July 25:Sunglasses, Ice Cream, and Cows

It was a chilly morning, and we hiked out of camp in jackets, gloves, and winter hats. Both Mark and I put ou sunglasses on our heads for safe keeping and easy access. We hadn't hiked more than 2.5 miles when Mark took off his winter hat and then realized he didn't have his sunglasses. Since he thought he probably dropped them only a short ways back, he decided to run back and look for them. After going back 3/4 of a mile and not finding them, he resigned himself to the fact that he lost them. It was on his way back to me and our packs that he found them not more than a minute away from me!

We walked about 18 miles and stopped in at a place called Hyatt Lake Resort for lunch. It's a little fishing resort that has a small restaurant that serves pizza and ice cream, so we opted for both! We were eating our milkshakes and talking with a couple sitting at the next table and when they left, we were informed that they had paid for our (Mark, myself, and Boomer) ice cream! It was a great surprise and a great example of the generosity we find all over the trail.

We had hoped to catch up with a few hiker friends that had left Ashland before us, but we missed them by minutes. It turns out they probably walked around one side of the building as we came around the other! But we knew they were headed pretty far down the trail that night and figured we wouldn't catch them until Crater Lake.

We camped near Big Spring, a fenced in spring that put us at about 30 miles for the day. We were just falling asleep when we heard this rustling in the bushes around us. We froze for a second, and then Mark yelled, hoping to scare it away. All we heard then was this crazy loud clomping as it ran away. this went on all night. We think it was cows trying to get to the spring (which is why it's fenced in), but they just kept coming back, and either Mark or Boomer would yell to scare it away. Since the animal sounded big, we figured it had to be either cows or a bear, but it clomped away too loudly to be a bear. I was already pretty much asleep when this all started, so I was kind of out of it. Needless to say, we didn't sleep that well, and were glad when we woke up and could head out for another day of hiking.

Total Miles:1763.0
Miles Today:30.2
Camp 89:Cows

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