Day 22: Sunday, May 26

In room 201 at the Best Western at Cajon Pass (PCT mi 342.0), walked 10.8 miles today

Woke up to people walking by my semi-concealed cowboy camping spot five feet from the trail but not noticing me. Only one guy did, his name was Guino, short for Pinguino, and he is a full-on nut job. Within a minute he was rambling on about how when I get "to the old highway 40" (this is 800 miles away, but he didn't say that), I should go to some dive bar that put him up and gave him free forties at some point in the past. This conversation, if you can call it that, was about two minutes after I had woken up. When I walked into McDonald's later he was drinking something out of a dropper from his backpack, which he explained as "therapeutic tincture of cannabis." He would not shut the hell up the entire time we were there, until he left to take a ride 150 miles up the trail to a trail angel's house, where he was under the impression that there was naked oil wrestling tonight, as apparently there always is on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. He may or may not be clinically insane. He was a good person to be around for about 10 minutes, but for God's sake I'm glad he yellow-blazed ahead.

Anyway, my legs were a little weak during the easy 11 or so miles this morning, but not screaming in pain from the 33 yesterday, which is good. Got to McDonald's and the interstate right at 12:30, walked up to the counter without a plan and just started reading out random items that I saw on the menu, sometimes adding "oh, two of those." This worked out well and I was sated, and it cost me about $10, although the two return trips for McFlurries added another $5. Hikers, including bat-shit Guino (his name should maybe be Guano) had taken over one corner of the place and we were having a pretty good time. Reunited with T-Cozy, who said he wanted to spend the night at the Best Western across the way. That sounded good to me so we went over with another hiker, Luckywinner (or at least that's what Guino said her name was, who knows what it actually is) and got rooms. Drank beer and watched basketball and baseball all afternoon/evening. Good times. Gonna try to get out of here earrly and pull 27 uphill to Wrightwood tomorrow. This could easily fail. Stay tuned.