.
We got some updated plans from the British Empire and met up with them at a bar for open mic night. The karaoke ended up falling through.
They had a member of the group, Sunshine, who was getting off trail there. She had gotten everything she wanted from it and was ready to depart. It was also her birthday, so it was shaping up to be a huge, heartfelt celebration. They weren’t able to find karaoke, so they settled on an open mic night. We decided to join them.
The open mic night was really fun. Just after we got there, Swiss Cheese and Eva arrived!
Sunshine signed up for a slot, picked up a guitar, and sang a really beautiful song she wrote. She twisted my arm and convinced me to sing some a cappella stuff. But first I lead the bar into singing Happy Birthday to her because getting sung that, to you, with your trail name instead of your city name, is really special.
I sang a couple songs, just silly a cappella things. I sang some dumb ditty about a Scotsman who passed out in a kilt, apropos because I hike in a kilt. It was fun. I also sang a version of Billy Joel’s Vienna and got to watch Tom’s girlfriend, visiting from England, totally vibe out with it.
We spent the rest of the evening drinking, catching up, meeting new people, talking to the bar owner (who gave us each a free 3 mins in the best automated massage chairs ever, the kind that knead!), and chilling.
It was a great night. Lots of conversation. Lots of raving about what we’ve seen. As we walked back to the hostel we ate blackberries growing by the road.
I’m in Oregon!