Date: May 1, 2017
Miles: 256.2 – 266
We were up early today because we were headed for Highway 18 to get a hitch into Big Bear Lake for resupply and the use of modern amenities. It was an easy, mostly downhill, hike and ten miles flew by.
We reached the highway and I was just about to call Mountain Mama, one of the trail angels in Big Bear City who, along with Papa Smurf, hosts hikers at their home, when a man pulled up in a minivan and offered us a ride to town. He said he was giving rides to hikers so he wouldn’t have to go into work just yet. We were glad to be a diversion. Bless his heart, the man drove us to the post office and waited while a couple of us picked up packages and then drove us all over Big Bear Lake until we found a cabin at Wolf Creek Resort big enough for the eight hikers we’d managed to collect by then.
We spent the rest of the day eating, buying groceries and cleaning ourselves and our clothes. We had to hitch a ride from our cabin to the grocery store because it was a whole mile and a half away and just because we can hike ten trail miles before 10:30 in the morning doesn’t mean we want to walk any further than is necessary once we hit a town. It took about ten minutes for someone to pick us up, which just puzzled Roi to no end. Apparently it is much harder to hitchhike here than in other countries, although I will say that it probably didn’t help that we looked homeless or that he kept throwing his hands up in the air, yelling, ‘You Americans!’
Once we finished our chores we had a trail family-style lasagna dinner at the cabin which was a lot of fun.
For dessert, Roi and Alan tried to get shamrock shakes from the McDonald’s across the street, but their lobby was closed and they wouldn’t let them walk through the drive thru, so we settled for pints of ice cream and peppermint patties from 7-11 instead. Roi just couldn’t understand why an American McDonald’s would turn down his money just because he was on foot. There is quite a bit about America that Roi finds nonsensical, like the practice to add sales tax on the restaurant bill, but not on the menu. I so enjoy his take on things.