March 29

Mar 29 About 2 miles past the stream x we walked past a beautiful meadow with trees perfect for any kind of camping. Descending to Mt Laguna I noticed ponderosa Pines, confirmed by the up close smell of butterscotch. Very cold going down--so many microclimates.

I caught Anthony just short of Mt L. We went into a restaurant that served us food in styrofoam cups and plate with plastic dinnerware. Using the men's room, one walks to the door to find that one has to walk back around the bar to flick on the light switch just outside the women's room--the switch controls lights in both bathrooms. The gen store clerk was strangely neither friendly nor hostile--a cold fish.

I spent 30 min trying with Verizon to get my phone to receive text messages--fail. 

Bunch of people in a racing car enthusiast group came, drank coffee, made noise and left.

I found a nice pair of mitts.

We walked on. I pointed out the Ponderosa Pines to Anthony-- the smell delighted him. Temps dropped from th 28th but I still felt hot.

At Mt Laguna Campgrd we took showers and I started soaking my dinner. We returned to the trail.

We got to the trough, where a man said the water was too dirty to dunk my head in and practically forced me into his RV's shower. His wife was there to train for an event called the Zion Ragmar. He also gave us 3 quarts of water, before we began our walk to the boulder camp.

We got to the boulder camp about 30 min before sunset--just long enough to set up camp at shoot some sunset photos. Sweet.

Cowboy camp.